UCs and class rank?

kluge
Tue, 30 Aug 2005 14:01:43 +0000

“there was a student from my D’s high-profile private h.s. that was top 12% but did not get into any of the UC’s to which she applied.”

Well, there’s the rub, eh? There’s no guarantee that the top 12.5% will get into Berkeley or UCLA. Riverside is usually the only campus which accepts every UC eligible applicant.

I think all public high schools are eligible to be included in the ELC program, but they’re not required to do so. Obviously, there’s little purpose to a very top ranked high school doing so, as their top 4% will be eligible to attend UC (and probably more than one campus) in any event. But the system is actually designed to identify the top 4% from each school, regardless of the resources or comparative rigor of the school. (In fact, I think that was the idea behind ELC.) For that reason, the ELC gpa is calculated differently than the UC admissions gpa. (ELC gpa is not capped.)

At my kids’ school we were told they sent more than 4% because UC performs the calculation itself. The UC ELC website reports that they requested 66 transcripts from the school (and recived 56) - the junior class is about 500 students. So it looks as though UC asks for about the top 13% and figures it out from there.