I searched through the forum but could not get the clear answer to this question. Which GPA is considered by UC Berkely for admission? unweighted, weighted cap or full weighted?
I also noticed that taking more AP actually reduced the capped GPA, so is it counter effective taking more APs for UC Berkley?
UCB considers all. Since they look at the Fully weighted also, taking more AP classes than the maximum in the capped weighted will benefit you in the long run.
All of these GPAs, as well as your courses and grades, are visible to the admissions readers.
capped GPA is the least important. It is primarily just a threshold for admission eligibility to any UC.
as the others have noted, taking additional advanced coursework is always a good idea bcos one other data point the admissions readers have is your rank among the applications to UC from your HS.
Thank you for replies. Does anyone know what gpa is considered for rank among the applications to UC from the HS? Is it full weighted gpa?
If you are a California resident and rank in the top 9 percent of students in your California high school class — and your high school participates in our ELC program — you may be eligible for ELC designation.
We will identify the top 9 percent of students based on GPA in UC-approved coursework completed in the 10th and 11th grades. To be considered for ELC, you must have a minimum GPA of 3.0 and complete the following “a-g” courses prior to your senior year:
History/social science: 1 year
English: 2 years
Mathematics: 2 years
Laboratory science: 1 years
Language other than English: 1 years
College-preparatory elective (chosen from the subjects listed above or another course approved by the university):4 year long courses
After you enter your coursework and grades in the UC application, we’ll compare your GPA to the historic top GPA for your school. If you meet or exceed that GPA, you’ll be designated ELC and we’ll add a note to your application.
Do the individual schools create the elective list? I can’t seem to find if Comp Sci is acceptable to use to compute the GPA in place of Latin 3. Unfortunately my son made a C in Latin 3…
@Leafyseadragon: You can look up the California HS a-g course list using this link. Just input the HS name.
https://hs-articulation.ucop.edu/agcourselist#/list/search/institution
Actually, you get the ELC designation if your UC weighted and capped GPA meets the top 9% threshold UC weighted and capped GPA set by a recent previous class at your high school.
You are not competing for class rank with your current classmates, or with your high school’s notion of GPA for class rank. You trying to meet a benchmark of UC recalculated GPA set by a recent previous class at your high school. I.e. no need to play the cutthroat rank-grubbing games that are sometimes described on these forums.
http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/q-and-a/local/
@ucbalumnus: I copied the ELC information posted on the UC Website.
http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/california-residents/local-path/
That web site says the following:
Yes, I posted the whole explanation shown on the website. Just should have noted that it was copied verbatim from the site.
capped GPA is the least important. It is primarily just a threshold for admission eligibility to any UC. >> Why it will be a threshold with upper limit? The hout report mentioned fully weighted gpa, so most probably UCB does not use capped weighted gpa.
While UCB admins can see all three, at many place they mention that they look at unweighted and fully weighted, without mentioning capped weighted.
Not sure I understand the question, but the cap was put in place years ago to account for the many high schools that do not even offer AP or honors courses, or just offer a few.
It may also be due to some UC research on the predictive value of unweighted versus weighted (uncapped) high school GPA on college GPA: http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED492533.pdf
The weighted capped high school GPA may have been a response to give some incentive to take honors and AP courses, effectively becoming a penalty for those who do not but otherwise not really having that much of an effect for those who do (most applicants to UCs do take more than 8 semesters’ worth) and minimizing differences due to availability of large numbers of such honors and AP courses at some high schools but not others.
^current research may support the cap, but it has been in a place for a long time, way before much of the research.