Getting In - Part 3

We have been displaying Facebook ads aimed at parents who want their kids to get into top universities. But in California, to get into any UC or CSU, you must complete the A-G required courses in high school. Many don't. From CalMatters:

...Statewide, 54% of high school students pass the classes minimally needed to enroll in the University of California or California State University systems as freshmen, according to a CalMatters analysis of traditional high schools. In recent years the state has provided extra funding to help schools boost their numbers, but the readiness rate has only inched up. Low-income, Black and Latino students have among the lowest class-completion rates. English learners and students with disabilities also have low rates, but the numbers have climbed slightly the past few years.

California’s two public university systems require all students applying for admission to earn a C or better in a suite of courses. The requirements are four years of English, three of math, two years each of science, social science and foreign language and one year of art. Known as the A-G requirements, they often dictate a student’s schedule beginning in ninth grade or even earlier. It’s easy for a student to fall off track — by getting a D or F in a class, for instance, or by skipping a tough class like chemistry or trigonometry, or by not taking a class if their school doesn’t offer it.  

CalMatters looked at data from the 2024-25 school year for 1,468 public high schools, excluding about 800 alternative high schools, some specialized schools with high A-G rates, continuation schools and juvenile detention programs. The analysis shows that 222 of those schools posted A-G completion rates of less than 30%. More than 400 schools had A-G rates exceeding 70%.

Schools may have few students completing the full suite of A-G courses for a variety of reasons, said Sherrie Reed Bennett and Michal Kurlaender, education researchers at UC Davis who wrote a 2023 analysis on the gaps in A-G rates across public high schools. Some schools may offer the courses, but students don’t enroll in them. Or students earn below a C in these courses and don’t retake them after school or during the summer. Next, teachers may not allow students to repeat assignments in order to avoid having to retake a class; some schools allow this. Meanwhile, nearly a tenth of traditional high schools didn’t offer the needed courses, the researchers’ data show... 

Full story at https://calmatters.org/education/k-12-education/2026/03/college-admission-california/.