<p>^^^ Yeah, I waver between attributing posts like the one from tastybeef to ignorance or maliciousness.</p>
<p>To the OP, you probably go to a HS where you have little counseling support and feel like there’s nobody else to ask these questions. Let me be the first to tell you, at a UC school you’ll have even less support. Their attitude is “we have 20,000 kids and can’t meet with them all, everything they need to know is on our website; they’re smart kids and will figure it out”. If you’re not comfortable with this, then perhaps a UC is not a strong fit for you. Everything you’ve been asking about is easily found on the admission website of any UC campus.</p>
<p>FindaPlace, what do you mean by how they are not accepting any students from high school? How are you supposed to go to a school such as Berkeley if it doesn’t allow any type of transferring? Thanks.</p>
<p>I agree. So please, tell me why you would say that your senior year courseload is a key factor. And the operative word here is “key” as if it is more important than other factors that would prompt you to claim it so, especially at more competitive UC’s.</p>
<p>It has to be bogus because it doesn’t pass a smell or logic test. There’s another thread where the OP said a friend read in an OC Register article that the UCs were just going to accept transfers (implicit: from other colleges) and no incoming students from HS. It’s got to be one of the wildest rumors I’ve heard yet about UC. I could not find anything close to this with the online OC Register and the OP can’t point to an article so … chalk it up to urban myth.</p>
<p>I don’t know what you are trying to prove by fussing over specifics. The ‘advice’ given in this thread basically was that OP should get a perfect GPA, perfect SAT, sit on his butt throughout high school playing video games, take the easiest course load during senior year, and get straight Cs in those classes. </p>
<p>Obviously gpa/sat are the ‘key’ factors to admission, but clearly there are other factors that push the applicant into the acceptance pile. Many UCs have point systems which given tons of weight on ECs and senior course load. Just because Berkeley is one of the UCs that does not assign a point value to senior workload doesn’t mean this isn’t a factor that can make or break your application. If they see the applicant slacking off during senior year, Berkeley might think that the applicant is going to become lazy once admitted into their University. Of all the UCs, Berkeley is certainly the most holistic in the admissions process, meaning that they often make decisions based on factors that aren’t numbers since admission is so competitive.</p>
<p>This is not fussing over specifics. It’s misleading to say that senior year couseload is a ‘key’ criterion when it simply isn’t. It’s just a criterion, not one with a special emphasis placed on it as there are on SAT and GPA at the mid-UC’s.</p>
<p>I have never contended the fact that the senior year courseload is a selection factor; I merely challenged the perception that it is a ‘key’ factor. For something to be a ‘key’ factor in a process, it must hold more weight than the other factors. However, nothing shows this. I agree with you that there are indeed other selection factors besides the SAT and GPA, which are intrinsically taken to be ‘key.’ Yet, it’s quite clear that the senior year courseload doesn’t fall into this category. And why does this “specific” matter?</p>
<p>Because I’ve heard the same fabrication before, 4 years ago, when I was applying to the UC’s. Many from my graduating class chose to take 5 or 6 AP’s while few chose to take 1 or 2. In the end, those who took the latter path got to enjoy their senior year and get into colleges just fine. On the other hand, some of those who took 5 or 6 AP’s couldn’t handle the courseload and had GPA’s below the threshold. Those who took a moderately challenging courseload were actually better off as a whole. So, it’s completely misleading and risky to advise such a unfounded statement.</p>
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<p>Which UC’s give “tons of weight” on senior year coureload? I agree that UC’s do give weight to senior year courseload, but which ones give “tons of weight?”</p>
<p>by your defintion – ever thought about law or rhetoric? – SAT is not key since it is a much lower factor than gpa.</p>
<p>But believe what you will.</p>
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<p>Obviously, they had a good time senior year as well! </p>
<p>btw: Cal will allow you submit senior grades for an appeal. Heck, they all will bcos you can send anything you want for the appeal – whether they use it is up to the reader. And of course, upward trend is always better than the alternative.</p>
<p>fwiw: Last year at my D’s school, only one light senior schedule applicant was accepted into Cal or UCLA; just ONE, and she wrote a tear-jerker essay about her overcoming personal health issues. The rest of the acceptees were all AP’s all the time.</p>
<p>SAT still holds more weight than the other factors, such as community service, etc. It doesn’t have to hold more weight than all the other factors.</p>
<p>Even by UCSD’s comprehensive review ([UCSD</a> Freshman Comprehensive Review Process (Dec 2004)](<a href=“Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos”>Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos) ), which has been around on CC for so many years, doesn’t even show a single criterion for senior year courseload. Just by looking at the rubric, it’s pretty easy to see what exactly the key factors are-- SAT and GPA, both combined takes up 70% of the maximum score. All the other ones are just selection factors and by no means key factors. I don’t think and I’m sure you’ll have a hard time finding someone who thinks that UCSD has plopped in a senior year courseload criterion that is worth 500+ points since this rubric was released.</p>
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<p>Sure, they had a good time but they almost got rescinded as well. If it weren’t for my high school’s reputation as being an extremely competitive school, almost all of them would have been rescinded.</p>
<p>The second point you made is completely untrue. Okay, almost completely untrue. Yes, you can submit senior grades, but that’s it. At campuses where it is specifically stated that doing well in senior year classes is not a basis for denial reversal (UCLA, UCSD), you’re basically wasting your time. It’s like sending in letters of recommendation-- sure you can send them in, but they are going to be ignored as the websites have specifically stated. The readers don’t get to choose to use them or not. Senior year grades are simply not used for appeals at UCLA and UCSD.</p>
<p>And I have yet to see an official document that allows a marked improvement in senior year grades to be considered as the basis for an appeal. I suspect that no UC’s use senior grades for appeal purposes, it’s just that only some UC’s post that on their websites. If anyone can find an official link of an appeal process where the basis can be a stellar senior year performance, then please do post it. Until then, don’t mislead high school seniors with information that can’t be backed up.</p>
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<p>During my senior year, my school sent 65+ kids to Berkeley and 40+ to UCLA. I’m sure not all of them are in AP classes all the time. We don’t even have enough seats in AP classes to accompany those 105 students who will matriculate at the top UC’s, let alone including those who were accepted to Cal and UCLA but decided to go elsewhere. This shows that you don’t NEED to have a rigorous senior year courseload to get into the competitive UC’s.</p>
<p>You can believe what you will, but unless you have worked directly with admissions, your posts can be inaccurate and problematic to those reading them. The appeal is specifically read by humans who all have their own personal biases. Whether they read the rec or new transcript is up to them; whether they consider it in their vote is up to them. (Advice from a neighbor who retired last year as a Cal admissions rep.)</p>
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<p>Let’s not make up facts to suit your own strawman. No one said that a rigorous senior schedule was NEED-ed. It’s just important. More important than test scores? Probably not. More important than ECs? It depends on the rest of the app. (If someone HAS to work to support their family, taking a light senior load makes perfect sense; but the same schedule would be looked at negatively from a kid who attended Beverly Hills HS or lived in Marin.)</p>
<p>Again, any criteria’s importance lies with the application reader – most of whom are local readers (HS teachers and GCs), and do not reside at the big Uni campus. Outside of GPA which, by definition, is numero Uno, every other admission criteria depends on the reader’s own personal bias and the weight that they give the application. (This ignores SD and Davis which are formulaic.)</p>
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<p>Bingo! It’s all relative. You will not be expected to take courses that are not offered or you are not eligible for. (Can’t likely take Calc, for example, unless you take Alg I in middle school; many students who are ELL may struggle trying to get into AP Eng Lit, but their ELL status is taken into account under comprehensive review.)</p>
<p>btw: getting into a competitive UC should not be the ultimate goal – thriving at that UC should be. Since the vast majority of kids accepted into Cal & UCLA are coming in with boat loads of AP/IB courses and will repeat that course in college, the competition for grades can be fierce, particularly in the Frosh classes. Better to have taken AP Chem then podunk Chem in HS.</p>
<p>And you can believe what you will. Your posts are inaccurate and misleading as they don’t even match up with official documents. My statements are congruent with what UC’s put on their official websites.</p>
<p>Your only claim of legitimacy is your neighbor, a poor anecdotal reference at best. Well, I have such a neighbor who worked with admissions too. And guess what he told me. “Don’t trust opinions from random internet users who can’t back up their statements with anything but he-says-she-says.”</p>
<p>So, unless you can prove that you are a guidance counselor who works directly with admissions, then you don’t have a point. And since you don’t have an admissions account from CC (like UCDAdmissions), I don’t see why you even bother trying to claim something that some UC’s simply deny and others don’t even address.</p>
<p>The ones that outright state that they don’t take senior year grades in consideration for appeals don’t say “our readers MAY look at them even though they know they are not supposed to make a decision based off of that.” Instead, they specifically spell out that senior grades cannot be used as basis for appeal. End of story-- reading more into that is simply deluding yourself and others. I mean, what are you going to trust, a UC’s official website or a random online forum user’s neighbor’s claim?</p>
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<p>In the example that you brought up, you claim that all those except for one who got into Cal “were all AP’s all the time” without mentioning any other factors such as personal vices, achievements, etc. as if a strong senior courseload were a necessity unless you have a substantial disability, evidenced by the girl with the sob story. That’s simply untrue as the importance placed on senior year courseload changes on a case to case basis.</p>
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<p>Yes, good. You finally get the concept. Senior courseload is important as all selection factors are, but is it more important than others as to be called a key criterion? No, it isn’t. It all depends on the rest of the application, GPA and test scores notwithstanding (test score are arguable, but the point is nevertheless the same).</p>
<p>If some kid were to finish all the AP’s and honors offered at his school and have nothing but easy classes to take for his senior year, would his senior courseload be judged as inadequate and be held against him? No. But if some kid had all AP’s and honors for his senior year, but had a horrendously poor GPA, would that be held against him? That’s an unequivocal yes. Why? Because GPA is a key factor whereas senior year courseload is NOT.</p>
<p>That’s exactly what I’m challenging. The weight put on senior year courseload varies from reader to reader and applicant to applicant(even absent at some UC’s), so to call it a key criterion as GPA is called is downright untrue and misleading.</p>
And this is “congruent with what UC’s put on their official websites”? </p>
<p>Advice like this isn’t doing anybody favors. If you get straight C’s senior year then UCLA and Cal will revoke your admission. They require you to maintain a B average senior year and no grade lower than a C. Seems like “a real hefty factor in the admission decision” to me…</p>
<p>This was not an advice this to anyone; I did not advocate anyone to go ahead and get straight C’s to get rescinded. It was all in the context of a hypothetical situation-- you can list all kinds of phenomenal feats that you will attempt in your senior year, but you could either do exceedingly well or not. I had said straight C’s because that’s just my definition of not doing so well, not because I had intended to tell people to go get rescinded so my diabolical plans of denying college education to unsuspecting strangers can come to fruition.</p>
<p>Either way, I could have said straight B’s (which means you didn’t do that well but won’t get rescinded) and the point would remain salient-- the UC’s have no ways of knowing * a priori* that you can indeed excel in what you planned, which logically makes it not a hefty factor in the admission decision. And it seems that no one has been able to produce any evidence that the rigor of one’s senior year is indeed a hefty selection factor (note: hefty in relation to other factors as all factors listed are intrinsically important) to disprove this.</p>
<p>No one said senior schedule was a ‘hefty’ selection factor. People were only correcting the poster who said senior course load has no weight, which is false. The reason why it is false is that some UCs actually assign point values to strong senior course loads. Obviously, the ‘key’ factors to admission are 1) GPA 2) SATs.</p>
<p>for gosh sake, your senior schedule DOES count, if you take rigorous classes your senior yr. then that WILL IMPROVE YOUR CHANCES, and dont forget you send your 1st semester grades in january so if you’re a “maybe” at a UC or w/e and you do good that will help, if you do bad then you’re s.o.l. and do good 2nd semester too because universities check that too and can unaccept you if you do bad even if they accepted you previously, the point is- the UC’s and California have a serious lack of money and therefore are looking for any reason to NOT accept students so don’t give them a chance to throw your application in the the bin</p>