As far as I know, you are correct. My son had some math classes from a CSU that he took in HS and those didn’t count towards the GPA. Got him out of a bunch of math classes though.
If the CC classes are UC transferable, then they are given UC credit but not included in the UC GPA.
A Foreign language UC transferable course taken at a CC can fulfill some or all of a UC FL requirements but it depends upon the level taken at the CC. You can use assist.org to determine what CC courses fullfill the FL requirement.
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As someone else said above, after she sends in her final AP scores to UCLA in July, the university will prepare information for her regarding her credits, etc. that will all get reviewed as part of freshman orientation whenever she attends that this summer. Make sure to sign up for orientation as soon as that opens (mid May?) as those sessions do fill up. It doesn’t matter when she does it, just that she gets an orientation slot. There is something called a “degree audit report” that will contain all of the info about her academic standing, credits, etc. and her new student advisor will go over that with her. If you want a little preview of what credit you get from APs, that’s online. This one is for “the college,” but there are separate charts for the school of engineering, music, etc. https://admission.ucla.edu/admitted-students/ap-credit-the-college
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This forum is great. Thank you to all who responded with such helpful information. You guys are awesome.
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Thank you so much @GoldRush2! I have a question regarding the page that lists AP Credits and how they are received by UCLA – it says that AP Credit does not satisfy GE requirements, but then some AP tests have a code next to them that says “Satisfies American History requirement” or “Satisfies Quantitative Reasoning requirement” – are these requirements something other than GE requirements? I’ve searched around and around UCLA’s site and can’t find clear guidance. Not sure if you’ve been through this already, so if you have insight it would be hugely appreciated!
Also, my D22 could come in with 60 units of credit, assuming she passes her batch of tests this year. While I understand that these units aren’t counting towards GEs or major classes, I imagine they would help in terms of getting her a higher standing/better class registration time?
Regarding AP credits and class registration for UCLA:
AP and IB classes are not used to determine appointment times for class registration.
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My S22 was offered the UCLA Regents Scholarship today. So there is still hope for those still waiting for late news. We weren’t expecting it with the RSSLA event being yesterday. He SIRed to Cal last night.
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Congratulations!!!
@Gumbymom answered one of the key questions already about whether or not your credits/higher standing helps move you up in registration: nope. 
Even if you have sophomore standing or higher based on dual enrollment/CC classes or AP scores, you are still considered a first-year for purposes of getting your courses. Expect to have plans B, C, D, E, and F for what you want to take that first year because it is a little cutthroat to get into those popular classes, and upperclassmen who are closer to their degree will have priority. Have your Bruins download the Coursicle app. It will alert you when slots open based on waitlists, etc. The only students who have actual priority their first year are Regents Scholars. Starting Winter Quarter they get registration priority for classes.
The GE thing is definitely a little tricky and confusing and I don’t completely understand it, but just know that some “requirements” are not what are typically referred to as GEs. So the Writing Requirements, Foreign Language requirement, and the American History/Institutions requirement are not technically GEs. But they have to get done. Our experience is that APs will help you meet those (i.e. my son was able to use AP US History, Spanish, and AP Lang scores to get out of the ones I listed above), but the other AP scores may help get you into a higher level math class or something…they won’t count to get you out of GEs in the other areas, though. This is sort of helpful, but again it’s related to the College (and your kid might be in Engineering or a different school, in which case I know nothing. :)) – https://caac.ucla.edu/academic-planning/degree-requirements/
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Yes, to be clear you can get credit for required courses in your major (eg a 5 in Calc BC counts for the first two math courses), just not for GEs. As far as non-major related courses go, AP foreign language is by far the most important as it can get you out of an entire year of classes.
If you have a really short major and want to graduate in three years then you can use your remaining AP credit to get to the 180 unit minimum.
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Yes exactly. And specific to math, there is also a placement test given over the summer that they can take to pass them out of the entry level math classes they might need to take as prerequisites for certain majors. So even if they don’t have an AP score (my kiddo elected not to take the AB Calculus exam last spring because his senior year was entirely online and they honestly weren’t prepared well enough – he knew he would want to take calculus again at UCLA anyway), they can get into a slightly higher math class to start just by placing high enough on the placement exam.
Thank you so much, everyone. For the info and those links, super helpful.
I’m a little worried about making all of these alternative plans for first year courses. My D22 is a pre-political science major with an interest in double majoring in either English or Communications (if she is accepted into the Comms major). She also plans to take the science cluster and has no AP Language test to excuse her from the language requirement (but she has 3 years of French and will take the placement exam). She will have Calc AB so if she gets a 5, it looks like it will replace Math 31A.
What are these popular classes that everyone wants? I would think that freshmen and seniors would have very different needs, class wise? She was hoping to take the cluster class, Poli Sci 30, Comms 10 and a Fiat Lux class her first quarter, and then ramp up to 4 classes per quarter after that.
In my son’s case, he had a hard time getting into Math 31A that first quarter. He wanted it but he wanted/needed the Cluster class more (he’s in the Evolution one – it’s taking care of all 4 science GEs and is a great one for a non-science major). As a probable Econ major (still tbd) who also had thoughts of Poli Sci, he couldn’t make the Cluster work and Math 31A work and/or the intro Poli Sci class work in his schedule. Either he couldn’t get them because the spaces were gone – or more likely there were spaces but not with a section that didn’t conflict with Cluster. One thing that’s important is that you can’t double up on classes that may have their final exam on the same day. All that will be explained when they sign up during orientation. She just may not get everything she wants that first quarter. He ended up deciding the Cluster was most important so he pushed for that (and had to get help behind the scenes from his new student advisor to make it happen because it was actually full when it was his turn), and he figured he would just delay the start of his math prerequisites. It’s worked out fine. He took 31A last quarter and is in 31B this quarter. You can’t take the econ classes until you’ve either taken or are concurrently enrolled in the right math, so it wasn’t until this quarter that he’s been able to take the first econ class to start figuring out if that will be his major. In the end he feels a little behind figuring out the major thing, but he’s well ahead in finishing his GEs because of Cluster and because when he couldn’t get the classes he wanted in math/econ, he knocked out other GEs. It will all work out! They just need to be a little flexible. Kids who can’t get out of the foreign language requirement often seem to end up taking it over a summer at a community college and that works too.
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I wouldn’t stress out too much about getting classes. My son graduated from UCLA last year and rarely had problems getting a class he needed. Of the few Fiat Lux classes that interested him, he was unable to get those because they had 20 students or so. But getting a larger GE class wasn’t much of an issue - sometimes you do have to go to plan B, but just plan for a few options. Also, there is some strategy because you can only sign up for about 10 units on first pass. Choose which ones you sign up for based partly on what will fill up fastest. You can look online to see how a class filled up in previous years. You’ll have a time or two where you won’t get your first choice of class, but it won’t be a regular thing. And if you really want something and there is an 8 am,option, that will usually be available.
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Excellent point about the 8am option. That’s exactly how he got his spot in Math 31A last quarter. 4 days a week, 8am.
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Thank you both @GoldRush2 and @youcee. My D22 is kind of an intense planner so there is already a spreadsheet involved But I need to encourage her not to get to locked into her plan, so it helps to hear others’ experiences and strategies. For example, I learned about the cluster from you @GoldRush2! She definitely wants the Evolution one, to do the same as your son did and knock out the science requirements. Plus she thinks it sounds super cool. She also thought the food one was interesting. She’s also game for an 8 am class. She’s a morning person and knows she needs the structure of attending class to organize and motivate herself so I hope that is to her advantage.
(10 units is 2.5 classes, right? And the cluster doesn’t count so she can use her first pass to get Poli Sci and Comms 10)
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She’s going to thrive! As long as she’s ready to advocate for herself and really make sure that new student advisor helps her as much as possible during orientation, and assuming she can stay a little flexible and know that it will work out in the end, she’ll be great! I confess I’m not completely up on what the units amount to, but I think most courses are something like 4 or 5 units – something like that. Thus far he’s only taken 3 classes per quarter, but now that he’s got his sea legs, I can see going up to 4 sometimes.
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North campus classes are usually 5 units and south campus (math, engineering, etc) are usually 4. Both classes you listed (Poli Sci and Comms 10) are 5 units each. You can see what was offered last fall here:
https://sa.ucla.edu/ro/public/soc
Just select the Fall 2021 term and desired department for the classes in that department.
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Not exactly true for the first quarter, at least pre-Covid you signed up for all (usually) three classes at in person orientation. I don’t remember if there were two separate passes within the session, but they reverse the order of sign up for pass 1 and pass 2, so it’s usually best to have a poor pass 1 time so pass 2 is better. You drew lots within your orientation group of about 8 people (IIRC) for the order of sign up and then took it in turn at the minute the classes open (they open up a certain number of spots for each orientation session). The first five or six out of eight generally got what they wanted, the last two or three had a few problems.
The cluster doesn’t need to be first pass in subsequent quarters as you are guaranteed a spot (albeit not necessarily with the same TA, and some are better than others - S had to grovel to his TA to open up another spot for him). But you might not get the cluster you want at orientation. I think the science one tends to be the most popular precisely because of the GEs it covers for arts/social science students. S ended up doing his science GEs separately (he took atmospheric sciences and quite enjoyed it).
You might have to choose: is it more important to get both comms and poli sci or the cluster you want. I think S took poli sci and econ 1 (he had a 5 in Calc BC) and then got what was left on the clusters. There weren’t any interesting Fiat Lux courses left so he never did one.
In subsequent quarters when he had a poor second pass time he learned the trick of getting a friend with a better second pass time who only wanted to do three classes to hold a fourth class for him and then later on drop it at precisely the moment he would go online to sign up for it.
And just to add that econ and poli sci are both really short (unless you want to do an econ PhD in which case math econ is advisable) so no need to worry about getting started right away. Public affairs is another option if you are interested in the practical sides of these subjects (and IIRC doesn’t have math pre-requisites). S added the minor in professional writing and has had hardly any classes senior year, he’s been doing a thesis and setting up contract research classes to fill his time, other friends have graduated early.
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