That might be it’s own thread question and attract a few of the posters who know so very much about the CA publics.
Sometimes, impacted means kids have difficulty getting into those courses, just as free will interests.
I don’t know specifically how this applies to UC’s and CSU’s but I’d assume that students with more AP credits would have a better chance of moving through an impacted major quickly, for the simple reason that they’d be able to skip more general education requirements and/or advance more quickly through their major requirements.
@socalkid1 I would without hesitation tell my kid to take an art class. One of my other kids took three years of art (a general art class, and two years of metals/jewelry, all non-honors), four years of music, almost the same AP/honors classes as the one I mentioned earlier, graduated as salutatorian, and is studying engineering on a competitive full scholarship.
Another, still in high school, is enrolled in three music classes and all the academic stuff.
Our family values the arts and being well-rounded in all the academic subjects.
Most of the people you are competing against for admission to top schools will have had to work with what their high schools had to offer, but will not have been a TA for two years and dodged the arts and more challenging sciences.