<p>QM – the Golden State Exam was an exam that given in California high schools on a voluntary basis by schools that wanted to participate. My son who graduated in 2001 had them at his school my son got High Honors in all of them. My son was in a high school with an integrated science program, so he wasn’t taking AP’s. However, he liked the tests because they weren’t multiple-choice – apparently the science tests required doing a lab. The tests were keyed to California curriculum standards. From what I can find, at many high schools very high percentage of students received “high honors” – often 50% or more. </p>
<p>Algebra was commonly offered to 8th graders in middle school, which tested students in the spring. My son took algebra in 8th grade, went into honors geometry in 9th. (We’re in a “low wealth” district, so if this was common in our district I assume that the kids had even better options in many other districts – my son took a pre-algebra class at a summer enrichment program at a middle school in a neighboring district and was amazed at their resources.) The next course in the sequence after algebra II/trig would be either “math analysis” (you see that on one of the other transcripts) or “pre-calc”. </p>
<p>The courses in California high schools (at least in public high schools) are approved and registered with the UC system – so the ad com knows exactly what the courses and course sequences are. They have that all on file.</p>
<p>The honors designation on a course would give it a weighted value for purposes of the UC calculation. So those B’s would have a 4.0 value. But there were and are kids like my son earning straight A’s in those courses – I think my son’s UC GPA was 4.3. (There’s a limit to how many weighted grades the UC will allow in the calculation, but my son’s high school didn’t offer many APs anyway so it didn’t really impact us). FWIW, my son was accepted to Berkeley, though he didn’t attend.</p>
<p>I would interpret the rising GPA – the B’s in math and latin in 10th grade rising to A’s in junior year as a student who was slacking off earlier, then got more serious about his studies just about the time he started to think about college at the end of junior year.</p>
<p>The point is, this is not an impressive record. It’s not bad, just not particularly good. My son went to a non-competitive high school, had straight A’s in all academic subjects, and wasn’t even in the top 10% of his class. (He was done in by C’s in P.E., ignored by the colleges, but included in mix for calculating rank). There were 10 kids from my son’s small high school accepted to Berkeley (graduating class of about 130 students). So I think it’s fair to say that Berkeley admissions is used plenty of straight A transcripts. </p>
<p>However, the bottom line isn’t for us to debate that high schooler. I am trying to share with you the concerns that would be raised in the eyes of an ad com. I attended workshops in this stuff – apparently those workshops are common enough that many other CC parents have attended them (see the thread here: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1507588-inside-admissions-process-event-bu-last-night.html?highlight=bu+admissions[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1507588-inside-admissions-process-event-bu-last-night.html?highlight=bu+admissions</a> ) </p>
<p>The most important part of the application is probably the academic transcript. For selective admissions, the transcript needs to be both strong and consistent with stated or apparent academic goals. So the STEM kid needs to show a strong math and science record, whereas the prospective English major can afford weaker math grades (but should definitely be taking AP English Lit). </p>
<p>You guys are struggling on coming to terms with a dismissive comments made by an admission reader concerning a kid with a super high (1550) SAT, in the face of more favorable comments towards kids with very low SATs. I think that’s because of a common misunderstanding about how colleges use SAT scores. They don’t simply seek out kids with SAT’s- they use those scores to provide context to the rest of the package. (And in California at the time, the SAT I’s combined with scores from 3 SAT IIs combined with a number derived from GPA would also assign a fixed numerical weight to the application - so the higher the GPA, the more the kid could afford weak SAT scores). </p>
<p>So you are looking at it with CC eyes and I’m trying to explain to you what the Ad Com eyes see. They want to see what the student has done. They are very much aware that the standardized tests are structured to discriminate against poor kids and minorities – so the last thing they want to do in California is allow those tests to become a barrier to admission to high achievers. </p>
<p>I also think there’s a little bit of a sorting hat phenomenon going on with UC admissions. Although each campus handles its own admissions, they do so with the awareness that there is a spot in California for every single UC-eligible grad. So the comment about being “happier at UC Irvine” is a reference to the fact that a Berkeley rejection is often only a redirection of the applicant to a different campus. (If a kid is UC eligible and gets rejected from all the campuses that he applies to – there is a specific procedure to follow to come back and get an assignment – most likely to a less-popular campus such as Merced or Riverside.)</p>
I, too, believe that that the 1550 SAT combined with the B’s in Geometry and Latin might suggest that the “extra time” was used playing video games. </p>