I think it depends on the private school. In some private schools getting all As is impossible, whereas in others a significant number get straight As. I guess it comes down to the philosophy the school has. Some private schools clearly indulge in grade inflation to make their stats look good. But I’m sure AOs at UCs are aware of how most of these schools grades their students and make decisions accordingly. The issue is that it’s impossible to keep track of how grades are granted across the world. So it’s inevitable that there will be some arbitrary decisions made in either accepting or rejecting applicants. Getting rid of standardized test scores, I believe, made it harder to be objective, but that’s a topic for a different thread.
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unfortunately thats probably where the SAT/ACT came into play but i understand the dispute over it
I agree with this. Test scores were another piece of the puzzle that helped differentiate students. At our school, for at least the last 4-5 years, we’ve never had a graduate with straight As.
Are there other students who’ve never had a B? Is your child ranked #1? That’s super impressive.
nope, because the valedictorian and salutatorian have straight A+ going to MIT and Stanford respectively
Getting all A’s is quite common at my school (20-30% I think) in the bay area. Not that my school is easy at all… there are just a lot of hard working kids and it’s certainly easier than your private school. It really depends on the school, which is why GPA is a poor metric imho.
Yes, of course the AOs can try to take into account a school’s difficulty, but there are so many confounding factors that it seems much more logical to include some kind of standardized test to compare.
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i agree. grade inflation hurts everyone (not saying your school does that) i feel my kids school doesn’t have grade inflation mainly because top kids go to MIT/cal tech stanford UCLA and Ivy other T10 .
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Are admitted students day offered on various days? My son told me there are multiple days to visit- but I don’t know if there is just one of these “admitted days.” Thanks- I never experienced this with our ‘20 kid.
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Bruin Day 2023 - Welcome - I think all 4 of these dates are admitted student days… April 1, 2, 8, and 9
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I was just looking at some data and it seems like the effect of removing SAT is even larger than I thought. Before 2020 my school would usually have ~60 people accepted to UC Berkeley. Starting in 2020 that number dropped to around 20. My school is one of the most high-achieving schools in the country, at least in terms of olympiad qualifiers and science fair winners, so I guess those sort of students are getting the short end of the stick with these new policies.
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Bummer. 
Kids struggle with the feeling that their years of work and achievements are in a sense invalidated. It’s a very harsh reality. Disheartening. I am a little concerned that my child will develop the belief that striving for something is futile.
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D22 - denied Environ. Science
In state
ELC
Leadership, sports, community service same place 4 years, job -
UW 3.98 - UC capped 4.23
Lots of APs (English, Math through Calc BC) 4 years science, 4 years of ART (AP and seminar)
Not unexpected UCLA is always a Reach- not upset – But for those looking at stats and expectations – Also received the emails to apply for Alumni Scholarship - did not apply.
Rejected; UCLA, UCD
Accepted: SDSU (December with honors invite), Cal Poly SLO, Long Beach (Honors Invite), UCR, Chico, SF State, Humboldt
WL: UCSC, UCSD
Waiting on: UCSB - do not expect to get in - maybe waitlist
Tough year for UCs(and we knew that was very possible) for the kids in the LOW High stats – very thankful that she took a deep dive into the CSUs - got into all she applied. Safeties are NOT UCs or SDSU, or Cal Poly SLO – we know so many kids WL - She was not interested in privates or OOS.
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UCLA is not dumb. They will see and noticed a pattern of grade inflation in some of these private exclusive rich schools. What does it say when they keep sending students with no B.
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I’m curious if that’s even done at the UCs? Certainly at private colleges, they evaluate the applicant in the context of their school profile. Not sure how the UCs even have time to do this if or if they review applications by regions. It seems like it’s a straight numbers game as one data point.
HS applicants are evaluated within the context of their HS by the UC’s.
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I really doubt how well this works in practice. At some point for impacted majors, they will end up with a short list of candidates from various schools and will have to narrow down at that point. At that stage, is there a normalized UC GPA for comparison? If not, it’s hard for a reader not to be biased towards the higher GPA. Nuance and high application volume is a hard combination to sustain.
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I have to agree in real setting I doubt they have time to sort through the dynamics of all high schools instate and OOS regarding grade inflation, school population, etc to level the field. I’m sure they try but unrealistic expectations. There are pros and cons to most measuring criteria. But when you get rid of standardized testing, you don’t have a baseline of what your applicants population look like on “equal” (yes not perfect) exam. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why there is an explosion of applicants. We didn’t suddenly develop 10-20,000 super students overnight. I always like the statement that essays are super important. Yet that is precisely the type of thing people can work around.
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Makes it feel like it was all worth it!! Thanks so much!!
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What are the Top 10 most applied?