That’s an interesting point. I do not work in admissions so can only speculate, but I do wonder if it’s different at UCs, which is why the UCs use three GPAs (unweighted, weighted capped, weighted uncapped). That strategy specifically addresses the issue of students with different opportunities across schools, but possible also within schools, which seems to be the case at these schools where one must be invited to participate the IB program. If a student doesn’t get the invite, this strategy ensures that it doesn’t shut them out of the UCs, and that does seem more fair to me. I can imagine at least a dozen reasons why a student might not be invited to a special program with a limited number of spots, but who would otherwise be an excellent candidate for the UCs. I would also guess that the school profiles that the UCs receive explain that not all students are allowed to participate in the IB program, and therefore did not have the same opportunities to demonstrate rigor, which would bring the other UC GPA calculations into play. But, again, this is just my speculation as an outside observer who is not privy to the inner workings of UC admissions.
I’m most interested to see if @MrCheapo and @Guy_Rien kids get shut out (my guess is no) because both seemed to have planned for it in the various threads.
Of course, you should plan for the worst so I get that but I’d be more optimistic in the outcomes that are likely to happen.
And if it doesn’t happen - not much more the kids could do so you hold your head high either way.
Agree with your points. Definitely the ways in which in-state publics assess students from in-state high schools should take these things into account. I don’t know how students ‘receive an invite’ to participate in IB, hopefully it’s not entirely subjective and is based on some more objective measures like grades in 7th/8th/9th and/or test scores.
Coming from a California public school system, I can say that there are cases where what the 5th grade teacher decides is what sets you on your entire middle and high school math trajectory. Depending on the schools and on the opportunities offered to that student it can be very hard to get off that track. Not every student can afford to move up a track by taking private school math to accelerate a level over a summer if the school doesn’t offer it, for example. Not every parent may feel equipped to advocate for their student if for whatever reason they may have been placed on a lower level than they can be successful at - I think we know well that tertiary-educated, first language English parents are much more likely to be outspoken here . So if math level is one of those criteria, it reinforces the divide.
I get it, there are access issues at every point during K-12 education. College admissions is imperfect and can’t always fix/compensate for the accumulated access issues that a given student has faced from K-12.
Sure, but to go back to @worriedmomucb ’s post above, if the state university system’s admissions process is trying to account for some of those issues for its instate students, that also makes sense.
Yes, that’s exactly what I wrote.
I will go back to something I have repeated time and again. Too many people here think that college admission is a prize, and that AOs are a committee tasked to see which students “deserve” that “prize”.
Public universities have very specific missions, and the mission is NOT “offer admissions to the the students with the highest weighted GPAs and the largest number of AP/IB courses”.
Their mission is to educate the high school graduates of their state. That’s why they get state funding and, more importantly nowadays, state land. The point of admissions is to make certain that students who are accepted will succeed and hopefully thrive. Accepted wisdom is that students who do well in rigorous classes in high school are more likely to succeed in college. Flagships and highly popular public universities ALSO want the prestige that comes with having an academically talented undergraduate student body.
Complaining that “Kid A has more AP classes than Kid B, so Kid A deserves to be accepted more than Kid B” is assuming that admissions is a prize for the largest number of AP classes.
If a “non-IB” kid has a transcript that demonstrates that they can keep up with the rigor of undergraduate classes at Berkeley, that means that they “deserve” to be admitted as much as an IB kid who has done a larger number of rigorous classes.
I would also guess that there is a difference in acceptance rate among the IB kids and non-IB kids to some colleges and majors. I would assume that admissions to engineering or CDSS would require more than a high weighted GPA, and that a student who took the most challenging math courses is much more likely to be accepted to these colleges, and the IB program provides more challenging math classes.
[aside]
Not according to their admissions website
It looks like a curve of diminishing returns: bottom 25% 0-8 APs, mid 50% 9-13, top 25% 14 and up. It’s also not the number of AP classes per se, it’s how rigorous the high school track. In schools that have APs only for juniors and seniors, the most rigorous track will have 8-12 APs. For schools in which APs start in Sophomore year, you can add 2-3 more APs. For any kid in any high school, doing more APs than required by the course sequence that the high school considers to be the “most rigorous” is probably overkill.
[/aside]
AP Calc BC is more rigorous than IB A&A HL (IB’s highest math.)
This sounds like the same mission as many private colleges too. Exceptions might include MIT and CalTech.
We will have to agree to disagree on UGA.
This was posted to FB in case it is of interest. Maybe not too much really new (we all know that colleges build classes), but claims that all applications have now been reviewed - by at least two readers - and gives decision dates, in case you’re following that.
What FB group was that posted on? I’m a bit skeptical. Did Berkeley early admits hear yesterday? For the rest of the class, UC Berkeley usually admits students the day before the Cesar Chavez holiday. If they claim to know the dates, and those aren’t accurate, how accurate is the rest that they claim to know?
It was in a “Class of” group. He is apparently a verified UC expert, but obviously anyone can be anyone on Facebook, so no idea if he’s legit. And he notes those were the 2025 decision dates (I had actually misread as 2026), so I guess just posted for reference, with the assumption that the 2026 dates will be pretty close to those.
Of course, if being selected for IB or some other program is based on middle school grades or testing, while those not selected have limited academic opportunities in high school, raises the stakes and pressure in middle school, and favors early bloomers over late bloomers.
I think she has a very good chance at the UC’s. My daughter had similar stats (4.9, top of the class etc, good EC’s) and is at UCLA. She got into all UC’s she applied to. She jokes that almost all her friends at UCLA were valedictorians. Several have IB diplomas. Sounds like your daughter fits the mold of a UCLA student to me.
I wouldn’t count on too much aid for merit, UC’s mainly give need based aid.
The top students in my daughter’s graduating class that were shut out of UC’s applied to very impacted majors (engineering.)
My daughter’s high school is a title 1 school also, and I’ve been told only two students a year usually get into UCLA. I’d bet yours will be UC bound with 8 slots.
Presumably, they also did not want to go to UCM or UCR?
I just looked at all the UC decision dates and the information on the post and is verbatim of my notes that I have posted on CC. So this so called expert must have found this on CC and copied the information.
Very Interesting.
Here are my notes for the 2025 Decisions from my IPAD file:
UC Berkeley: Early Admits Friday February 7, 3:30 PST (included Regents/Chancellor prospective students, MET, HAAS Spieker program. March 27, 3:30 PM PST with Regents and Seeds scholarship notification.
UC Irvine: Friday March 14 5:00 PM PST. Regents and Chancellors awarded at time of admission
UCLA: Friday March 21, 5:00 PM PST. Regents awarded with email starting on March 22
UC San Diego: Friday March 14 4:30 PM PST
UC Davis: Friday March 7, 2025 around 2:45 PM PST. Regents and Honor’s College invites posted at time of admission.
UC Merced: Early admits December 18, 2024 and January 4, 2025. Admission outreach to top students in December/January with application fee waiver. More admits posted March 14, 2025, admits March 21, 2025. Referrals sent April 4, 2025.
UC Riverside: Friday February 28, 2025 1:30 PM. Regents, Achievement, Chancellor scholarships awarded at time of admission.
UC Santa Barbara: Chancellor Reception Invites for NY area February 18, 2025. LA/SJ reception invites out on February 20, 2025. Regent Scholarship notifications snail mail March 5, 2025. Decisions Tuesday March 18, 2025 around 2:20 PM PST & CCS notifications around 6 PM PST
UC Santa Cruz: Some early admits Friday February 21, 2025. Dean’s Scholarship and Regents awards posted February 26, 2025. 2nd wave Friday March 7, 2025 around 12 PM PST.
Interesting! We have a mole in our midst 
At our school, AP Calc BC is a pre-req for IB HL math. The kids with the strongest math skills do IB math, but a CC would consider both as part of a “most rigorous “ curriculum.
That seems like substantial duplication of content, especially for students good enough in math to be on the +2 or +3 math track.
I agree that’s significant duplication, especially as AP Calc BC is commonly regarded as the more difficult/rigorous course as compared to IB A&A HL and far more rigorous than IB A&I HL (where AP Calc AB is the more difficult/rigorous course.) Just to put a very fine point on this, at the college where I work if a student has AP Calc BC and IB A&A HL on their transcript (which does happen) we would consider AP Calc BC as the ‘highest’ math. This based on a highly detailed sheet compiled by our math department leaders.
Even for IB A&I HL?