UC may stop awarding honors, AP grade points

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By Robert Salonga
DAILY BRUIN STAFF
[email protected]

High school students looking to the University of California
will not have honors points padding their grade point average if
the state approves a new approach to public education.

Ending the practice of adding additional weight to honors and
advanced placement courses is among the recommendations of the
Joint Committee to Develop a Master Plan for Education, which
consists of state senators and assemblymembers.

“The primary reason for the recommendation … is to
increase the rigor of all course offerings in all academic
courses,” said Charles Ratliff, senior consultant to the
committee.

Ratliff added that students at schools with few or no advanced
classes are automatically at a disadvantage since they have few
opportunities to score these points.

“If you begin to reduce this inequality, you’re
closer to a level playing field,” he said.

UC admissions already looks at GPAs differently from school to
school to account for the disparity in teaching quality among the
thousands of high schools in

California.

Eliminating the extra grade points awarded to students will urge
high schools to increase the difficulty of their entire curriculum
rather than just honors classes, according to the latest draft of
the report.

Some UCLA students are concerned that getting rid of the extra
points is the wrong approach to improving high school
academics.

“(The state) should push so that more schools offer
(honors) classes, rather than the quick solution of taking away all
the points,” said Sameer Sampat, a third-year electrical
engineering student.

However, proponents argue the change is necessary to increase
the number of underrepresented and lower-income students in
college.

“Minority enrollments have been pitiful at the UC. They
haven’t kept pace with high school graduation rates,”
said Paul Mitchell, higher education consultant to Assemblywoman
Elaine Alquist, D-Santa Clara, committee vice chair.

In 1960, the state established the Master Plan for Higher
Education, which defined the roles of the UC, California State
University and community college systems.

According to the original plan, the UC was designated the
primary institution for research and doctorate degrees, the CSU for
four-year degrees, and community colleges for vocational
education.

A similar plan for K-12 education is in place, and the goal of
the joint committee is to establish a uniform plan for public
education statewide. The committee has not set a completion date
for the redraft.

Second-year marine biology student Johnson Khuu supports the
policy move, and said high school students should take honors
courses even without the extra weight to their grade point
average.

“You get a feel for the level of intensity,” Khuu
said. “You don’t want to take an easy class (in high
school) and be shocked by the difficulty of a college
course.”

The UC has not taken a stance on the new Master Plan draft, but
“encourages students to take the most rigorous courses
available to them,” said university spokeswoman Lavonne
Luquis.

Mitchell also dismissed any concerns that changing an admissions
requirement such as GPA would infringe on the UC’s autonomy.
According to the California Constitution, the university system
operates independently of the rest of the state regarding its
policies, including admissions.

“The UC is still autonomous. This recommendation would
affect high schools in how they calculate their own GPA,”
Mitchell said.

With reports from Noah Grand, Christina Jenkins and Kelly
Rayburn, Daily Bruin Senior Staff.