Hi everyone,
I have a novice question. I take a look at this GPA Calculator for the University of California – RogerHub for my son. He is in a high school that offers no AP for freshman, max 1 for sophomore (unless you can take Calculus as sophomore.) His plan is to take band (extra class, 7 total/year) for 10 and 11 grade. It turns out that the GPA would be lower compare with not taking it.
Is this a common problem? How do other students do ?
Thanks,
Yes, it’s common, and unweighted performing arts classes do “dilute” the weighted GPA a little. But colleges look at the courseload in context, so I think it’s very unlikely that the incrementally higher weighted GPA, with a lighter courseload (without the extra arts classes), really ends up looking better to colleges. My kids had exactly the situation you describe. They and their choir/band/dance friends did fine with college admissions, despite all of the unweighted arts classes. Don’t worry about it. 
I completely agree with @aquapt in that no student should try to maximize their UC GPA in lieu of not taking classes of interest and most students are in this situation. The UC’s consider 13 areas of criteria for their application review so GPA alone is not evaluated within a vacuum. All students are evaluated within the context of their HS so AP class limitations and non-weighted courses are common.
Also note that the UC’s require at least 1 year of a Visual/Performing arts course(s) as part of their a-g course list requirements.
UC holistic review admission readers do see all three recalculated GPAs (unweighted, weighted capped, fully weighted) along with the full list of courses and grades entered into the application. They are also supposed to consider academic achievement in context of what is available.
Where this quirk of the weighted capped GPA matters most is if the student applies to CSUs (where the calculation is similar, except that a semester college course counts as two courses and grades instead of one), since CSUs just plug the weighted capped GPA into their formulae to determine admission.
Can he take the class pass/fail? My daughter was a competitive dancer and all the high achieving dance girls would take dance pass/fail after their fine arts requirement was complete, otherwise their gpa and rank would be lowered with 4 years of dance.
That’s true about CSU, but it’s quite rare that it would matter. The GPA-dilution effect only moves the weighted-GPA needle noticeably if the student is already a straight A student or nearly so, with multiple weighted classes. (Assuming all A’s and B’s, if a student has as many B’s as weighted classes, then the weighted GPA is 4.0 and additional A’s in unweighted classes have no effect at all. A student’s stats need to be well above this baseline for unweighted A’s to drop the weighted GPA meaningfully.) With stats high enough to be worried about this issue, a student is already safe for admission to the vast majority of CSU programs, and is likely to be a solid UC candidate as well. Hypothetically, one can imagine this issue dropping a student below the threshold for a very impacted major, but I haven’t personally seen it happen. As a example, my younger daughter took 8 full-year unweighted arts classes (choir, band, & dance) and 9 AP’s, and had a 4.3-something weighted GPA that would have been a little higher without the arts classes, but she still got into Cal Poly SLO Computer Science, which is one of the most impacted majors in the CSU system. I don’t know how close to the line she was and whether the difference might have mattered if she’d had another B or two… but as I said, the more B’s you have, the less the increment caused by the arts classes, so I think it’s quite rare for this to be a make-or-break factor for CSU.
Also, my kids attended an arts magnet, and I never heard of anyone pass/failing their arts classes for this reason. Maybe it’s more common elsewhere, but IMHO it’s kind of sad to have to do this; colleges should be able to see and evaluate the overall record on its merits.
I am thankful for the answer and want to add some more context: beside band my kid play piano, that is 1+ hour practice daily. With band, he likes it but doesn’t love it since he is doing percussion, that is an extra 3+ more instruments. This year is his 4th year. The intended major is biochem/bio engineer but it is changing.
I think I’ll ask the school counselor for CR/nonCR course. Ask my kid about how he values his friendship in band. And look into music department in CC for other music opportunities (music theories, choir (also his interest), as well …)
UC’s prefer to see grades vs. P/NP or CR/NCR for core classes in which Band- VPA are considered core a-g courses.
If he’s a senior, his grades this year won’t be computed into the UC/CSU GPA anyway.
Sounds like OP’s son is a Freshman.
His plan is to take band (extra class, 7 total/year) for 10 and 11 grade. It turns out that the GPA would be lower compare with not taking it.
My son is freshman. He took 2 years band in middle school. 1 advance band 9th grade. This is his 4th year.
He is aiming for straight A and his school offer limited AP classes. If he skips school band and takes music somewhere else, he can count it as a 5 (community college) or takes as NR (church band etc), which boost his GPA. He has a piano teacher who he meets weekly and we plan to keep it.
I guess the question is how much he enjoys his current band.
Thanks for all the discussions.
I initially thought he was younger, but then I was confused by this.
Well, anyway, he should pursue whatever performing arts path fits his interests best. And it’s true that being in an ensemble can have a huge effect on one’s social experience in high school, and that’s important too.
I would say identify UCs/CSUs which might likely be of interest. See the GPA range(25-75) needed for Engineering Programs. Since you are using the GPA calculator already, you can make a conclusion if these classes would impact the GPA enough to put you below the threshold.
Of course like Gumbymom pointed out there are 12 other criteria used in the evaluation.
Definitely take the classes you enjoy, even if getting solid A’s would “dilute” the UC GPA. I was an OOS applicant to the UCs with a lot of diluted classes (4 years of band and a year of jazz band), and still had pretty strong success. I really don’t think taking MORE counts against you in any way.
My son (rising senior, CA resident) takes 5 core courses and 1 orchestra elective during the school day, plus zero period orchestra. The two orchestra periods count as different classes (different groups and repertoire), and this definitely hurts his weighted GPA, but it has been a wonderful part of his high school experience.
My understanding is that the UC system considers the total number of a-g courses taken beyond the minimums (under item #2 in the UC list of criteria), which might help somewhat to balance out the hit to GPA from taking additional unweighted electives? Music classes are included under a-g in the CA system, so they should count under #2?
- Academic grade point average in all completed A-G courses, including additional points for completed UC-certified honors courses.
- Number of, content of and performance in academic courses beyond the minimum A-G requirements.
- …
This was discussed recently on another topic, but for non-CA residents the UC doesn’t consider any school honors courses (Honors, High Honors, Accelerated, G&T, etc.) except AP’s, IB’s and Duel Enrollment College Credit. UCB and UCLA evaluate uncapped weighted GPA’s.
And their stats suggest they strongly bias toward students who both took an inordinate # of these courses and who also took few other courses that weren’t AP/IB/DE, at least in their 10-12th grade years. Since those cohorts also need a 4.0 unweighted, or very close (3.93 for the bottom 25% of admits), the difference of taking more non-AP/IB/DE courses can be impactful. 75% of accepted students at UCLA took at least 12 AP/IB/DE’s 10-12th, 25% took more than 18. The average stats for the 75% quartile required perfect grades, at least 6 AP/IB/DE a year and not more than 1 course a year that didn’t count as AP/IB/DE. These schools review holistically but statistically those who take more than 1 non-AP/IB/DE course a year (or 1 per semester) represent not more than 25% of the admits, for OOS.
This is a direct quote from the UCB website regarding their application review which can also be applied to the rest of the UC’s.
All achievements, both academic and nonacademic, are considered in the context of the opportunities an applicant has had, and the reader’s assessment is based on how fully the applicant has taken advantage of those opportunities
@citivas: The UC’s are California Public universities so their policies will favor in-state applicants. According to the posting history of the OP, the student seems to be a California resident so your OOS comments do not apply in this situation. I agree with the posters stating that the student should pursue his interests and the UC comprehensive application review will take this into account.
“courses can be impactful. 75% of accepted students at UCLA took at least 12 AP/IB/DE’s 10-12th”
I saw this as well and pretty much means if your HS offers say 20 honors/APs, you pretty much need to take at least 10 from 10th-12th grade to be competitive, which is not impossible but pretty much means 5 or 6 honors/APs in 11th and 12th.
“These schools review holistically”
We’ve discussed this before but the UCs are not holistic, they don’t consider race, legacy, donor potential, recommendations, the only thing is context which could help first-gen or lower income households.
UCB does consider recommendations from a small percentage of students and UC admissions review is more than stats so they label their application review as Comprehensive.
The definition of holistic is not the specific consideration (or non-consideration) of any of the above. It is the consideration of the applicant as a whole, rather than a sum of points for various attributes.