How does UC treat CC classes taken in HS

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

Greetings. My HS son will have the opportunity to take Community College classes that are UC/CSU transferrable. How does UC view these classes and how do they impact his GPA? And I’m assuming if he were to utterly bomb the class the grade is still required to go on his transcript, right? Are they treated as a regular class or honors class? For example, my son’s HS has a very small selection of classes that meet (F) Visual/Performing arts and a lot of kids at his school take a summer class at the local community college to meet this requirement. I tried to find it on the UCOP website but couldn’t find it.

Thanks,

2

How to recalculate HS GPA (weighted-capped version) for UC purposes:
https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/admission-requirements/freshman-requirements/gpa-requirement.html

Transferable college courses are eligible for honors points.

Handy calculator:
https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/

3

Note that while CSU recalculates HS GPA mostly the same as UC, there is one significant difference:

  • UC: “One college course = one grade = one honors point.”
  • CSU: “A semester grade in a college course should be counted twice.”
4

Thank you. I had heard of the rogerhub website but hadn’t looked at it before.

Regarding my other question, I am assuming that all CC grades will go on his transcript regardless of how well he does in them?

5

And regarding calculating the capped GPA. Lets assume he takes two honors classes sophomore year, a CC class in-between sophomore and junior year and 2+ honors classes Junior year he is still capped at only counting 4 honors classes, correct?

6

For UC and CSU, applicants enter their high school and college courses and grades into the application. If the student is admitted to and chooses to attend a UC or CSU, final high school and college transcripts must be sent to that campus.

The cap on honors points is 8 semesters’ worth of courses (equivalent to 4 full year courses). CSU uses only a weighted-capped HS GPA. UC calculates weighted-capped HS GPA and uses it in most of its web sites and other information, but also calculates unweighted and fully weighted HS GPA that admissions readers see; these are sometimes used when specified as such (when UC web sites show HS GPA, it should be assumed to be weighted-capped unless otherwise specified).

7

Thanks, so this link to UCB’s admit profle it does not say “weighted capped” but just weighted. Is that correct? I am a little perplexed how weighted capped GPA could end up being as high as 4.62. Using the rogerhub website if I assume 6 classes per year for 10th and 11th grades (or 24 semesters - minus two semesters for sophomore PE) and factor 8 semesters of honors classes and assuming As on all classes I get a weighted capped GPA of 4.36. Am I doing this wrong?

Thanks again for your responses!

8

never mind, I think I figured it out! thanks again for taking the time to respond to my questions.

9

Please be aware that any college course taken during HS will be on his permanent college record so the grades/courses would have to be disclosed when applying to Professional schools such as Medical/Dental/Pharmacy or Graduate school.
Make sure he aims for classes that is confident in receiving a good grade.

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10

This is on-point, advice @Gumbymom! S21 aspires to go to med school some day and I discouraged him from taking CC his jr year because I wasn’t sure of his maturity in handling college-level classes. He gets 95% A’s in his classes but college level was a different story vs AP/Honors.

If your kid is ready, I would definitely encourage it (like I was ok with my son this year). Just make sure you need Gumbymom’s advice with the long term view.

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The big difference is that college assumes that the student will keep up on their own, rather than require the much greater supervision, daily homework, etc. to keep up.

Also, some AP courses take a year to cover the material that is in a semester-long college course.

But it may be helpful for a college-bound high school student to take a college course (at a college) while in high school to see how college works, rather than having to make the adjustment all at once in first semester of college. (Obviously, this is if the logistics and scheduling work, an appropriate college course of interest is available, and the student has elective space for it.)

13

Thanks, I hadn’t even thought of being able to drop the class if needed - that’s a great point. At my my son’s HS I notice quite a number of kids take the visual/performing arts class over the summer at the local cc. The HS which is amazing in every other way has sadly not a lot of choices that meet this requirement. The cc has so many interesting possibilities plus it frees up space during the regular year. Thx!

14

@ucbalumnus I completely agree with you. S21’s AP teachers have been 70% great in teaching their classes as if they’re college classes, but the balance weren’t that great so he had to learn on his own anyway. There’s just an environment in college that I wasn’t willing to push him into knowing my kiddo. My D24 is a different story. I think she’d thrive immediately. Much more maturity at her age than her brother!