Is getting into the UCs just really based on gpa or is it holistic that they really consider other factors? Just curious since I see a lot of threads about UC gpa.
It’s holistic, but in most cases a high gpa and course rigor is baseline to get you in the conversation to be competitive. The PIQs and activities absolutely do matter in the application review.
You can look above in the thread to where @Gumbymom has posted the application review criteria. Each campus is a little different I think in terms of how they use/weight the criteria, but it’s not just grades that matter. They are very important, but it isn’t like some state schools where you are in or out past a certain threshold on either end.
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UC”s use 13 areas of criteria to review applicants. Each campus will weight each item differently so it is a Comprehensive review. GPA, HS course Rigor and the PIQ’s are the most important for all the campuses. The emphasis on GPA is that it is a definable statistical factor while some elements of the Comprehensive review are not.
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The reason you see so much about UC GPA is because it is a different calculation than your HS GPA. The majority of GPAs referenced on UC websites is the capped weighted UC GPA. Some documents have the uncapped weighted UC GPA. If an applicant is looking at a document and wondering if they are a candidate, they should make sure they are using the correct GPA for comparison.
You can calculate your student’s UC GPAs here: UC GPA Calculator
Note that, since you are OOS, only AP/IB grades are considered “honors courses” in the UC GPA calculation.
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So honor classes are just considered normal weight? The UCB rep came to our school and told the kids all of the our school’s honor and Gt classes are considered equal to UC honors.
Are you in state? If so, you can look up honors classes here: University of California A-G Course List
Not in-state but the UCB rep came to our school and he has known our curriculum and said that our honors courses at our school are recognized as UC honors courses when they review the apps - we’ve had several students accepted into Berkeley for several years.
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For OOS, only AP/IB courses are officially counted as honors in the UC GPA calculation. What you describe sounds like a specific case where the reader is looking at your transcript and considering it as extra rigor because they know your HS.
Also note that UCB is very holistic (I have heard it described as the most holistic admission of the UCs), they are looking for rigor in the context of your HS, and seem to consider a wider range of UC GPA. In contrast, UCLA seems to put more emphasis on the UC GPA than UCB, at least looking at results from our HS.
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I would also note that sometimes the capped weighted UC GPA is misleading. If you take more than 8 semesters of honors classes, the capped GPA will drop relative to those who only took 8. Generally, its a good idea to check how specific campuses and schools evaluate GPAs. For instance, Berkeley COE specifically says they look at Uncapped Weighted GPA. Generally you want Unweighted GPA as close to 4 as possible, and Uncapped Weighted GPA as close to 5 as possible.
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They are likely seen as more rigorous when reviewing courses taken but they do not receive an honors bump when calculating the UC GPAs.
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This is from the UC website on OOS Honors point calculation.
Honors courses are calculated differently. In calculating an out-of-state student’s GPA to determine if the 3.4 minimum has been met, UC will grant honors weight for AP or IB courses only, but not for school-designated honors courses. The weight is given to letter grades of A, B, or C. School-designated honors courses may be considered in the campus comprehensive review process
So it is at the discretion of each campus so I never assume to encourage applicants to include Honors classes in their OOS UC GPA calculation.
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Yes - he told the students including my Dd to mark something honors when they added their courses on the UC application because originally we didn’t mark honors for all the honor courses but he said at the event for the students at our HS to mark the honors flag on the app. They just know our school since we found it interesting he traveled from west coast to the far opposite side of the east coast. But we have students every year admitted to UCB.
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Really? That seems strange, because marking honors on the app would apply to every UC where you applied, not just UCB. As @Gumbymom said above, it is supposed to be at the discretion of each campus whether to treat OOS school designated honors as additional rigor.
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Yes he specifically told all the kids at the ta that our honors are eq to UC honors and to mark it that. But our public schools are one of the top public schools in the country - classes are super rigorous.
We are out of state at a super-rigorous high school as well that was also visited by a UC rep. However, we never heard these statements (marking Honors classes as UC honors when their policy specifically and very clearly says otherwise for OOS).
FWIW - our college/career guidance counselor also said she’d heard from a UC rep that our high school “honors” courses were equal to UC honors courses. Based on this, some students from our large, east coast, well regarded public high school marked their AP/IB and “honors” courses as UC honors courses when submitting their applications. Our D applied using the definitions on the UC website - only AP/IB courses marked as honors. At least for next year…I’m hoping that the UC reps can hold to a consistent message which matches the UC website guidance and, for students who have submitted this year, I hope and trust that their courses will be validated but, of course, everything is self reported so all this “comes out in the wash” after the admissions process is completed, right?
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It would be interesting to know if there are specific OOS high schools that actually have this type of special status for their honors courses in the UC application, or whether the UCB rep’s advice was wrong or misunderstood in this case.
However, I feel that this line of discussion may be veering off topic for the UCLA thread, since it’s about the general UC application and a UCB rep.
Yeah maybe he was wrong but it prob won’t matter anyways since they will recalculate. Apologize for veering off topic.
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When calculating your UC GPA you only enter your 10th & 11th grades, correct? Also, what is the highest capped GPA you can receive?
The highest “CAPPED” weighted GPA is a 4.40, for UCs.