FPF is only offered to UCB applicants in the College of Letters and Sciences. Read over the link posted by @lkg4answers which I have also linked here. It is pretty self explanatory.
Why do you not agree with the TX top 10% rule? It sounds great to me but then I don’t know the details or the pros/cons. BTW I love TX schools for OOS students. My DS3 in 2021 was offered admission to 5 of them (not the flagships) and the OOS tuition was as low as WUE (with warmer TX weather which he wanted). TX found oil in 1900, funded their universities well, and never looked back. . .
But so does California - the top 9% get guaranteed admission to a UC, although there is still some stigma - quite unwarranted imo - against the Merced campus that is the one offered currently. But the top 9% of students absolutely do have a UC admissions guarantee, and they are informed of their status and whether they qualify the moment they submit the UC app.
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Is anything guaranteed for California students other than ELC 9% at some UC school? For example, at Texas Tech, top 10% are assured admits. If you are ranked 11-25% with an ACT of 24, guaranteed admission. The next quartile needs an ACT of 26 to be guaranteed, and so on. Each public has slightly different standards, but by knowing your rank and score, you should know which public colleges you are guaranteed admission, even if they are not selective. Is there anything like that?
Yes similar results for my DD. Applied to 7, admitted to 3, waitlisted at 2, rejected from 1, waiting on 1. There was no way to predict these results so a wide net needed to be cast.
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There is a perception of one for sure. In reality? No idea, as there is not enough data… I think it may just be disproportionate apps to more competitive majors.
Yes. The top 9% get guaranteed UC admission, as you mention. But in addition to that - at least in our county and neighboring counties - all students who meet the minimum GPA and course requirements have guaranteed admission to our regional CSU.
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So its top 9%, with all the rest undifferentiated? The top 10% and top 90% can all go to CSU?
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Thanks. Do you know what sort of applicants are typically offered that program? Is it like a “priority waitlist” situation for those applicants that almost-but-not-quite were offered admission and are therefore sort of at the “top” of that that group not accepted outright? Other criteria? I guess these questions will be coming up soon in the UC Berkeley forum.
Not sure why that’s bad? Pretty much every student who maintains a minimum of a 3.0 in high school is guaranteed admission at an excellent 4 year college, whether it’s a UC for the top students, or a CSU for the middle-ground students.
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I’d like to say that it is within the California Master Plan for Higher Education that the top 12.5% of students should go to a UC, the top 12.5-33% should go to a CSU, and the rest go to community college, if any higher education at all.
Based on current trends, I’d say that those numbers are not being stuck too at all. Probably the top 20% make it into a UC nowadays, with the top 60% probably able to go into CSU.
I’m not sure when the ELC program was implemented, but ELC (“eligibility within local context”) designation is for the top 9% of each high school graduating class. They are guaranteed admission into the UC system in general (but not the campus of their choice). Typically, this means that students in the top 9% that somehow are not able to get into any of the other UCs during the conventional admissions cycle get referred for enrollment to Merced.
CSUs do have regional guaranteed admission plans also, but I’m not sure if they are set in stone or systemwide.
San Francisco State, a CSU near the Bay area, states it is a C minus or passing grade average that is sufficient for admission. I did not realize that some were essentially open -enrollment. I understand, but I can see why some students would not view that as an appealing option.
In the past, some admitted students have been offered the program along with the majority of waitlisted admits for the College of L&S.
Yeah, Texans have a pretty good deal, being able to guarantee admission to their flagship at all. However, there’s just too many graduating high schoolers in CA to go past the 9% to Merced rule.
I guess perhaps Berkeley and LA could guarantee the top 1-3% from each CA high school, but even then that would be stretching it (and there’s already significant overlap between the top 3% or so and admission to a UC flagship)
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In theory, it sounds like a good rule. Pros & cons. Kids do know what to expect for the most part. Taking some of the guessing out of the college process is a good thing. Kids can focus on other instate options or other OOS flagships that offer reciprocity.
Lots of great Texas schools… but like the top UC’s … UT Austin & Texas A&M are the top public flagships that everyone wants.
The rule just has unintended consequences. Such as, kids taking easier classes, kids not having meaningful extracurriculars, kids transferring to lesser school districts to improve their class rank, etc. It becomes all about getting the best grades. Period.
No perfect answer. Just food for thought.
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Actually the top 5% are fine anywhere. And my kids didnt attend a Texas college, but it helps people to know that if the are in the 25% percentile they can go to college X, 50th percentile college Y, etc.
Our local CSU is Cal State East Bay and I know they offer an admissions guarantee for neighboring counties, including ours. I am not sure of the GPA cut off for guaranteed admissions - I think it might be 3.0, but I am not 100% certain about that.
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My DS3 with a dismal 2.4 GPA was admitted into 5 Cal States in 2021. He has ADHD and didn’t thrive with CA’s 18 months of “remote learning.” He did have As in his two AP Computer Science classes (the only APs he took) and got 5s on the two CS AP tests. And he’s a Computer Science major now, a thriving soph at Chico State. A high admission rate might look “undesirable” for the top students though, I get it, but he’s still getting that much-desired CS degree. (My high stats DD didn’t want to even apply to any college that accepted her brother 
).
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Too bad UCLA doesn’t do the same! Maybe the attrition rate after the Fall is higher at Cal than it is at UCLA.
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East Bay CSU now uses a dizzying multi factor test for admission including low income, first gen, hours worked, etc etc. Minimum gpa remains 2.0.