As a high school junior from Connecticut starting the college search the AG requirements for Cal confused me, I have met or will meet all of them by senior year except I have taken no classes in fine arts as the only similar requirement my school has is for 1 credit of vocational education which I fulfilled by business classes. Can anyone shed some light on whether I should be scrambling to fulfill the fine art requirement in my year and a half left at high school or whether I can fulfill this requirement in some other way.
This has been brought up several times. First, the VPA requirement is just that a “requirement” so if it is possible to take a course to fulfill the requirement, then I would try. There are alternate ways to fulfill the VPA requirement as follows:
AP or IB examination
Score of 3, 4 or 5 on the AP History of Art, Studio Art or Music Theory Exam;
score of 5, 6 or 7 on any one IB HL exam in Dance, Film, Music, Theatre Arts or Visual Arts
College courses
Grade of C or better in any transferable course of 3 semester (4 quarter) units that clearly falls within one of four visual/performing arts disciplines: dance, drama/theater, music or visual art
Since all the UC’s are competitive and even more so for OOS applicants, you could be at a disadvantage if you do not meet the requirement. However, this email from UC admissions by another poster at least explains UCLA stance on this subject:
UCLA’s Response:
Hello,
For more information about what courses may satisfy the requirement you can go to the UCOP website http://ucop.edu/agguide/a-g-requirements/f-visual-performing-arts/index.html.
In addition, while the University of California have a set pattern of academic courses that are required for admission, we understand that these subject requirements may be difficult for some applicants to meet due to differences in school curriculum.
All applications for admission are reviewed within the context of courses available to them; if a particular required subject is not available, we will consider the application without it. We would not deny an applicant due to any one single criteria, therefore if the applicant is otherwise a strong competitive applicant but they are missing the VPA course (1 semester or the entire year) we can still admit that student.
There is no single academic path that we expect all students to follow, but the strongest applicants take the most rigorous high school curriculum available to them.
Sincerely,
UCLA Undergraduate Admission
ASUAR
Thankyou so much for the response it was very helpful! I talked with a guidance counselor about it and I would be able to take art classes next but the only ones available at my school are half credits, so do you know if two half credit art courses over the course of 2 semesters would fulfill their requirement
Yes you can do two half Credits.
Note that UC’s no longer offer financial aid for oos applicants.
I called UC SD with the same question regarding the fine arts class. My D took business electives instead of fine arts. We are OOS. UC SD admissions told me she should not apply as her application would not be considered without the fine arts credit.
This is true for all UCs and CSUs, if you don’t have the a-g courses complete, they stop reading your application immediately.