I’m going into my senior year of high school this year and I’m currently wondering what exactly determines what type of honors you graduate with. Is it determined by your weighted or unweighted GPA?
How will my class rank and type of honors I graduate with affect my chances of getting into a UC or cal state? I’m looking into San Francisco State or San Jose State.
The type of honors you get when you graduate will dependent upon your HS and will have no effect on your chances at the Cal states and UC’s other than being a top student. Just because you are a Valedictorian or Salutatorian, does not mean you are guaranteed admission to any school.
Cal States do not consider class rank or graduation honors in their admission decisions. UC’s only use rank for ELC eligibility: top 9% of your HS or in-state.
ELC eligibility guarantees that you if you do not get accepted into your choice UC, then you will be given a spot at UC Merced.
Cal States are only interested in your CSU GPA, Test scores, HS course rigor (UC approved Honors courses/AP/IB or dual enrollment), Geographic location (local in-service area or out of area), while UC’s will also look at EC’s and essays.
The Cal States admit by eligibility index and major (exception Cal Poly SLO uses MCA points).
First you need to calculate your CSU/UC GPA: https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/
They use 10-11th grades from you a-g course requirements. You get extra honors points for UC approved Honors courses/AP/IB or DE courses.
You can look up your HS’s UC approved courses on this link:
https://hs-articulation.ucop.edu/agcourselist#/list/search/institution
Once you have your CSU/UC GPA, then you need your test scores and you can plug them into the EI calculation.
(CSU/UC GPA x800) + (SAT Math+CR) or (CSU/UC GPA x200) + (ACT composite x10)
SJSU is the only Cal State that publishes their EI thresholds for each major to give you an idea of your competitiveness/chances.
http://www.sjsu.edu/admissions/impaction/impactionresultsfreshmen/index.html
For the UC’s, much will depend upon your UC GPA along with test scores, intended major, essays and EC’s.
UC’s are very GPA focused so the higher the UC GPA, the better along with competitive test scores, interesting essays and EC’s along with good HS course rigor.
Once you have calculated your CSU/UC GPA, have test scores and EI to post, come back if you want some idea of your chances.