UC/ California schools application Answered
Hi,
I just wanted to clarify something since I keep getting inconsistent feedback with regards to this ... I have extenuating circumstances (illness) that lower my cum wgpa from a 4.3 to a 3.9 as well as am set to have taken 25 semesters worth of ap/ib/CC courses by the end of my senior year. I am confused first of all of how the UC gpa works and why it is considered fair because it lowers my gpa significantly even while it is at a 3.9. I also would like to know how colleges truly consider course rigor with regards to gpa and comparing with other applicants. To me, it seems inefficient to factor a lot of these things in, however, if someone has any real experiences or explanations that they could provide that would be very helpful. Thanks!
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1 answer
That link details how UC calculates GPA.
As for talking about your illness if theres space for it on the UC Application so it there if not just email the schools you are looking at and describe your circumstances professionally and don’t shift blame.
As for rigor, I can’t really tell you how it works together with GPA but I’ll talk about what schools look for rigor wise.
(I’m ignoring Honors when talking about Rigor but I consider 1 Honor class to be about 2/3rds of an AP class but that’s completely my opinion)
Rigor is in a phrase challenging yourself academically. If at School X they only offer 5 APs and you take all 5 you have really good rigor while at School Y you take 6 but they offer 25. School X has better rigor.
(I’m calculating this as a STEM student)
Generally to find your rigor “score” you total up all APs offered then subtract any non applicable ones such as AP Music AP Art and if your school has multiple foriegn languages subtract all that are not your own. (My school offers 4 Language APs there’s no way I can take all of them). Then total up the number of classes not number of semesters then put it as a fraction.
While not the most accurate way to calculate rigor it does serve as a really good base line. I’d recomend if your school has 10+ APs to have at least a 60% score but a 70s score is preferable.
Hope this helps and please comment if you need clarification as I’d be happy to help clarify!
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You can put it on the additional info section on the UC App section which is located under the Personal Insight Tab.