Her gpa with that calculator is 3.67 weighted as long as concurrent enrollment courses taken in the summer before junior year count as 10th grade coursework.
Her gpa with that calculator is 3.81 weighted as long as concurrent enrollment courses taken in the summer before junior year count as 11th grade coursework.
We are also uncertain if concurrent enrollment courses taken in one semester are equal to a regular high school grade earned in one semester, even though the concurrent enrollment course replaces more than one semester of regular high school coursework. (3 units of English at a community college replaces two semesters of English at a high school, 5 units of Spanish at a community college replaces four semesters of Spanish at a high school, etc.)
She’s undecided on major, but she just turned 16, so I hope that changes. We live in an area where every interest seems to get turned into a STEM version of itself. (I seriously heard a teacher tell a student that if she’s interested in foreign languages, she might be interested in artificial intelligence.) She’s taking a wide variety of classes, so maybe something will “spark joy.”
CSU says to count a transferable semester college course as a year high school course. https://www2.calstate.edu/apply/eligibility-index says “A semester grade in a college course should be counted twice. For example, if you earned a B in a biology course at a community college, you would count this B grade twice in your GPA calculation.”
In any case, the weighted-capped GPA includes up to 8 honors points; how many eligible honors, AP, and college courses did she take in 10th grade, 11th grade, and summers?
I think you are worrying about her gpa when that’s not going to matter that much for those top schools - her other stats and ECs aren’t getting her into Stanford whether her gps is 3.5 or 3.7.
Focus on the schools she can get into like Western Washington or UNM. Find the things about those schools that will make her love them.
@Tssuga “She’s on track to have finished 84 units of concurrent enrollment just before graduating high school.”
Stupid question, but why is she taking so many DE classes at the community college? Seems to me it’s “hurting” her HS GPA as she is not taking enough Honors/AP classes. I’m confused…
@ucbalumnus Thank you for finding the info on how CSUs vs. UCs calculate gpa for coursework taken at community colleges. This is extremely helpful. She hasn’t started junior year yet. So all but this summer’s concurrent enrollment classes have been taken in 10th grade. This summer she’s finished 7 units so far: a biology course and a programming course that counts as mathematics/G on the A-G list.
84 semester units of college courses is a lot to have taken in one academic year plus one summer (a full time course load for college students would be 15 per semester and 8 in a typical summer session if attended, for a total of 38 units for a student who takes two full time semesters and adds a full time summer session).
Even if she attended one of the three quarter system community colleges, 84 quarter units = 56 semester units, still quite a lot. At a quarter system college, one full time academic year is typically 45 quarter units; adding a summer would bring it up to 60 quarter units.
Her UC capped weighted GPA probably will wind up in the 3.8-ish range. But she’s still got time to move it up a little bit, plus time to improve the SAT score, to the the point where she could be in contention to get into one of the better UCs
@ucbalumnus She is on track to graduate with 84 units. She was allowed to start middle college for 11th grade, so that’s what she’s doing. Concurrent enrollment is only tuition free for high school students if it’s less than 11.5 units a semester, but you can start the summer before 9th grade.
@washugrad Thanks for the suggestions. I think both University of Portland and University of Puget Sound would be great targets. UN Reno looks like a good safety. Or a high safety/low reach. I’m not sure what to call schools with where Naviance says she has almost an 80% chance of getting in.
@Tssuga just wanted to make sure you have things calculated correctly wrt GPA. So she’s a rising 11th grader right? For UC purposes, 9th grade doesn’t count, so say in 10th grade she took 6 classes which is 12 semesters. Let’s say she got 6 As and 6 Bs which would make it around a 3.5 unweighted GPA, which is what you mentioned in your original post. Based on what you’re saying, the vast majority of her classes are dual enrollment. If let’s say 3 of the 6 classes taken in 10th grade are dual-enrollment a-g classes transferable to a UC, all 3 get extra weight, just like an AP class. So the UC weighted capped GPA would then be exactly 4.00.
Let me know where the inaccuracy in my assumptions lies. The difference between a 3.5 GPA and a 4.00 GPA is huge.
@ProfessorPlum168 and @Tssuga: The UC’s and CSU’s only give a maximum of 4 semesters or 2 year long classes the extra honors points weighting for classes in the 10th grade for the capped weighted UC GPA= CSU capped weighted GPA. For the UC fully weighted GPA, she would get an unlimited # of honors points but CSU’s do not use the fully weighted GPA in their Eligibility index calculation or for the SLO MCA calculation. Since only 2 UC’s actually state their fully weighted UC admission GPA on their websites, the best way to gauge chances is the capped weighted.
@ProfessorPlum168 As I warningg, I may be wrong. I keep learning more and it changes everything.
Classes she took the summer after 9th are allowed as well. And it’s capped at 4 semesters of honors courses for 10th grade, but 8 semesters of honors courses overall. Now that I learned that UCs count concurrent enrollment classes as only one semester even if they replace two semesters of classes, the calculator for only A-G courses taken for grades and not pass/no pass from Summer 2018 to Summer 2019 should be:
10 semesters of A grades, 7 semesters of B grades, 1 semester of C grades, and either 4 or 6 grades for honors courses (I haven’t determined if the 2 classes she took this summer count as 10th grade or 11th grade.) So that should be 3.5/3.72 or 3.5/3.83.
@Gumbymom I know honors courses are capped at four semesters. And it looks like resources I’ve seen on this post indicate UCs count one community college class as one semester grade, whereas CSUs count one community college class as two semester grades if the class replaces a two semester class on the A-G course list. What I still don’t know is whether the classes taken in the summer after 10th grade count as 11th grade, and therefore are not limited by the 10th grade cap of four semesters.
Ah, the situation becomes a bit clearer. She’s most likely a 3.5/3.72 based on what you’ve said. It’s possible with most or all As in 11th grade that she could put herself at 3.7/4.0, which would put her within possible reach of the Santa Clara/UCSB/UCD/UCI type of schools. Would need to boost her SAT up to the mid 1300s at a minimum as well. Maybe that could be some motivation for her.
Classes taken the summer before 11th grade are counted for 11th grade and not subject to the 4 semester cap, but the CSU’s cap is 8 semester total so it only really helps the Fully weighted UC GPA.