Are all UCs good colleges?

Do colleges take weighted or unweighted GPAs? Can i get into UCs?

• I talked to my councelor and she said that colleges take your unweighted gpa. This information throws me, however, because I wonder why i should have even taken honors and ap classes at all. My unweighted gpa isn't as good as it could have been had i been in all regular classes, and it doesn't seem fair that colleges would not take into account the difficulty level of classes. I want to get into some UC, the best that i can, but i'm afraid i won't because my unweighted GPA is 3.6. I wonder if i can get into schools like UCSB, UCI, UCD, UCSD, etc (other UCs), USC. I don't particularly want to go to UCR or the other one that might be unranked(which i can't remember the name of). I'm absolutely positive that i won't get into UCLA or UCB. My sat score was an 1860, i'd like to take it again but i don't think that i have the time considering that no sat dates are in the summer. Thanks, help would be appreciated!

• Answer:

  All the colleges I applied for asked for my GPA on a 4.0 scale - that means unweighted. But the colleges DO look to see if you took advanced courses, and many of them have their own system for weighting your grade based on that. But since some high schools weight AP classes only, some weight honors and AP, and some don't weight at all, they can't directly compare your highest GPA - they need to start with unweighted. UCs will be more impressed by a 3.6 with advanced classes than a 4.0 in easy classes. Yes, take the SAT again.