Welcome

Changes have been made to the principal certification policy for online courses. Please visit the Online Courses & Policy page for more information.

This web site aims to assist high school educators in designing courses that meet both the University of California subject area requirements and conform to school curricular reform efforts. In addition to detailed information about the "a-g" requirements, the site provides numerous UC-approved course descriptions of standard, honors, and innovative courses. The "a-g" Guide facilitates a thorough understanding of the UC course approval process and provides helpful insights as to why courses have not been approved. We hope that you find this site useful, and welcome any recommendations for improvement.

The ultimate goal of the "a-g" Guide Project is to clarify the UC course approval process, to provide guidance to schools on how to present their course offerings to UC, and to ensure that UC/CSU subject area requirements encompass the best of high school reform efforts in California.

The "a-g" Guide Project and this web site are jointly funded and supported by the California Department of Education (CDE) and the University of California (UC).

Course List Accuracy

Doorways is a huge database that houses district, school and course information for every high school in California. As can be expected in any database with almost two million records, improving accuracy is a continuous process. We take this process very seriously and have undertaken a number of initiatives over the past few years that have had a great impact on accuracy. Some changes are based on clarifications or changes of policy; others are a result of review and data entry mistakes over the years. A detailed plan is in place to continue to make necessary adjustments. Access a summary of the course list adjustment plan.

Enhancements to Doorways Course Lists

The Doorways "a-g" Course List web site has been enhanced in several ways. The enhancements affect every high school's course list.

The most significant change is the addition of the middle column, called "Category." It clarifies for students, parents, counselors and UC admissions staff the specific component of the "a-g" subject area that is satisfied by the completion of that course. For example, a Spanish for Spanish Speakers 1 course may be categorized as "LOTE 2," meaning that completion of that course satisfies the 2nd year of Language Other than English (LOTE) requirement. Alternatively, a course entitled The Latino Experience may be categorized as "US History," thus clarifying that this course meets the US History requirement, rather than the World History/Geography/Cultures component of the "a" History/Social Science area.

Other enhancements include:

1. Reliance on the gold star to designate UC honors status, removing the underline that previously indicated honors status;
2. Reliance on the blue diamond to designate that a course cannot be utilized to meet the "g" elective requirement, removing the asterisk that previously indicated this status;
3. Addition of term type information (i.e., semester, trimester, block);
4. Clarification of accreditation status, indicating whether a school is a candidate or fully accredited, and if accredited, through what year;
5. Addition of the school's CDS code; and
6. Other minor textual changes

We hope that the enhanced site will be more informative to the range of users.