UC Standards raised and ACT/SAT calculations changed

<p>From <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-uc13jul13,1,203420.story?coll=la-headlines-california%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-uc13jul13,1,203420.story?coll=la-headlines-california&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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UC Entry Standard Is Raised
By Rebecca Trounson, Times Staff Writer
July 13, 2006</p>

<p>Students planning to apply to the University of California for freshman admission for fall 2007 should take note of two changes in the requirements for eligibility, UC officials said. </p>

<p>The first, more significant change, is that the university has raised the minimum grade-point average for students to become eligible for admission — from 2.8 to 3.0. This is roughly from a B minus to a B average on a four-point scale.</p>

<p>This change was approved by UC regents in 2004 but is taking effect now.</p>

<p>Most students become eligible for UC admission based on a combination of their grades in required, UC-approved high school courses and their scores on standardized tests, including the SAT or ACT. The grade requirement is waived for students with high test scores or who are in the top 4% of their high school graduating class. </p>

<p>Also those who are admitted to the UC system typically must meet separate, often much tougher standards for the campuses at which they hope to enroll. In another change, applicants for fall 2007 admission also are being asked to calculate their test scores slightly differently than in previous years, UC officials said this week.</p>

<p>Students who have taken either the SAT or ACT will now be asked to convert their test results into a new "UC score" on a 0-100 scale. Previously, those who had taken the ACT, an exam that is less widely used than the SAT in California, converted those test results to equivalent SAT scores. </p>

<p>Susan Wilbur, UC's undergraduate admissions director, said this change, which she called "technical," will not in itself affect applicants' eligibility. She said it was adopted because it establishes a neutral scale and puts scores from different exams on an equal footing.</p>

<p>Students will apply for fall 2007 admission this November. </p>

<p>Potential applicants can convert their scores and check their standing on the new eligibility index by using UC's online calculator at <a href="http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/scholarshipreq%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/scholarshipreq&lt;/a> . </p>

<p>Those looking for more information about eligibility or admission to UC may check the university's main admissions website at <a href="http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/paths_to_adm/freshman.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/paths_to_adm/freshman.html&lt;/a>

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<p>Obviously, getting into the UCs is more competitive. Honestly, I think students who have 2.8s weren't really likely to get admitted to (at least a top notched) UC like Cal, but will this change have a significant change in the makeup of the class of 2011 as compared to 2010?</p>

<p>Thoughts about the conversion for ACT/SATs? I've always liked how the UCs had their own method of calculating GPA, and I think this is just something else to make it easier to evaluate all applicants.</p>

<p>The second to last link leads to the NEW UC elegibility index.</p>

<p>The new UC GPA standard will only affect the low-tier UCs (UCSC/UCR/UCM) where students with 2.8-3.0 UC GPAs actually get admitted from time to time. As for the new unified conversion scale for ACT/SATs, I think it is way overdue. :rolleyes:</p>

<p>from a practical matter, this is a change without a distinction. Eyeballing the SAT-ACT concordance table, one can see that UC just came up with a new, unified number to represent the former concordance table. The numbers don't change up or down.</p>