@gumbymom I am hoping you can help. My daughter is freaking out because many of her classmates received a UC ECL letter but she did not. Her GPA is > than 4.0 and she has not received anything but As soph and junior year. Is it possible that she is ECL but didn’t get a letter? (One grade was changed over the summer and she had not completed her VAPA by the end of junior year). Is there any way to know if you are ECL before submitting the application? I know you can check once the application is in.
Here are the requirements for ELC and it is possible that she is ELC eligible and the school made some mistake. My son’s HS did not acknowledge any ELC students and we found out when he submitted the application.
You would need to know the Historic Benchmark GPA calculated by your HS. I would just ask your daughters counselor.
I am assuming she will be applying to the UC’s regardless of her ELC status? Is there a specific reason to know now vs. after submitting the application other than applying vs. not applying to UC Merced?
We will identify the top 9 percent of students based on GPA in UC-approved coursework completed in the 10th and 11th grades. To be considered for ELC, you must have a minimum GPA of 3.0 and complete the following A-G courses prior to your senior year:
|History|1 year|
|English|2 years|
|Mathematics|2 years|
|Science|1 year|
|Language other than English|1 year|
|Other A-G courses
(chosen from the subjects listed above or another course approved by the university)|4 years|
How does UC calculate my school’s historic or benchmark GPA?
- UC uses transcripts that your school has submitted for the top 15 percent of your high school’s junior class, after final junior year grades are entered.
- Based on these transcripts, UC establishes a historic, or benchmark, GPA representing the expected GPA for the top 9 percent of the students from your school.
- Schools are periodically asked to submit transcripts so that we can monitor and adjust benchmark GPAs.
Here is some counselor notes from a competitive CA HS regarding ELC eligibility:
Counselor’s Notes on the ELC Program:
- Every year we receive numerous questions from highly qualified seniors questioning why they did not receive the UC’s ELC designation.
- Please understand, if a student does not receivie the ELC designation, they may still be eligible for acceptance at a UC. ELC designation is not a requirement for acceptance. It is a way to open up UC acceptance to outstanding students from all California high schools.
- ELC designation simply guarantees a student to a UC campus, not all UC campuses. (Lately, this has meant acceptance to UC Merced.)
- At our HS, significantly more than the top 9% of graduates are UC-eligible.
- Over the past five years, an average of 25% of our HS seniors have been admitted to one or more UC campuses.
- So, while the ELC program is a valuable program state-wide, it has been less impactful to our graduates.
If your Daughter has concerns, as I stated above contact her counselor.
She can also compare her UC Capped weighted GPA to the 2021 admits to the UC campuses using this link: Admissions by source school | University of California
Thanks. This is very helpful. There is no specific reason to know. She’s just anxious about why she didn’t get it. She will reach out to her counselor.
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Please help her not freak out and not be anxious. Work on the things she has control of (ex. her PIQ and activities list) instead of focusing on things she doesn’t.
Hello @sleeplessinla ,
Where did you daughter end up eventually, if you care to share? I am also in similar situation with my child. She is not ELC although her weighted GPA is 4.5. What I learned thattThey decide based on unweighted GPA and for her school there were 9% student above 3.98 GPA. She is below 3.98GPA.