Hi, I’m a junior and I really want to get into UC Davis. My UC gpa is 4.42 and my unweighted gpa is 4.0. My SAT score is a 1340 (though I plan on retaking it even though it is not required). My extracurriculars are: Volunteering at Red Cross (Volunteer Lead), President of Science club, volunteering at my local hospital, math/science tutoring, classes at my local community college (Anatomy and physio, psychology, and a history class), and pre-med club.
I want to go into the biological sciences major, but I’m really scared because I’m pretty sure I got a 3 on the A.P. bio exam. I did get an A in the class, and got 5s on my other exams (calc AB and Lang). Do you think I’ll get into UC Davis even with the 3, or do you think I should just not report it?
I wouldn’t worry about the “3” on the AP bio exam, I would go ahead and submit it. I would focus more of your attention on getting your SAT up close to the 75th percentile (1490) to give you the best chance at admissions. Full disclosure, I’m a UC Davis alum and enjoyed my time there. Good luck!
@PotatoPerson Did you include your community college courses while calculating UC weighted GPA? How did you arrive at your UC gpa? I have a junior son, that’s why asking
UC’s consider 3 GPA’s: Unweighted UC GPA, Capped weighted UC GPA (GPA most cited on Freshman profiles) and the Fully weighted UC GPA.
Here is the calculator and you should include all CC courses (DE), UC approved Honors courses, AP and IB for the extra honors points in the calculation if you are a CA resident.
@PotatoPerson Capped and weighted UC GPA can not be greater than 4.4. You are limited to 8* semesters (4 classes) worth of weighted classes for your 10th and 11th grade GPA.
So if you take 5** (A-G) classes per year, you will take 20 semesters worth of classes. Therefore, 20 x 4.0 + 8* x 1.0 = 88 gpa points, divided by 20 semesters = 4.4. If you take more than 5** (A-G) classes per semester at any time during your 10th and 11th grade years, your capped and weighted GPA (assuming all A’s) will be less than 4.4.
Assuming you take at least 4 classes (8 semesters) of weighted classes during 10th and 11th grade.
*Assuming you have to take at least 5 (A-G) classes during 10th and 11th grade.
Are community college courses worth a semester? I read in Rogers site that if a student received only one letter grade, it’s a semester course. (Not an yearlong course). Am I correct?
@honeybeedoors My situation is a little different. I have 16 a-g course semesters that I have taken at my high school + 3 community college classes that count as one semester each. I only have 16 semesters at my high school because this semester I have pass/fail grades, so I’m not counting that in my GPA. Also in my sophomore year, I had to take athletic P.E., which is not a A-G class. 5 semesters of my high school semester are UC approves honors/AP classes, and the 3 community college classes I have taken are all UC transferable, so they also count as weighted credit. So basically I have a total of 19 semesters, 8 of which are weighted semesters, which is why my weighted gpa is over a 4.4.
Your capped weighted is not that far off from the 4.4 max so it may depend on the calculator used. Based on your profile, I would say UC Davis is a Match school. Best of luck and the 3 UC GPA’s are Unweighted, capped weighted and fully weighted.
@PotatoPerson It sounds like you will be at (or near) the 4.4 max. The whole pass/no pass (due to Covid-19) will likely require a revamp of the capped and weighted UC gpa but the UC’s are running out of time for (the future) class of 2025 applications.
In the past, UC Davis appeared to weight gpa higher than other factors which would be in your favor. Now that UC’s are ignoring test scores, no one knows how the UC’s will differentiate candidates with all A’s.
I think you need to give weightage to only 6-semester classes instead of the normal 8 as we had this time no spring semester due to COVID. Hence your calculation should be:
19-6=13 normal classes and 6 weighted classes.
134 + 65 = 82/19 = 4.315 (4.32, which makes sense as capped can not exceed 4.4)
@Suave123 Your guess is as good as mine regarding how to do capped and weighted GPA with all of the issues (some schools going pass/no pass, some schools all grades, other schools all grades but lowering the percentage required to get an A for the spring semester, etc.).
In regard to weighted classes, what if someone took 3 weighted classes in 10th grade and 1 in 11th…or 4 weighted classes in 10th grade but none in 11th? You may be on the right track with not counting the weighted points during the pass/no pass semester but the point of the capped and weighted UC gpa was to compare* students from different high schools. Specifically to compare between high schools that have very few AP’s/weighted classes vs larger (and potentially better funded) schools with considerably more AP’s/weighted classes.
*I suspect the capped and weighted GPA also benefits students who choose their rigor (AP’s and weighted) to their strengths rather than take every available AP class just because it helps or doesn’t hurt (if they get a B or better) their weighted GPA.
Yeah, I feel like no one really knows how they are going to calculate everyone’s GPA. Maybe they will have a different way of calculating for each high school depending on the grading system they had for second semester. They should really release information about it.
