UC system's A-G "weighted" GPA calculations

Applying to College
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This topic might well have been covered exhaustively and/or elsewhere – I apologize as I’m new here and don’t quite know how to find the topic, etc.

My eldest is facing college applications next year and tried to calculate GPA based on a set of really weird, abbreviated criteria the UC system seems to use. https://secure.californiacolleges.edu/college_planning/california_state_university/freshman_admission_requirements/Calculating_Your_GPA.aspx

This kid is mega-driven and has taken extra classes during the summer and during the school year online as well; all but one class have been AP or Honors classes.

It turns out there are so many weird restrictions of the calculation of this number that kid is hust by (a) taking lots of classes and (b) taking lots of AP/honors classes (and all awarded As).

Now, I’m no fan of GPAs weighted or otherwise. … well, unweighted might be OK kinda maybe. But no one’s asking me anyway and you gotta play by the rules of them what brung you, or something.

So here’s the thing … first, they don’t count gr 9 and kid took many APs that year. Oh well. Next, kid took 2 semesters of 5 classes (=10), 4 of which were honors or AP (=8 sem) but they only count a max of 2 semesters as AP/honors. Then 2 classes over the summer and 6 classes for 2 semesters (=12 sem) of which 5 were AP/honors (=10 sem) with a cap of 6 being counted 11th grade.

This works out, I think, to a GPA of 4.33 … had kid not taken summer college-level classes (which wouldn’t be counted as AP/honors even without the cap on the total number that could be counted … these were in fact bona fide actual real-life college classes, but they don’t count for the scoring boost, only “AP” classes which are “like” college classes (ahem)…I digress) … had kid not taken extra classes over the summer, GPA would have been 4.36. Had kid not taken those extra summer classes and additional online AP classes (kid did not ask my permission for this which would not have been granted), GPA would have been 4.40

Um …? huh?

There is a question in here: is there an actual real-life person on the end of this process who will see how silly this weird capping metric makes things? With no capping, just treating honors/AP classes as one extra point, kid’s GPA would have been 4.75 . Which granted, is ridiculous as well. But given any weighting at all, why cap things and wind up with really squirelly metrics? A kid who takes more classes and scores “perfect” grades should not have a lower GPA than one who takes fewer classes with “perfect” grades. There’s something just wrong with a metric like that. This would be a ‘fail’ in the metric-construction department in my books.

But again, maybe it’s all OK if someone’s actually looking and thinking about it all and sees this. Am I missing something? Is there a way this is salvaged numerically? Am I calculating something wrong? Does it all just not matter in the end?

TIA

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fyi, you might want to click on ‘forum home’ top left column and scroll down to see the various forums. There is a state school forum and includes a CA forum…

Are you instate for CA?

There is so much yammering in your post it is hard to see the point, lol. No matter what the UC gpa, it is basically a qualification. If you are above the qualification they are going to look at and notice the classes you are taking. Even though 9th and 12th is not part of the calculation they are going to look at the transcripts.

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“lol”. Funny your aversion to “yammering”. ipad drones all, we, apparently.

Thanks for the pointer to the California state school forum; yes we live in CA but obviously, it is a foreign land to me.

Thanks for pointing out this is “a qualification”. Meaning, I think, that there’s a lower threshold of acceptance, and after that you’ve cleared the bar and it doesn’t matter much how far you have cleared it.

This makes sense and I appreciate the observation.

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For UCs, there is an admission process where each application is read by two admissions readers and scored holistically (with a senior reader doing a tie-break reading if the scores are too far apart). The readers do look at courses and grades behind the GPAs (which are shown as unweighted, weighted-capped, and weighted-uncapped) as well as essays and such. If the student has an unweighted 4.0 with lots of hard and advanced courses, then that will look good in the admissions reading, regardless of 4.3 versus 4.4 weighted-capped GPA. Also, college courses taken while in high school are counted as honors courses and counted twice, according to https://secure.csumentor.edu/planning/high_school/gpa_calculator.asp (CSU and UC weighted-capped GPA calculations appear to be the same).

CSUs admit more numerically, but most of them are significantly less selective (the three most selective are probably comparable in selectivity to UCI, UCR, and UCM, though selectivity varies by major and local area preference), so a 4.3 or 4.4 GPA with high test scores should not be too much cause for worry.

The rationale behind the cap is probably that very large numbers of honors and AP courses tends to reflect availability of such in the high school more than actual student ability, while (interestingly) unweighted HS GPA correlates slightly better to college GPA (at UC) than weighted HS GPA. So they probably put the cap on weighting to retain some incentive to take honors and AP courses without excessively disadvantaging students in high schools with relatively few of them offered.

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Interesting, UCBalum - thanks! I guess I see the dilemma they may be trying to address. Still, you can’t (IMO) wind up with a metric with the sort of error I outlined above, but it really helps to see the issue that might be driving this - AP availability, perhaps. Interestingly, that’s less of an issue, sort of, nowadays with online AP classes offered. But still, (i) those online classes may not be honored in all school districts, (ii) access to the technology is still limited for many and (iii) still, there’s a culture of taking and dealing with AP classes that comes out of relatively “advantaged” households, that the mere availability of more AP classes via internet still isn’t going to overcome.

So … I can see why a lower threshold / capping might make some sense. I guess it’s really just a dilemma. But it certainly helps a lot that all three of those GPA-variants get reported; I didn’t realize that at all. Really, if they’re all there then that’s a good way of addressing the fact that single metrics will always encounter a problem when trying to address a multifactorial world.

I’m not a whit surprised that unweighted GPA correlates better with college GPA than weighted. There are so many reasons for this! So many, but that might devolve into yammer.

Now I understand why that college class counts as two semesters (I thought it was just some weird mistake)! And I did just notice, as you say, that I was wrong about an actual college class not counting as honors/AP - my bad; thanks for the correction. And now I’m going to be grumpy because double-counting is too much! lol. Doesn’t matter though when all 3 metrics are reported. I love to learn that some sense prevails. Thank you!!

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My understanding of the reason for the cap is that an uncapped GPA incents students to take 4 or more AP courses at the same time as sophomores. It is simply unmanageable workload for most 15 year olds. The pass rate was low - which reflects poorly on the high schools - and a bunch of kids blew their shot at a UC.

The schools do see the student’s full transcript so, they know how you performed. According to the MsSun blog and elsewhere, UCB and UCLA don’t use the cap.

http://■■■■■■■■■■■■/home/high-school-academic-preparation-for-the-ucs/

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There is no cap for UCLA or UCB.