<p>ELC from an inner city high school can mean that you are in the top 4% of your class (even though your acheivements/grades could be much lower compared to other high school students) and you will be accepted at a UC.</p>
<p>ELC from a top high school can mean that you are one of the best students in California and probably will get in to the UC of your choice.</p>
<p>I have UC GPA of 3.78 and New SAT of 2260.
But My Class Rank is in 3rd Decile (20%-30%) from a very competitive high school where median Old SAT is 1430.</p>
<p>Now, since UC Santa Cruz for example publishes that their class consists of 96% from top 10% and 100% from top 25%, I will not have any chance at this school?</p>
<p>My guess is if they consider class rank, I'm out. Otherwise I'm in.</p>
<p>What do you think?</p>
<p>I think you're in. </p>
<p>I also think it's not true that 100% of their students are from the top 25% of their hs classes. (I know enrolled students who definitely are not top 25%) On the other hand, they may be top 25% of California students as a whole. I've always wondered if this is the way that UCs report their ranking stats - not a percentage of each high school, the way they do the ELC, but of all students. I just know too many kids at different UCs that were not top 25% - or in UCB and UCLA's case, not top 10%.</p>
<p>Now, this is a very interesting twist.
How do we explore more?</p>
<p>Also, some of those recruited athletes at either UCB or UCLA can not possibly be in Top 25% of their class. How can they boast that 100% of their class is from Top 25%.</p>
<p>I think ELC is UC's way of doing some affirmative action for URMs'
based on lower socio-economic status. It's a well known fact that schools
in affluent areas do better than the ones in less desirable neighbourhoods.</p>
<p>The high performing students (top 4%) from the low-performing schools get an extra boost ... True, the top 4% from the high performing schools get a boost as well, but I figure they'd be in even without the ELC ... on the strength of their grades, Honors/AP corsework, and test results.
So the handicap is intended primarily for uplifting the less fortunate.</p>