The 2025 Fall UC application is now open. The submission period has been extended for this year which is October 1 to December 2, 2024.
UCSB has several YouTube video tutorials that can help answer most questions about the UC application process. As always, @Gumbymom and @lkg4answers are here to help all applicants with their specific questions along with other experienced CC posters with their UC specific experience and knowledge. I have posted the UCSB tutorials below. The UC Tutorials have not been update for 2025 but looking at the UC application for Fall, there appears to be no major changes.
Data from the UC Website for UC Capped Weighted GPA ranges and Overall Campus Admit Rates:
Campus
UC Capped weighted 25th-75th percentile for admitted freshman
Can anyone advise whether the PIQs are assumed to be read all at once?
Asking because my daughter is wondering how to cross-reference certain experiences in multiple PIQs.
Specifically - if she is mentioning experience at an organization with a long name, and she has given the acronym in one PIQ, can she just use the acronym for a brief cross-mention in another question without writing out the org’s entire name?
Should she assume that her reader will be reading all 4 PIQs at once?
They are read at the same time, but you don’t know if they are read in the order in which she writes them.
The same holds true for the Activities & Awards section. You don’t know what order the A&A are sorted for the reader. Readers might read the PIQ before the A&A or might read the A&A before the PIQ.
Does she need to list the entire name of the org? Can she use fewer characters/words by describing the type of org?
The organization’s mission is pretty self explanatory when its name is used in full, but it’s not ubiquitous enough to jump straight to acronym so it sounds like she should use the full name the first time she mentions it any of the PIQs or activities. It would have saved a few words but that’s ok.
I know they consider the UW/W/WC, do you have an idea to what extent the Uncapped Weighted is taken into consideration, and if any particular UC seems to care more about it than others?
UCLA/UCB tend to emphasize the Uncapped fully weighted. Most of the UC’s use the Uncapped fully weighted to determine rigor and for statistical purposes.
Not all schools list the UC GPA’s on their transcripts and what they list may not necessarily be a correct calculation. The UC’s consider the Unweighted UC GPA, Capped weighted and Weighted (uncapped).
The GPA is calculated using a-g course grades taken the summer after 9th through the summer prior to 12th (so 10-11th grades) and UC approved Honors (CA HS only), AP/IB or UC transfer DE/CC classes are given extra Honors weighting in the calculation.
Also, if the student took college or high school courses not listed on the primary high school’s transcript, then any UC GPA calculation from the primary high school’s transcript will differ from that calculated over all high school and college courses.
I have a question regarding comparing applicants from the same school. It’s a bit obscure so perhaps unanswerable?
Will the UC’s compare aspects of the applicants senior year schedules? I know they will look at the courses applicants are taking, but more specifically, will they consider the rigor/how many AP’s taken in 12th grade compared with their school peer applicants?
With respect to the “Activities and Awards” section of the application, if our school offers specialty programs that the student is in enrolled in like HISP or JROTC for example, should they report in as an “educational preparation program” under the activity section or will it already be reflected on their transcript?
Educational prep programs should be listed under that category in the activity section.
The UC’s define Educational activities or programs that can help students prepare for college and enrich their academic experience. These programs can include:
Counseling
Tutoring
Research opportunities
Special study opportunities, like study abroad
JROTC is considered an extracurricular activity for college applications. Colleges evaluate JROTC involvement based on: Commitment level, Leadership roles, and Achievements and honors.
If HISP is the Humanities and International Studies Program, the would fit under the Educational Prep category.
If these specialty programs are reflected on the transcript, that is HS dependent and should be something you ask the HS counselor.
If the applicant has pass/fail courses that are not in the A-G category, do the applicant not list them out? (Because the application does not allow us to move on if we don’t put a grade in.)
Our school mainly gives out a final grade. The semester grade only comes in when the course is a semester course. So, should we choose semester grade or final grade for our school? We need to first choose this before we can input the grades.
Seems like a couple of campuses omit the words “no fixed weight” indicating that their holistic review uses a fixed weight for admission factors. Remember, one of our members looking at his admission file in UCSB and reporting fixed weights.
Merced, Riverside : Fixed Weights
Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz: Holistic Review (omits the word “no fixed weight”)
Berkeley, LA, Irvine, Davis, SD: Holistic Review with no fixed weights
