The UC needs some sort of standardized test(s). It was obvious when it said they were researching alternatives, or however they put it, that they weren’t going to follow through and come up with one. I don’t see anything happening in the near future. And I think they like not having standardized testing, but they can’t do anything about getting rid of the MCAT, LSAT, GMAT or GRE, when taking these tests {SAT/ACT} were good preparation for students early in their career {for those four I listed}.
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Can’t recall if it is the same for all UCs, but at least for UCLA, if dual enrollment course is transferable for credit, then it is awarded the extra point: https://admission.ucla.edu/apply/freshman/freshman-profile
And I would have mentioned APs as a gauge for STEM-specific admission, but students would be striving for college credits through their senior years, and for purposes of admission, the students might not quite manifest the higher (or highest) level math courses when applying.
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As @DubCADad pointed out and described in detail already, those are the recomputed UC fully weighted GPAs. And, yes, they effectively force the students to do it themselves when they fill out the app. My DS23 did it last fall. I don’t know how it’s done for OOS, but in-state they make it a little easier because for each high school, they know your possible courses and do a bit of auto-fill and automatically categorize them (A - G, honors or not). I’d imagine, but don’t know, it’s more work for OOS.
As for the comparison across schools, my understanding is that readers do have info about number of available UC honors courses (AP, IB, etc.) for each student’s school so that students with access to fewer UC “honors” courses aren’t penalized. A better indicator would be the averages from your own school, but I’m not aware of anything that breaks those down by UCB college (the UC admit by source school only shows one average GPA for admitted students from your school for each UC campus as a whole). And, of course, GPA is just one element of many they use when making admission decisions.
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Will UC consider credited(Letter graded) CMU pre-college summer program courses dual Enrollment?
You can check to see if CMU pre-college program is an approved provider under institutions on the link: University of California A-G Course List
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All UC’s consider DE courses in their UC GPA calculation
if they are UC Transferable, taken from the summer after 9th to the summer prior to 12th and will be given the extra honors points .
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They usually do not go into your high school GPA. They are separate grades which require the submission of separate transcripts.
However, as @Gumbymom noted, DE grades ARE part of your UC GPA and get the extra honors point.
The reason I am answering, however, is more my concern for the last sentence about sinking your GPA. If you take DE classes, you REALLY want to make every effort to get a high grade. Not just for UC GPA purposes, but keep in mind the DE classes are college classes - that means they will follow you long after your high school classes stop mattering. If you apply to grad school, law school, med school, whatever, you will need to submit the transcripts from the DE classes you took in high school. These grades don’t go away once high school is over. So “sinking” your high school GPA is, in a sense, the least of your problems if you do poorly in DE.
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This thread has been a fascinating read - there are so many ways to parse the data etc. But the one thing the data does not adequately reveal are the reasons why thousands of kids with “high stats” get “no’s” - and those numbers have increased in recent years. We have to assume it’s just a numbers game - with acceptance rates in the teens or single digits, most kids get rejected regardless of their qualifications. As a parent - it’s disheartening and I hope my son does not walk away with the message that hard work doesn’t payoff at all!
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When California has 7 out of 10 of the most applied colleges in the US, there is only so many spots available for all the qualified students. 6 of these are UC’s: UCLA, UCB, UCSB, UCI, UCSB and UCD with 1 Cal state CSULB.
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This is surely true to some degree for all selective colleges, including many of the UCs. There are FAR more qualified candidates than there are spots. But I disagree with the “just” part - it’s not SOLELY a numbers game. In fact, just the opposite, in my opinion. It’s the holistic review thing - so acceptance/rejection is not based JUST on numbers/stats. Lots of (relatively) lower stats kids get in when (relatively) higher stats kids don’t and it often comes to down to the many factors that lie beyond the numbers. A high GPA alone is not enough to get into a UC.
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Thanks @worriedmomucb @Gumbymom they are not considered Dual Enrollment by my high school hence do not appear on HS Transcript. i will have to use Parchment for transcript. I took those courses in summer and since CMU is located in Pittsburgh,PA it does not appear on assist.org which UC’s use to determine transfer-ability of California Community colleges courses.
My question was geared towards how an out of state applicant would use any of the non-CA college courses taken during their High school for UC’s to give credit or count towards number of and rigor of college courses or A-G course eligibility.
Although speaking of it being a numbers game, according to this article, in 2020, UCB received 88,076 applicants. In 2023, it looks like they got 125,000. That’s a huge increase in just a few short years. But 2020 applicants would be right before the switch to test optional/blind, correct? So the last year with required standardized tests?
Yes, 2020 was the first year that the UC’s no longer considered test scores in their application review.
Below are the UCOP application numbers. Even the 88.076 is off from the UCOP numbers for UCSB but the point is that all campuses have been seeing large increases in applications even before going test blind.
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That’s a good question and @Gumbymom may have the answer. I think the potential issue is whether they would be considered UC-transferable? But not totally sure. I do, think, however that even if they don’t bump your UC GPA, they will certainly “count” for demonstrating rigor and the desire to challenge yourself - which can only strengthen your application.
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Those numbers for UCLA are insane.
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For OOS applicants, it would be the same as for transfer applicants. It would be up to each campus to determine UC transferability of these courses so when applying, the OOS applicant may not know until their transcript is evaluated. The UCOP website does give guidelines regarding course syllabus for the a-g requirements so OOS students can try to match this information to their available courses.
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This link goes back to 2014 for applications, admits and enrolled if interested. I sort by Residency and then campus to see the trends.
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4 posts were merged into an existing topic: UC Application Discussion Fall 2023 and new extended Submission period
Maybe UCs could learn from UW Madison and set an applicant GPA recommendation. UW Madison has 3.5 GPA recommendation but exceptions are welcome.
- UCLA/UCB could pick 3.7
- UCI/UCSD/UCSB could pick 3.5
- UCSC/UCR could pick 3.3
- UCM already has 3.0
They can update it yearly or once in a decade.
This would decrease the number of applicants to individual universities without decreasing overall UC applicants. This will also keep students expectations closer to reality and any student applying below the recommendation strives to prove themselves in the PiQs & ECs for the applied major.
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