You will be pleasantly surprised - Some colleges you apply to will reach out to you and recruit you for their band most likely. Many of them are in need of band members who will commit to being a part of their program. Not huge scholarships or admissions preference, but some of the bands have perks like small stipends, get to move in early, etc…
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Every non-AP/IB/DE courses lowers the UC uncapped weighted GPA. There will certainly be exceptions, like your examples and a subset of the students who make up the bottom quartile of their accepted students. But statistically, their average weighted GPA suggests that a student’s odds are better if they concentrate on taking as many AP/IB/DE’s as they can and that those represent a the strong majority of their overall grades. Again, not suggesting students should make decisions based on playing those odds, just pointing out stats like these contributes to the perception we see often in posts here that it’s important to work your weighted GPA. It would be far better if colleges had a system for assessing an overall rigor score that wasn’t tied to a GPA calculation that punishes based on taking some non-weighted courses. And it’s possible some colleges do – most aren’t as transparent as the UC’s. Weighted GPA is just a mess overall – there’s no consistency and it biases people toward AP/DE obsession.
(BTW, like you, my kids also go to a “highly rated NJ public school” and also have done band.)
Btw, I wanted to address your question about explaining it to AO’s. There is no need to bring this up. It’s not a problem.
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I would certainly hope UCs have this figured out and don’t penalize people for pursuing passions. I mean, they have bands too.
But if this does impact the students, well then it’s a good thing there’s a lot more colleges out there than the UCs.
That said, they’ve done a great job marketing because so many think anything else is utter failure (and that often includes UCSC, UCR, and always UCM).
Good insights. Sad if true.
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@citivas :
UC’s use 13 areas of criteria to evaluate applicants. They are not penalized for following their passions and if the perception that this is true is not coming from the UC website information.
Band fulfills the F- UC course requirement of a Visual/Performing arts. Below are some of the 13 areas of criteria where 4 years in band will help an applicant.
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Number of, content of and performance in academic courses beyond the minimum A-G requirements.
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Outstanding performance in one or more specific subject areas.
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Special talents, achievements and awards in a particular field, such as visual and performing arts, communication or athletic endeavors
OP you are fine and there is no need to explain taking 4 years of band in your application other than expanding on your passion in one of the required essays.
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I’m not sure why this would be any different for any other college. And actually it’s the opposite. Every AP/IB/DE increases the uncapped weighted GPA, not every non-AP/IB/DE lowers the weighted GPA.
OP, don’t worry. My kids not only took band, they also took jazz band further “lowering” their potential GPA max. They also took ceramics and no AP history, ever. Because it did not interest them. My daughter did very well with her UC (and other college) applications. My son has yet to apply. Take the courses that interest you and do well in them if you are able. Will there be students at your school that micromanage their GPA? Yes there will. Do you want to be like them? That’s up to you to answer.
(I don’t even know what my daughter’s high school GPA was. It was what it was. edited to add: she had rigor and good grades)
Others have explained it clearly better than I have. Although UC weighted GPAs would be lowered by the non honors class (or AP outside of california) the experience in our school is that there are other factors being looked at since many kids get into these schools even after taking 4 years of band/orchestra.
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It comes from their stats, at least for UCLA. OOS doesn’t get any weighted credit for fulfilling the a-f courses outside of AP/IB/DE and their stats show that their average admit has taken a high ratio of those courses. Statistically they take more OOS students kids who couldn’t have taken a lot of those non-AP/IB/DE courses based on their weighted GPA than they do students who did. The stats are a more neutral arbiter of who they admit than their stated admission criteria. (A company can say it considers students from any college for its intern program but if 90% of the selected interns are from T10 schools, that speaks louder than their statement.) As previously noted, there are of course many exceptions. Of course some people take orchestra and get into UCLA. But their high average weighted GPA with the narrow use of AP/IB/DE suggests that your odds are better focusing on a ton of AP and college credits. If they were equally likely to take kids who did a ton of theater and choir as those who took at ton of AP/DE, their average weighted GPA would be lower. If they don’t want that perception, they shouldn’t trend their admits toward it.
This also appears to be acutely true for OOS applicants. In-state applicants have a lower average uncapped weighted GPA despite being able to count far more courses (including some music, theater, computers, etc.) toward the uncapped weighted GPA, which suggests less pressure on AP/IB/DE in-state. Of course there could also be other explanations for the stats, such as a self-selection bias by OOS applicants. But that still wouldn’t change the net result of the outcome bias toward kids with a ton of AP/DE credits.
The UC weighted GPA is a factor of both how many AP/IB/DE courses you take and the ratio of those to other classes (noting that for for OOS none of the non-AB/IB/DE courses your school treats as weighted, like honors, accelerated, advanced, G&T, etc., count). So if Student A takes 5 AP courses, band, theater and non-AP advanced data structure, that student will have a materially lower weighted GPA than the student who takes the same 5 AP courses and just one other course, even if they both get straight A’s in every class. So in this case taking those non-AP/IB/DE courses did “hurt them” in terms of their uncapped GPA.
The 75% quartile for OOS at UCLA had to have perfect A’s taking at least 6 AP/IB/DE year length courses (or 12 semester length) and no more than one non-AP/IB/DE year-length course for each fo their Sophomore, Junior and Senior year. If they took 2 non-AP/IB/DE even once, they couldn’t make the 75% uncapped weighted GPA. 75% of OOS Admits took a minimum of 4 AP/IB/DE each year (so at least 12 total; more than the average school in the US offers).
Of course people who don’t follow this path still have a shot. UCLA admits over 15,000 Freshman a year, so there will be thousands of exceptions even in that bottom quartile. And of course students should pursue their passions rather than gaming their schedules around AP/IB/DE saturation.
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Sure, but those experiences are anecdotal. The stats are not. Already explained in detail so no need to repeat…
Just out of curiosity, are OOS students from schools that don’t offer any AP or Honors courses at all mostly shut out of most competitive University of California programs?
A valid question, but one that deserves its own thread in that subforum, or you could look to see if that question has previously been asked and answered there:
Let’s focus on the OP in this thread, please.
I do not think that you should worry about this at all.
First of all, admissions will look at your grades. They will also look at your course rigor. However, if you have taken other rigorous courses, you will be fine. For anything other than “top 30”, you do not even need to take all that rigorous of a course load, and there are a LOT more than 30 very good universities in the US.
GPA is computed so differently at different high schools in the US that it becomes almost worthless as a measure.
Admissions will want you to take the courses that make sense for you, and to do well with them. It sounds like this is exactly what you have done.
Also, quite a few academically very strong students also are quite good at music. As a math major I saw this quite a bit. I have in fact attended music events and a few times seen people I know from work unexpectedly get up on stage and play. This was great fun at the time.
You might want to read the “applying sideways” blog on the MIT website. My understanding of what this says is to do what is right for you, and do it very well. This sounds like what you are doing. This is by the way what I did and it got me into “top 30” schools for both undergrad and graduate school. The same “do what is right for you” approach also got my wife and older daughter into “top 30” graduate programs (my younger daughter has not gotten to the point of applying to graduate programs). What was right for each of us was very different. What is right for you might be different also. Band sounds like it is part of what is right for you and I think that it is a great choice.
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Whoops. Got it. Sorry about that, OP!
Yes, back to OP. Just to clarify band and orchestra are taken by almost all of the high performing kids at our local high school, including almost all that go to T20 schools. Music is wonderful, enjoy band!
Same here…but my kid plays a different instrument. She played all the way through HS, and also college…and continues now. She says…it relaxes her to pick up her instrument and play it.
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