I was forwarded a twit stating data says otherwise. It shows at least in 2022, the UC admission were unrelated to academic performance (by standard test such as AP or CAASPP). This caught me in surprise too and I am digging into my own county data to verify.
I wondered this as well. There are plenty of universities in CA that rival the UCās - Stanford, the Claremont Colleges, Santa Clara University just to name a few. With high enough test scores and merit they can be the same price as the UCās. How did she do there?
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I have been told by moderator that I shouldnāt include the link, because it directly reference race. I am surprised, as it wasnāt about race. I will take down the link (which include the data proof).
SCU charge 58K per year vs UC 17K. It doesnāt give out much merit based scholarship too.
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I also predict a greater emphasis on the AP scores in the applications, which in turn I suspect will lead to more students taking AP classes EARLIER in their high school careers (soph and junior years) so those test scores can be reported. The new āsubstituteā for the SAT in UCās eyes perhaps.
And for those high schools that refuse to allow sophs to take more than one AP class, well, thereās nothing to stop students from piling up the APs from UC Scout, Apex, BYU, Silicon Valley Virtual HS, etc. And of course AP tests can always be taken after self-study. My DD is taking the AP Econ test next month even though her school offers only regular Econ.
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I thought that SCU did give merit? I know they have a few full ride merit scholarships. A student of my friend is picking SCU over UCLA for that scholarship. Many schools do give merit for scores along with GPA. Some in CA but also some nearby on the west coast (Oregon and Washington state have a number of them). USF gives a lot of merit.
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My daughter has 3 or 4 friends in the same boat. They are all comp sci or comp eng applicants and have either received 1 waitlist offer and the rest rejections, or just all rejections. They all have high gpa scores.
Interestingly none of them chose to apply to UCR or UCM and now they find themselves without an offer and considering cc and transfer to the only UCs that accept TAG for that degree. (UCR and UCM)
Iām not sure why they didnāt entertain the idea of any CSUās.
What major did your daughter apply to?
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I donāt think those CA private schools give much (if any) merit aid. And for those families who donāt qualify for need based aid, they are completely unaffordable. Stanford is $62K while UC is $17K. HUGE difference.
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I agree. Iām very interested to see if our HS ends up offering more at the 10th grade level. Weāve got one more coming along in 7 more years! Honestly I prefer APs to other tests. Itās the ability to validate the course grade with the test score that works well and tells you a lot about the transcript and HS rigor in general.
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Do you think this actually helps with admissions?
I do think the AP credits themselves can be useful, my son is really happy that he is going into college with more than a yearās worth of AP credit, as it will free up a lot of space in his degree to explore other things. But isnāt the conventional wisdom that the AP exams arenāt effective in admissions when not paired with an actual high school class?
Iām not sure. It seems that there is currently a trend AWAY from APs - starting with the elite boarding schools, then filtering down to privates, and now finding its way into competitive publics. The push is for FEWER not MORE APs. Maybe that will change? That doesnāt currently appear to be the case, though.
My dās public school is one that puts the brakes on loading up on APs (not generally allowed freshman and sophomore year, then a limit of 3 per year junior and senior year). This has been the case for a number of years at her school and, despite that, I havenāt heard of a single student self studying and taking the exam. It just isnāt done at her school. So also not sure what that means - if anything - for future trends in California.
Yes I saw a study that found that the best predictor of first-year college success was not GPA alone or SAT alone but GPA+SAT combined.
And the two best predictors of success in K-12 are the presence of books in the home and the presence of a single desk in the home.
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SCU full ride is very rare. More students get 10k per year or so. Even with 10K, tuition is still 48K.
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Yes, my son has friends in this exact situation. Very accomplished kids, too! They are looking at community college or gap year.
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I do think AP classes certainly help with UC admissionsāI looked at some data last month that showed odds are better for admission with 10+ AP classes. MOST (like 60%) UC admits have 10+.
And Iām predicting that AP scoresāthe only truly standardized testing that UC has to look atāmight grow in importance in future years for admissions. Iām pretty impressed when I see the strings of 5s Iāve seen here, and I can tell by the results Iāve seen here on CC that UC seems impressed with that too (unless of course a CS major where everyone is waitlisted by UC).
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Doesnāt that refer to the actual AP classes taken in high school?
Thatās a good question. My guess is that an AP class taken somewhere would count, even if not the studentās HS? But then I donāt know how many ways there are to get AP classes outside of school. I know my daughterās chorus is accredited to teach AP music theory for credit, and some girls do pay for and take it that way and sit for the test, and Iām betting that ends up on a transcript (the chorus is also now WASC accredited so that any HS that agrees can give V & Performing Arts A-G credit for each year a girl sings with the chorus in the highest level, so maybe the WASC thing is the key). What other ways are there to take AP classes?
I think the 10+ bracket for rigor includes IB/AP/DE
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Yes, the 10+ could also be IB or DE.
Super interesting, it makes sense for students to get arts credits from art schools (or LOTE credit from LOTE schools) but I hadnāt heard of this before.
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