Number of A-G courses is taken into account, and for the individual applicant, I would guess that it’s used in conjunction with that applicant’s GPA (similar to how it’s used in the Statewide Index where you can see the relationship in the table at the bottom).
But it does not seem to be a major factor by itself. You can investigate this yourself by going to the Freshman fall admission summary.
Select “A-G courses” under “applicant characteristics” on the right.
Use the pulldown to select your campus of interest.
Now look at the difference between “Freshman applicants” and “Freshman admits” for that campus.
You will see that applicants with more than 25 A-G courses have an advantage in admissions, but not a huge advantage compared to applicants with 20-24 A-G courses. Of course this varies by campus, but applicants with 20-24 A-G courses do not seem to be heavily penalized even at highly selective campuses. GPA and number of Honors courses appear to be more important factors.
As stated, the number of a-g courses taken over the minimum requirements is important but also the number of a-g courses offered are considered within the context of each HS.
Thanks. That seems to bear out. My D24 had 26.5 a-g courses, just slightly above the 25 number, UW 4.0 and, UC W 4.2, W 4.4. She got in to SC, was waitlisted at SB and SD, denied at LA and Irvine. 25 plus weekly hours of EC hours through national competitive sports and school leadership. One DE course (AP Psych via UC Scout online) in her choice of major. There are just so many hardworking qualified kids!
Question … using the Freshman fall admission summary, are those admit numbers using data from only 10th and 11th grade, or is it through senior year? Clearly GPA calculations are only 10th and 11th. Are a-g courses and honors courses in terms of the tables “admit” rates only accounting for 10th and 11th as well?
In general, everything in the application is going to be considered in the context of each HS! So it can be difficult to make an apples to apples comparison of one’s own stats (or one’s child’s) to other students’ stats posted here on CC, or Reddit, etc.
I guess the NO SAT/ACT policy for college application really posted a significant challenges for admission officers to evaluate students academically. I believe that is the reason why MIT reinstates the requirement for SAT/ACT for both Freshman and transfer students. For college that decided NOT to reinstate SAT/ACT requirements, like the UCs, they would have to look for “SAT replacement” and both number of college level/AP classed taken by the students and uncapped UC GPA “logically” fit the bill.
" Considering test scores would help them identify more promising applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds, not fewer. After looking at their own data, leaders at the three Ivy League schools say they concluded that SAT and ACT scores are highly predictive of students’ academic performance in college, more so than high school grades."
Also keep in mind, there is always that one or two kid in your HS who is doing all the APs PLUS a few DE classes and not tell anyone. Then when you are compared in this supposedly process of within your school, your higher stat is now less competitive because of everything we discussed above. To some people having some hidden advantage is important.
We tell everyone at our HS about CC classes and how they can enroll, as well as all our friends and family. Luckily (for us), each and every year, very few people actually do it so my kid ends up with most CC units ever from his HS, which incidentally when compared to some kids on here is still much less than impressive.
In regard to the UC A-G course list: University of California A-G Course List
I recently discovered that the list for my D24’s HS includes at least five AP classes, a few
other honors, and some regular a-g classes that were not offered this year. Some of these were stopped this year due to funding, but others have not been offered for many years.
Do the UC’s use this information, or do they actually receive a separate list with transcripts?
Is there a way of knowing whether schools outside the UC system are using similarly out-of-date info?
My worry is that the UC’s will think that many of the students did not take the most rigorous courses available within their major, and that the HS has far more a-g classes that students could have taken.
In the UC articulation guide I found the following:
“School and extended learning program A-G course lists should accurately reflect actual course offerings for each academic year. Errors on an A-G course list can disadvantage prospective University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU) applicants.”
So, by not bothering to update this information the HS may have messed up the UC admissions chances for many students. I’m sure the other parents will love to hear this. /s
It’s worth bringing to your school for sure, but if your school has enough applicants the AOs will see that none of the other applicants took those classes either. The UCs have a lot of data points on most CA high schools.
Any thoughts on the number of a-g courses verses participating in enriching non-a-g courses like ASB/leadership? The high school of D24 is on a 4x4 block schedule, so she dedicated 1/4 of her courses to ASB. I think she had at most 24 a-g courses, but was on the exec board of her high school and had incredible leadership experiences. It is a very competitive hs, so I’m sure there were plenty of kids with 30 a-g and double the APs because they had 8 extra slots to fill with academic classes.
I’d be curious to hear thoughts on this as well. My D24 had a very similar experience with choosing 2 years of highly involved ASB/school leadership in lieu of additional academic a-g electives. She took an additional AP class online (via UC Scout) for her intended major (psych) since it wasn’t offered at her HS to bigger this, but she was waitlisted at the UC schools. It seems the kids who got in did the extra 1-2 honors classes. There are less that 10 UC admits at her HS so it’s fairly easy for them compare academics
Our HS also has quite a few classes on the list that are not currently offered. I would wonder whether it’s common for a HS not to remove classes from the list. Also, if it takes effort to get classes added and approved (especially for UC Honors), the HS might not want to remove them right away, just in case they start teaching them again?
UC’s specifically state they consider the # of a-g courses taken beyond the minimum as part of their application review. Having leadership positions and showing school involvement is important also but there needs to be a balance. If choosing, an a-g course over a non a-g course is preferred based on the UC Freshman summary information but does vary by campus.
