I can’t seem to understand why UC’s have a capped GPA.
A capped GPA has only 4 classes weighted as Honors; therefore, if I were to take 5 classes in my Junior year and 5 classes my Senior year - I would have a higher capped GPA than if I were to take 8 classes in my Junior year and 8 in my Senior year. Less rigorous workload = higher GPA. So… how significant is the capped GPA? I calculated my GPA on RogerHub and I have a weighted 4.7 GPA but a 4.07 weighted capped GPA.
Yep you are correct. If you wanted to “maximize” the UC capped GPA, you should only take 2 honors classes as a sophomore and 2 as a junior, and take the remaining classes as non a-g classes. If you get straight As - voila, your UC GPA is 5.00.
Obviously that is impossible, as the typical good student will have 20-25 semesters worth of a-g classes, of which at least 8 semesters are honors/AP/dual enrollment. Thus a typical max GPA is 4.30-4.40.
The UC capped GPA is very significant. That is the GPA that they use for Admissions. The uncapped one will probably be looked at in many cases as a second or third go around for admissions evaluators. Why is it used? Most likely as a compromise between using a purely unweighted GPA which favors those kids who don’t take any advanced level classes, and unweighted uncapped GPA, which favors kids that goes to schools that offers a lot of AP classes.
I would like to point out a few things in regards to the UC GPA.
You will be evaluated in the context of your HS. If your HS offers many of the UC approved Honors/AP and IB courses, then it will be expected that you take a “rigorous” course load in comparison to your peers. If you HS does not offer many, then you are not expected to have a significant # of these courses on your transcript.
UCLA/UCB do publish the fully weighted UC GPA for the admitted in-coming Freshman on their websites, so they do look at the capped weighted, unweighted and fully weighted UC GPA. Although this same information is not available on the other UC websites, there is no way to confirm that they do not consider the fully weighted GPA.
GPA alone is not reviewed in a vacuum so your overall applicaiton is what will be considered, although GPA is very important for the UC’s.
As @ProfessorPlum168 pointed out that to be a competitive UC applicant, having 20-25 semester of the a-g courses is expected so there is no way to “game” the system so you have that magical 5.0 UC GPA.
Probably because some UC research has found that unweighted HS GPA was a better predictor of college GPA than weighted HS GPA. The weighted-capped HS GPA may have been a compromise to retain some incentive to take harder courses without (based on that UC research) overvaluing weighting points (or giving too much advantage to those in high schools where more AP courses were merely available).
Most UC frosh admission stats use weighted capped HS GPA unless otherwise specified. UC admission readers do see three variants of recalculated HS GPA: unweighted, weighted capped, fully weighted.
Applicants should not compare their weighted HS GPA from their high school to the HS GPA found on UC frosh admission stats, because that will mislead them on their chances (unless their high school’s weighted GPA is calculated by the UC weighted capped method).
@ProfessorPlum168 Then I should take less AP/Honors/College classes? It just seems unfair.
When my highschool doesn’t offer certain AP classes, then I find online classes or college classes that offer it or are equivalent. GPA isn’t the only thing that’ll get a student into a college but when there are SO many great applicants with amazing EC’s then colleges might just look into the GPA and eliminate the person who has the lower GPA. So if the weighted GPA is the second or third go around for admission evaluators and the uncapped GPA is the one mainly looked at - then the student who worked way harder gets rejected?
UC admission readers do see three variants of recalculated HS GPA: unweighted, weighted capped, fully weighted.
They will also see all of the courses and grades you reported.
Yes, some applicants may try to game the UC weighted capped GPA by taking only two honors/AP courses each of 10th-11th grades and taking as few as allowed other courses. But their application may not look as good as an application from the same high school loaded with honors/AP courses earning a similar GPA (and the UC fully weighted GPA will make the difference more obvious to the admission reader). Also, students commonly apply to non-UC schools as well, where this type of UC weighted capped GPA gaming may not look like that rigorous a schedule choice.
@ucbalumnus How about the students who’s schools don’t offer certain AP/Honors classes so they seek other ways to take the advanced material? They would practically get a disadvantage for doing something good. Don’t UC’s realize that there are other options for advanced classes than AP courses offered at a student’s school?
It’s just so upsetting that an advantage is given to students with not many AP’s available, because there ARE other ways. Ways that don’t cost money either.
The GPAs on UCLA’s and UCB’s freshman admit profiles? Odd, I remember someone posting a thread saying they were the capped ones.
Here, let me fix that for you:
The UC capped GPA is very significant. That is the GPA that they use for Admissions eligibility. In other words, clearing the UC GPA threshold is the bare minimum needed for admission to a UC campus (‘welcome to Merced’).
Oh contraire. The weighted, uncapped GPA is right up there with the capped and the unweighted. See Gumbymom’s point #1: if an applicant attends a school that offers a lot of AP’s AND students at that HS take a bunch of them, then the uncapped is of much greater value than second or third ‘go around’.
A question for you all:
So at the end, should I not take a ton of courses? I’m homeschooling with a charter so all my classes will be online. I have the time because there won’t be a ton of busy work. I wanted to add more college classes to my schedule - should I not?
IIRC, UC GPA doesn’t look at senior year anyway, since applications are due at the end of November. And it doesn’t consider 9th grade, either. So it’s capping the honors/AP to 8 semesters over 2 years, not 4. Seems in line with what all of the college counselors say about ‘take a rigorous course load, but don’t go crazy with it.’
@washugrad Yup. I edited that into my first response since I forgot to mention that then edited my whole response again to be brief.
Either way - would they see the courseload as too much and too “priviledged” because I have many classes available to me? I might be looking at this capped GPA the wrong way, so correct me please.
Ucla will prioritize the fully uncapped gpa over the capped one. Don’t know about other UCs
Who determines which classes are to be used for the capped UC gpa. For example, D20 will have taken 10 AP/honors classes by the time she completes junior year. Let’s say she gets 2 B’s and 8 A’s. Will the B’s be factored into the capped UC gpa?
This is from the UCB website Average GPA:
GPA 3.91 (unweighted) 4.44 (weighted)
Weighted=Fully Weighted
From the UC Website Freshman profile:
GPA and test scores of middle 25%-75% students
High School GPA: 4.15 - 4.30 = UC capped weighted
For UCLA from the school website:
Fully weighted GPA 25th-75th percentile: 4.33-4.60
Unweighted GPA 25th-75th percentile: 3.88-4.00
From the UC Website:
GPA and test scores of middle 25%-75% students
High School GPA: 4.13 - 4.31 (capped weighted)
@socaldad2002: All grades for the a-g courses from 10-11th will be factored into the UC GPA and up to 8 additional points for the UC approved Honors and AP courses taken will be added into the calculation for the capped weighted UC GPA. You do not get to pick and choose which courses get the extra honors points. The maximum of 8 points are just added into the calculation for the capped weighted. Also not all HS designated Honors classes are UC approved so she can check which courses are going to get the extra honors points here by selecting the HS name.
https://hs-articulation.ucop.edu/agcourselist#/list/search/institution
Use this calculator to get the UW UC GPA, the Capped weighted UC GPA and the Fully weighted UC GPA: https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/
The ‘capped’ just means that they only bump up the weighting from 4 to 5 (for an A, or 3 to 4 for a B) for 8 courses total. They still count all academic courses taken during 10th and 11th grade. Mathematically it doesn’t matter whether you add that extra point for the honors class to a class where you got a B vs a class where you got an A.
@Gumbymom thanks. What if she is taking at least 4 a-g courses each year but the capped weighted UC gpa only gives you extra points for 8 semesters (4 classes)? Here’s D’s schedule:
Sophomore
AP Euro
AP Seminar
H Algebra 2
H Chemistry
H English
V Sport
Junior
AP USH
AP Language (English)
H Math Analysis
AP Research
AP Environmental Science
Student Body (ASB)
V Sport
Thanks in advance for the help.
Every high school is different, but at my high school they offered a lot of APs, 99% of students get into a UC, and it’s very rigorous overall. Lots of Ivy and Ivy equivalent students each year.
So if I took 2 APs my sophomore year and two my senior that really wouldn’t cut it for UCLA or UCB. Especially if I took AP Env Sci, AP psych, AP studio art, etc. I could have the weighted capped 4.3 but holistic review would probably shut me out.
Of course, you don’t need to go beyond what you want or can handle but don’t take a reduced course load just to settle for the weighted capped.
@socaldad2002:
Not knowing which HS she is attending, usually the following courses are not UC approved for the extra Honors points:
Algebra2 Honors, 9th Honors English
So her grades from all the classes listed except ASB and V sport would be input into the UC GPA calculator along with 16 honors points (8 qualified classes). She would then have a UW UC GPA, Capped weighted with 8 of the 16 honors points and the Fully weighted UC GPA using all 16 honors points.
So for example in the 2 years, she has 10 a-g classes with 16 A’s and 4 B’s + 16 honors points then plugging this into the calculator, her GPA would be 4.6 fully weighted, 4.2 capped weighted and 3.8 unweighted.