<p>I have seen people posting UC GPA's in the 4.8 range and was wondering if I am confused. How does one get a UC GPA this high when only 8 grades of the a-g courses taken (potentially out of what - 32 grades thru Junior year) can be weighted? Do I have this wrong. Can someone clarify exactly how to calculate this. If I have the following - what does this calculate to:</p>
<p>a-g semester courses - 30 from soph/Junior year - thats 8 classes per year (one is ASB and isn't an a-g course)</p>
<p>Of these courses the courses that UC will weight (only AP & one honors precalc class) - 14 semester grades ( 7 AP classes) </p>
<p>Of these courses I received 2 B's & 28 A's.</p>
<p>The way I calculate this I would have</p>
<p>28 x4 = 112
2 x 3 = 6
8x 1 = 8 (extra weighting - should this be 16?)</p>
<p>Sounds about right. They weight up to 8 units, or 4 AP/Honor classes. People get such high UC GPAs because Physical Education and Human-something doesn't count as an a-g course, so they have less grades to divide by.</p>
<p>e.g. (with 2 Bs and the rest As)
126/30 = 4.2
106/25 = 4.25
86/20 = 4.3</p>
<p>When you say they have less grades to multiply by, they have to have so many courses in a-g. Isn't one of the factors having more that 32 a-g courses? I know by the end of your junior year you have to have a good deal of these. I find it almost statistically impossible to have higher that a 4.5. And the more classes you take, the lower your UC GPA. I guess that's why you get more points for taking more classes.</p>
<p>Multiply? I said divide. There's no requirement for an amount of courses, you just need to satisfy the requirements (2 years of foreign language and that kind of stuff). More points for taking more classes? I never heard of that. Every additional class you take lowers your UC GPA, haha.</p>
<p>You did say divide, my bad, but if you go to the UC web site one of the criteria they look at is number of 1-g courses in excess of the 35 semesters required. If you go to school specific web sites like Davis, they actually quantify the number of points you get for each class in excess. Also the GPA at this web site is capped at 4.5. So if they only look at 35 semester grades, maybe you do get 16 extra points (8 courses each have a semester grade?) I am a bit confused on that one.</p>
<p>UC GPA matters more in the lower-division UCs than they do for the higher ones. The "upper-tier" UCs look more for your SATs/ECs and the type of classes you take. </p>
<p>Don't worry about your UC GPA, it's just unnneeded stress.</p>
<p>"The "upper-tier" UCs look more for your SATs/ECs"</p>
<p>I'd be wary of giving that advice. Plenty of kids with great ECs and standardized test scores don't get into UCLA/Berkeley simply because they have a 4.0 instead of a 4.3.</p>
<p>Cal and UCLA really do use a holistic approach. They MUST since my kid got in with below a 4.0 and excellent SAT scores (NMF). No one would have guessed he would be accepted if they followed the commonly held view that GPA is the most important thing. He DID show a lot of intellectual curiosity and had good leadership EC's. Upward trend matters. Being a boy probably helped even though people say it doesn't. Having a great essay matters. But, having said that, I do have to agree with the above poster: if you want to get in to the top two UC's, get straight A's in advanced classes. Having a 4.4 is the closest thing to a guaranteed acceptance that one can hope for at UCLA and Cal. There ARE exceptions (like my son), but not too many that I have heard of. And, for the UC's, any SAT over 1900 is probably high enough with an excellent GPA. Seriously, they are trying to DE-emphasize the test scores these days and want to eliminate the SAT II's. Anyone who wants to see what Cal likes should google the research paper from a sociology professor a few years ago on the supplemental application process and read what they want. It is a 60 page paper that names the types of activities, classes, etc that they use to accept certain applicants. I originally found the link here a couple of years ago. It is very specific and, although it addresses the supplemental applicants, it obviously talks about what they are looking for in their student body. We found it to be very helpful at our house.</p>