UC expects that the high school principal will be responsible for overseeing the student ranking process.

Ranking Method

UC makes no recommendation regarding the GPA schools use in ranking students; this is truly a local decision. Some high schools rank their top students based on GPA in academic or UC-approved coursework. There is no "wrong" way to rank your students for the ELC program as long as your ranking identifies your top students. For the purposes of the ELC evaluation, UC bases the GPA on all UC-approved courses taken in the 10th and 11th grades, with an additional point added for UC-approved honors courses.

Students Who Have Not Taken College-Preparatory Classes

Schools should identify the top academic students at their school for submission. If a school considers Special Ed and/or ESL students to be their top students, they should be submitted. However, if they do not consider these students to be their top students, the school may wish to identify a method for choosing their top students that identifies whom the school considers the top students. For example, some high schools rank their students for submission to the ELC program based on college-preparatory work or work in UC-approved courses only. Once a high school has ranked its students, it should submit all requested transcripts, and UC's trained evaluators will make all eligibility determinations.

Ties

The ELC program accepts more student transcripts than requested when the additional transcripts are a result of ties with the lowest-ranking student. To determine which students to submit, first identify the top 12.5 percent of students in the junior class, according to the target number provided by UC on your School Information Sheet. If ties occur among the lowest-ranked student who will be submitted, all students who are tied with that student should be included, even if the number of transcripts submitted thereby exceeds the number requested by UC. That is, you should begin with the top-ranked student and continue to include transcripts from top-ranked students until the number of transcripts to be submitted is equal to the number requested by UC. Then, if there are additional students who have an identical GPA with the last student included, these students should also be included in the submission to UC.

No Substitutions for Students Without Parental Authorization

Schools should not substitute records for students who are missing parental release authorization. Instead, the school should only submit records of those top students with parental authorization.

Students Who Might Not Apply to UC

A college counselor may believe that a student ranked in the top 12.5 percent of the class does not plan to attend the University of California. However, student plans may change between the end of the junior year and the following November when UC applications are due, and UC would not want any student to be disadvantaged because of an earlier decision not to participate in ELC. UC encourages all students who are selected for ELC to apply for admission to the University.