I think both your main points are very good ones, and I had not realized that re: UC Davis new business major
Agree. Probably there is some reason to exclude UCR (one of the few UCs which has a business school) as a business major.
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yes, he didnât like UCR. Also, considering both kids were ELC, I think (right or wrong) there is a chance that acceptance into UCR or Merced impacts likelihood of acceptance into others. SoâŠapply where you want to go.
I could be wrong (@Gumbymom would know best) but I donât think the UCs know where students have applied. They donât have access to other campusâ information about applicants or acceptances.
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that is consistent with what I hear. But, at some point they must know (to offer ELC/admittance to UCs such as Merced, to which a student never applied), so it is not out of the question to think they integrate data and information
The UC website states the following:
Do campuses make their admissions decisions independently from other UC campuses?
Each UC campus evaluates each application without knowing the status of the same application at another campus. In making admission decisions, campuses do not consider where youâve applied or your admission status to other campuses. All campuses consider your application simultaneously, yet independently of all other campuses you applied to.
Once all admissions decisions have posted, then ELC eligible students not admitted to any UC campus will have their application referred to the default campus of UC Merced and sometimes UC Riverside (depending upon major availability).
UC Merced however did contact ELC eligible students in December/January and offered a chance to apply before the referral process in April. The UC systemwide admissions is aware of the which students are ELC eligible and which students were not given an offer of admission to any UC campus.
From the article âHow the University of California evaluates student applicationsâ
Myth: Campus admissions departments talk with one another to decide which school will accept a student.
Reality check: The single application makes it easy to apply to multiple UCs, but the different campuses absolutely do not make decisions in consultation with one another.
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Curious if student is not in a public school that has ranking stats, are all CA private school students reviewed for ELC status & if so Iâd love any insight. Is everyone offered the Merced January offer to apply or does that indicate student has been given ELC status ? My son received that offer back then. Thanks!
The application is first reviewed by the âUniversity of Californiaâ, a central administrative office so that office would have the student information for ELC eligibility. After decisions are completed then all the campuses would submit information to the central office whom would then process the referrals. Sure there is communication between the central office and the individual campuses but not between each specific UC campus.
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That sounds like ELC to me.
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I believe 4 Bs had more impact to CAP GPA than the # of A-G classes. As long as a student got 4.0 UW GPA and at least 4 AP/honors classes, the negative impact of # of A-G to UC GAP GPA is minimal.
S24 had the opposite experience, he applied to all UCs except UCM and UCSC for Aero/Mech Eng. He was in ELC, 4.0 UW GPA and but only 4 AP/honors classes before Senior year. Basically, he got the max UC CAP GPA 4.33 based on his normal HS class load. Guess what? He only got accepted to UCR and waitlist to UCD. Got rejected by all other UCs. His high UC CAP GPA did not help him at all, the lack of class rigors really hurt his chance for mid/top tier UCs. Good Luck.
Thanks. Fit for sure is important. UCs without a undergraduate business program like UCLA, UCSD, UCSB tend to be competitive as the Econ major gets a lot of people interested in graduate school. Seeing this, in recent years both UCB and UCD have added a undergraduate business major. Both Santa Clara and USC are excellent for business majors but expensive, leaving OOS schools as good options.
actually, if you run lots of different scenarios in the calculator below, the thing that has the greatest impact is the number of A-G courses and AP/honors courses (more so than the Bâs). Per my earlier post: âTo be very literal with an example, my S25 (WL) had 26 UC A-G Aâs and 4 UC A-G Bâs with 20 honors/AP/DE semesters. His UC-capped GPA is 4.13. If I play with the numbers and give him 18 UC A-G As instead, but still 4 UC A-G Bs and the capped honors/AP his UC GPA would be 4.18. So, by getting 8 more Aâs and taking 12 more honor/AP courses, heâs rewarded with a lower UC-GPAâ. In the scenario you presented above, the UC-GPA skyrockets because the lower (capped) AP/honors courses results in lower A-G courses. However, your S24 experience does suggest UCs are looking at both. I thought the same as you- as a lesson learned my S25 took a more rigorous course load senior year (vs senioritis in S23) and a couple more overall A-G courses and UC-approved honors/AP courses. So far, in contrast to what I thought, Iâm not sure that will make the difference. So the conclusion is, even if youâre qualified, there is no certaintyâŠ
GPA Calculator for the University of California â RogerHub
interesting, and hadnât thought about that as far as the econ vs actual business majors. That does make sense- thanks!
That is why they donât look at capped uc gpa in isolation, they look at your uncapped and unweighted GPAs as well as the courses themselves.
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conversation getting circular, but yes 
Yes, my S24 took 6 courses at 10th grade and 7 courses 11th grade, which dropped his capped GPA from 4.33 to 4.31. Feel like the more classes you take, the lower the capped GPA. But his unweighted 4.0 GPA with 11 APs, 4 honors and 2 college courses made him accepted by all 8 UCs (except UCM didnât apply) and USC EA. So, capped GPA doesnât weight that much compared with class rigors.
how is this UC first gen affecting admissions? Many of the very high stats kids from my sons HS were either WL or rejected from UCD which was surprising and disappointing so Iâm wondering if first gen applicants are being given priority. I thought that it was around 20% but now realize itâs closer to 40-45 percent depending on the campus?? Am I missing something?
Were they applying to majors like CS? Often the highest stat kids are applying to the most in-demand majors and there just isnât enough room for them allâŠ
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Is there a place in the portal to locate this ELC status? Thanks
not CS but STEM.
4.0/4.3/4.8 kids getting WL from his school and weâre talking about a highly motivated group of kids that have good ECâs and essays. But many are asian male and in an affluent high resource community.