GPA weighting for a-g courses and electives

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
1

hi guys as i am filling out my UC application, i’m wondering whether courses that i list as a-g courses and one that i list as electives will be calculated differently in terms of GPA? are a-g courses weighted heavier?
also, since we can practically fill in as many a-g courses as we want… do we put a-g courses for every course that falls into one of those categories? or do we list them as electives?

i’m kinda confusedddd, helppp?

2

i have the same questions too. Also we only need to calculate the grade from 9 th to 11th grade, is that right?

3

UC GPA is calculated on a-g courses from 10-11th grade only.
http://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/
College prep electives (g) are calculated into your UC GPA. Non a-g courses (electives) are not calculated into the GPA. The (g) courses can be an additional year of an a-f course beyond the minimum or courses that do not fall into the other categories such as Econ/Psych/Accounting etc…

4

Since I’m an out-of-state applicant, we do things different than in California. In my school, we add extra points to our raw GPA if we take any honors or AP courses.

  1. Do we need to take these extra points away when calculating the GPA?

  2. Also I don’t see anywhere on the UC applications where we need to fill out our GPA.

  3. when calculating weighted GPA, they ask for the number of semesters taken for AP, IB,etc courses. Are they specifically asking for the number of semesters I haven taken at least one AP class? For example, if I took 4 AP classes for both semesters, would that count as 8 semesters or only 2?

THANKS,

5

The best way to calculate your UC GPA is to use the link for Roger hub. http://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/

You count up all your A’s, B’s, C’s from the a-g courses only taken in 10-11th grade and input the #'s into the calculator. You get 1 extra honors point for each semester of AP classes for 10-11th grade. If you took 4 year long AP classes = 8 semesters and input that # for honors and hit calculate.

You do not have to submit your UC GPA, but it is helpful to know what it is so you can gauge your chances against the averages for each school you are applying.

The reason the UC’s have their own calculation it because different HS have different weighted systems, so this basically equalizes everyone’s GPA…

6

Thank you Gumbymom. So we only count grade from 10th to 11th grade. So the total AP semester will be 2x2=4?

7

How many AP courses did you take each semester in 10th and 11th grade?

8

If you only took 2 AP classes for 10-11th grades, the yes 4 semesters= 4 honors points.

9

I took 5 APs and 5 Honors for 10 to 11 th grade.

10

For the whole high school from 9-12 th, i take AP every year except 9th grade, at which year i only took honor classes.

11

Since you are out of state, Honors courses do not count toward the extra honors points. The maximum is 8 semesters, so you would enter in 8 under Honors for your UC GPA.

12

Thank you Gumbymom. So if i have 18 As and 6 Bs, and 5 APs from 10 to 11th grade, my UC GPA will be (18X4 + 6X3)/24=3.75 for unweighted UC GPA and 4.08 as weighed UC GPA? is that right? Will UC system school take the weighted or unweighted?

13

Correct. The UC’s will use the UC GPA (capped), but they also look at your unweighted and uncapped weighted (UCLA/UCB- unlimited AP points).

14

Just remember that the UC GPA is used initially to threshold minimum requirements. For CA resident, the minimum UC GPA requirement is 3.0. I think that once you meet the minimum requirement, the schools will apply their own holistic view of your application. The GPA is only one factors used to determine your admission. Okay, this is what I’ve read and heard. It is daunting for the UC campuses to do this for 70K+ applications though. I don’t understand how they can realistically apply a holistic view without hiring a room full of reviewers working day and night.

15

If you look at the Freshman admissions matrix: http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/files/freshman-admission-matrix.pdf
Not all campuses will look at the essays. UCR for example goes mainly by Stats.

I am sure they have a GPA/Test score cutoff to screen out applicants before EC’s and essays are reviewed.

UC application information:

To guide the campuses in their comprehensive review of applicants, UC faculty developed the factors listed below. All campuses place the highest importance on academic achievement in assessing applications. However, the review process and specific weight (if any) given to each factor can differ from campus to campus and year to year.