I couldn’t agree with you more. A student should not just take the 10 activities/honors from the common app (150 characters) and use it on the UC app without using the 350 characters to further sell themselves. They should also try to list 20 things they have done in the past four years. The schools don’t know anything outside of what is written on the application. Stopping at 7 or 10 activities doesn’t tell them how a student spends time outside of school.
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Bingo – and I think the takeaway is that you can’t worry too much about the admit stats based on GPA. As long as you are in the ballpark and have taken rigorous courses, you are likely in the running from that perspective. But there’s so much more they are looking at!
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One hundred percent agree! And having those extra characters to explain it all is golden. Yet I so rarely see people talk about really spending time on this part of the application to make it coherent (and tie it back to the PIQs). Missed opportunity.
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This type of thing where the weighted-capped GPA goes down if the student took more courses in 10th-11th grade (even all A grades in honors courses) may have a more significant effect at some CSUs for some majors, since CSUs calculate an admission index based on weighted-capped GPA and take the highest scoring applicants until the major is filled (accounting for expected yield of the admitted students). For SJSU CS, the frosh admission threshold was equivalent to a 4.35 GPA, although some students effectively got +0.25 add-ons for being in the local area.
However, most majors at most CSUs are not so competitive that the student taking that many additional courses (presumably a strong student with a high GPA) would have to worry about it (e.g. many majors at SJSU had frosh admission thresholds equivalent to a 2.60 GPA).
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Please don’t assume it’s about test score before you read. This article supports your opinion about Holistic reviews that it has a value and test scores are not a good predictor for success in the college. I think you are doing wonderful job providing accurate information to the readers in this thread. By the way my ACT/SAT score wasn’t very good so I am glad UC is doing holistic reviews.
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As stated by @Southoftheriver the 13 areas of criteria are not listed by their importance. PIQ’s are Very Important for all the UC campuses but each campus is given free rein to designate their weight on all the 13 areas of criteria.
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UCLA and all UC’s do consider the strength of the applicants Senior year classes. Many schools limit the # of AP/IB or Honors classes that are offered to each HS class level and that is part of their criteria where an applicant is reviewed in the context of their HS.
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thanks – do you know if these date reflecting freshman GPAs are Weighted & Capped GPAs?
The original table in the thread for each campus specifies W&C GPAs, so… assuming it’s the same, then my D23’s local high school average accepted W&C GPA for UCLA was 4.31, near the max… (D23 has a UC weighted GPA of 4.57 (excellent) and an W&C gpa of 4.13 (ok) – so many AP classes over time!)
All data on the UCOP website is based on the Capped Weighted UC GPA. Only on some of the specific UC campus websites will the Fully Weighted UC GPA be listed.
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Sorry, not sure if this was answered somewhere else. I can’t seem to find a good current answer to this (latest info I can find is 4 years old on reddit).
With UC’s now test-blind, what’s the purpose of the “capped weighted” GPA? Or are AOs still required to evaluate students with a capped score?
The UC’s will consider all 3 UC GPA’s: Unweighted, Capped Weighted and Fully Weighted. The Capped weighted UC GPA was established to basically level the playing field for students that do not have access to Honors/AP/IB or DE/CC classes.
Students are still evaluated within the context of their HS and what classes are offered at their HS.
UC’s have always been GPA focused vs. test score focused so eliminating the test scores according the UC Regents, levels the playing field even more.
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That’s great to know. Thanks!
@ucbalumnus, the UC website link no longer has the more narrow tiers that you and @Gumbymom mom provided with chance-of-acceptances for their 2023 update (which would be for the incoming class of 2022). They just have one wide tier of 4.00 - 4.40 – they’ve never stated that the top UC grade is 4.40. I’m not sure what they’re trying to hide, but it’s bogus because prospective students use this in a way of chancing themselves. They need to be emailed.
I don’t think it’s “bogus” — they are painting a more realistic picture of the overall chances of acceptance, and they have added what they clearly consider to be meaningful data points with respect to academic course rigor — # of honors (AP/IB/DE/approved H) courses and total A-G courses. You can filter the data that way to see who gets in at different levels on those factors. I would say they are telling us that those data points are important close to as much as GPA is.
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Let me look at the honors part of the data, and I’ll get back with you on this. But a 4.20-4.40 range is a lot higher than a 4.00-4.19 range (except for the higher range of this second), and the former are typically your star students, although taking six to seven a-g’s will reduce the top grade to 4.33 and 4.29 respectively. But these are still in the top-tier, and the UCs would note the extra course load over five minimum. The way I see it is that a 4.00 UCgpa is ~ 3.60-3.70 uwgpa in a-g courses. This won’t get you into B, LA, SD, and maybe SB.
Not sure where you see the 4.0-4.40 GPA range? Are you referring to the Freshman admissions summary link: Freshman fall admissions summary | University of California
The high end of the Capped weighted GPA is now listed as 4.0+ instead of the 4.20+ from previous years. Also the maximum HS Capped weighted UC GPA is a 4.40 (using 8 semesters of approved Honors courses).
That is assuming 20 semesters of a-g courses (5 a-g courses per semester in 10th-11th grade), which is on the low side, with at least 8 qualifying honors course semesters.
In theory, COVID-19 passed/not-passed courses in 10th grade could reduce the number of grades to below 20 for some students, while an honors-heavy 11th grade could still have 8 or more qualifying honors course semesters, resulting in more a weighted-capped GPA > 4.40 for some students.
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@gumbymom, you and @ucbalumnus before would calculate the percentage of acceptance for the tiers of UCgpa, e.g.:
UCSB, 4.20 and greater (I added the 4.40 max gpa), X% chance of acceptance
4.00 - 4.20, Y% chance of acceptance, and so on…
Now, the top tier range is listed as 4.00 and greater, and so on down the list. I just noted that because the top and lower ranges have expanded for each tier, that this metric as gauging oneself for acceptance based on UCgpa is no longer as relevant because for at least the top UCs, a 4.00 - 4.00+ range would be > 90% of the accepted students. The value of this UCgpa metric is to see what the chances of acceptance {are} for lower tiers. Obviously, a student with a 4.20 or above would have a greater chance, but your citing the rates for the second tier and below would have the greatest value for students who may question their admissibility.