Based on the UCOP website data, Honors courses taken in 9th grade are not counted in the Honor course numbers presented plus they are not weighted in the UC GPA calculation. Public not just private schools do offer Honors courses in 9th grade and it is up to each UC campus to determine how they use the 13 areas of UC application review criteria. UCSD’s Freshman profile only lists # of honors courses taken 10-11th so different websites cite different statistics.
For the UCSD freshman profile chart, as you mentioned the chart has the honors courses taken in 10th and 11th
But how can the chart has more than 20 honors in 10th and 11th? Are these 20 as semesters based?
Also, some private schools offer Capstone courses like Linear Algebra, Machine Learning in the Senior Year.
Any ideas if they carry same weight like APs for UC admissions?
There are a couple of students on Reddit saying they checked portals and are in for CS, but all other commenters in the thread say there is no update to their portal yet. So maybe, maybe not (or maybe just some CS today – who knows).
Thanks, I see that on the a2c megathread now, and in the UCSC thread. Maybe the first few just happened to be CS because sooooooo many people were applying to CS
Definitely seems real enough now that some kids are getting decisions. But not real enough for me to bother my kid at school to check her portal. I’m not sure I would expect her to be in a “first wave” of admits anyway.
Great point.
Capped GPA (max. 4.4) penalizes students who take more than 10 courses in 10th and 11th.
Students taking like 16 courses (8 each) in 10th and 11th can only hit a max Capped GPA of 4.25 with all A’s. And students taking 14 courses in 10th and 11th can only hit a max capped GPA of 4.33 with all A’s.
And 14 or 16 courses is common in high performing public and private schools in California.
But, may be high rigor students have to penalized to get student representation from every part of the state.
I don’t think higher rigor students are being penalized. UC admission looks at courses within the school context. It is a bit misleading if we compare just the GPA/capped GPA only. In our school district all high schools either have 4x4 or trimester system. So, the college bound students would take either 15 or 16 credits per school year, plus DE if applicable. And keep in mind that each schools weigh the grade differently. My son’s school does not weigh 4.5 (A) for honored classes. And no + or - weight. So, he would get max 4 for honored and 4 for DE. Only AP course have the weight of 5. On the other hand, his friend’s school (different school district) gives 4.5 for honored and 6 for a classified college level. So, the friend’s weighted GPA was very high while my son’s weighted GPA was much lower. It is possible to game the system with easy APs to elevate the GPA. But I think the admission also knew that.
I totally understand you. And UCs allocate their own AP credits for each course to avoid this GPA discrepancy.
I mentioned a different point. My point was we talk about the students taking more AP courses to bump up the GPA, but there is an exact opposite argument, where a student ‘X’ can take 5 year long AP courses (and not any more) in each of 10th and 11th.
Now assuming student ‘X’ gets all As, the UC capped GPA is 4.4 and UC uncapped GPA is actually 5.0.
And another student ‘Y’ that takes 8 year long courses (and exact similar 5 APs as student ‘X’) in each of 10th and 11th, ‘Y’'s UC capped GPA is 4.25 and uncapped UC GPA is 4.63.
Actually, ‘Y’ put in more effort and has better course rigor. I hope UCs look at the whole high school course rigor in more detail to not to waste any student’s hard work and effort.
Since the # of (A-G) courses is a separate metric considered by UCs things will balance out. If you maximize the #(A-G), capped GPA will be lower and vice versa (assuming all A’s).
It is true that the number of A-G courses is a metric considered by UCs. However, we don’t really know whether it will all balance out. It is possible that GPA carries more weight than the number of A-G courses… or it may go the other way. It is also quite possible that different UCs weight these factors differently; for example, UCLA might put more emphasis on GPA than UCB does, judging from the profile of students who are admitted.
In the end, UC admission is holistic and can be a bit mysterious. Hoping for the best for everyone here.
