My son just completed 9th grade. He took 5 CS courses (UC/CSU 16 transferable units) at JC through the concurrent enrollment program in summer of 8th grade and during 9th grade. I think that these CS courses are classified as category D of A-G requirement. These courses will not be used in the capped UC/CSU GPA calculation except SLO. Correct? So this will add bring down his capped weighted GPA if they are used. For SLO, these CC course will add 10 semester A’s which will drag out his GPA. It’s not good considering he worked so hard to get A’s. Thanks!
Courses taken in 9th grade are not included in the GPA calculation for all the UC’s and CSU’s except Cal Poly SLO so you are correct. Also 9th grade courses are not weighted but will be considered toward the HS rigor points at SLO. The other UC’s and CSU’s will see the courses/ grades on their application review which will also contribute to his HS course rigor and will be noted that he exceeds the 15 a-g course minimum.
You are also correct that the more a-g courses taken will lower the capped weighted UC/CSU GPA. For the UC’s, they also consider Fully weighted and the Unweighted UC GPA’s in their application review.
For sure he will get more than 8 honor points from the weighted honor and AP’s courses in 10th and 11th grade. He is planning to take more CS courses and math courses (multi variable calculus, diff. equation, linear algebra) in 10/11/12. Based on your data, it’s not a good strategy to take college courses since the capped weighted GPA will be lowered. He will have to re-evaluate his plan. I also heard that UC’s/CSU’s will not even look at other things such as HS rigor or EC’s if the capped weighted GPA is below a certain threshold (e.g 4.2). Capped GPA might be used as a first criteria filter. Is this correct?
For the UC’s, the GPA cutoff is 3.0 GPA capped weighted in-state. For the CSU’s, the Capped weighted GPA cutoff is 2.5. All applications will be reviewed whom meet the Minimum eligibility requirements.
SLO is the only CSU that does consider EC’s but only the hours of participation are listed. Bonus points for major/job related and leadership.
UC’s use 13 areas of criteria for their application review but the weight of each area is determined by each campus so decisions can be unpredictable. UC/CSU DE transferable courses could be used to fulfill college GE and major pre-req courses so it can be an advantage as a in-coming student.
HS course rigor is Very Important in the UC/CSU application review so I would not be concerned about limiting these courses. The UC’s especially want to see that he has been academically challenged. The only draw back is that DE course grades will be on his permanent college record which will follow him if he decides on applying to Graduate/Professional programs after Undergrad.
You have a valid concern. Unfortunately I do not have an answer to your question. Although UCs(some or all?) consider uncapped weighted GPA, they do prominently display the capped GPA on their admission websites.
If you raise the uncapped GPA by doing more honors/de/ap courses, the capped GPA will go down. But as Gumbymom said above the rigor will be higher.
At the end of the day, the admissions are holistic. There are people with high capped and uncapped GPA who were rejected this year.
Some UC’s do specifically state they consider the Uncapped Fully weighted UC GPA but with absence of test scores, all UC’s will still look at all 3 UC GPA’s even if they do not come out and say it.
He satisfied most of the CS major courses for the transfer option from JC. I guess that transfer option can be his plan B if he decides to take more JC courses. He can spend one year at JC to finish up some of the reminding required GE’s for transfer. I guess that it might be easier to get into top UC’s through the community college path. UCD still has TAG for CSE with GPA 3.5 or higher. Thank you very much for such valuable info.
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With significant DE course credit, a one year UC transfer is doable and a great backup. TAG is an option for many of the 1 year UC transfers although the CS major is only offered by UCM and UCR as a TAG option.
Best of luck to him.
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