Hello,
I’m a sophmore in highschool taking 2 honors course and 1 AP. 1 or the 2 honors courses is an elective. My goal is to go to a higher end UC like UCSD however, Im afraid my GPA and rank will not make the cut for it. Do you think it’s possible to get into a school like UCSD with this GPA ?
UC’s do not consider rank other than if your ELC eligible (which means you are guaranteed admission to a UC if you do not accepted to your choice UC. UC Merced has been the default campus).
Any HS can designate a course as Honors, but what counts to the UC’s is if it is UC approved. AP classes are UC approved but if you want to look up your HS courses, you can use this link: https://hs-articulation.ucop.edu/agcourselist#/list/search/institution
UC’s consider GPA first and foremost. The UC GPA is calculated using your a-g courses taken 10-11th grades only. You can get up to 8 semesters of extra honors points in the calculation for UC approved Honors, AP/IB or DE courses.
https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/
UC’s also emphasize Test scores, HS course rigor and essays so you need an overall competitive application.
The best thing you can do is pick Honors/AP courses which you think you will do well in to obtain a competitive GPA.
You can also look at the Freshman profiles on the UC website to see what GPA target to aim for by end of Junior year.
http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/profiles/index.html
Best of luck.
Thanks for the advice! However I have just 1 more question. When you say our highschools rigor is another factor, would this be taken into consideration even for regular courses? I attend a school where our regular courses are supposedly honors level courses are the other schools so I’m just wondering.
Your HS will send a HS report indicating what courses are offered and it will be noted if regular classes are considered Honors courses. Like I stated above, any HS can designate their courses as Honors, but what is important is if these courses are UC approved as Honors and the school does have to apply to have these courses approved.
Use the link I gave in the above post to see how your courses are designated if you are attending a CA school.
I see thanks!
while they do look at course rigor, GPA is way more important. True UCB wants all As in all the hardest classes but, for most, that’s an unreasonable goal. If you manage a 4.2 GPA with a relatively slack schedule, you’ll be a stronger candidate (in all UCs minds) than someone with a 3.8 in hard classes. I can’t stress this enough, TAKE CLASSES IN WHICH YOU WILL PERFORM WELL.