do ucs and csu colleges most likely to accept someone in ap classes with an average gpa or regular class w high gpa. There are always gpa requirements but do they recognize those that challenge themselves since freshman year of high school.
UC’ s and CSU’s do consider HS course rigor unfortunately they also expect you to do well in these rigorous classes. As you stated in your other post, you overextended yourself and they will not be too forgiving about not doing well in these classes. They will recognize that you tried to challenge yourself, but GPA will be a major factor for this year’s admission cycle due to the suspension of test score admission.
They will look at your GPA, courses and grades in the context of your HS. There are many HS schools that offer no or limited AP’s and this is not held against the student.
It is a fine line when trying to challenge yourself in your HS courses. You want to make sure you take advantage of as many rigorous courses at your HS, yet also do well in these classes. Students that do not take a rigorous course load to maintain their GPA will also be penalized.
My advice is first calculate out your CSU/UC capped weighted GPA which will then help determine your target schools. As a California resident, we are lucky to have so many great colleges from which to choose and all offer a good to excellent education.
Where you go for Undergrad will not define you, it is what you do with the opportunities you are given that will make you successful.
The answer to this type of question is always higher grades in harder courses.
However, for UCs and CSUs, you can calculate your GPA with various hypotheticals to see what combination gives you the best recalculated GPA (note the three variants; UCs may use all three, while CSUs use the weighted-capped one):
https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/
CSUs use recalculated GPA as is or plugged into a formula. UCs use it, but also have a holistic admission reading where your actual courses and grades will be seen by the admissions readers.
people hate to hear this but, for most colleges, straight As in easy courses beats Bs and Cs in the hardest courses.
this will show you the admitted student profile for each UC campus
https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/campuses-majors/freshman-admit-data.html
it might help to categorize the CAs public colleges into strata - the most selective UCLA, UCB and UCSD expect a high GPA (4.2+) AND a challenging course load (15+ AP/Honors semesters). (AND high test scores AND ECs, etc)
the next tier (UCD, UCSB, UCI and CPSLO) is still a high bar - 4.1+ and 12ish AP/honors semesters.
the next in terms of selectivity - UCSC, UCR, - other than the bonus GPA credits, they don’t really reward course rigor - so, more than 8 AP/honors semesters gets you nothing (in terms of admission - you still get the knowledge and the credits which make you more well rounded and can speed your graduation. ) A 3.9+ with solid test scores will make you a competitive applicant. Merced probably a 3.6+ now.
The CSUs other than SLO all use the same basic formula to evaluate applicants for most majors. CSUGPA * 800 +SAT
read about it here:
https://www2.calstate.edu/apply/eligibility-index
Since the CSUGPA is capped at 8 AP bonus points and just reflects grades 10 and 11, course rigor doesn’t play nearly the role it does at the more selective UCs.
For non-impacted programs and campuses, you need a 2900
For an impacted school you need a higher score. more
Here’s the EI for some of the more popular CSU campuses. Note, there are some programs (nursing for example) that are more selective -
SDSU’s threshold is around 4300
CSULB 4000
Chico 3700
Sac 3300
SF is still non-impacted so, 2900
hope that helps.