As a result of the work begun in the early 1990s, today California public universities use the same procedures and policies for the admission of matriculating freshman students.  Although California private universities and colleges may have slightly different requirements, in general, if students follow the three areas required by California public universities they will easily meet more than 90 percent of what may be required.  Some California private universities and colleges do require personal, on-campus interviews.

Typically, students applying to a California public university are evaluated on three measures:

• The Subject Requirement (more commonly known as the “a-g” requirements) specifies the 15 year-long courses a student must complete in high school;

• The Examination Requirement (more commonly known as the SAT I and II tests or the ACT test) specifies the college admissions tests the student must take prior to applying;

• The Scholarship Requirement is the combination of Grade Point Average (GPA) and standardized test scores (see above). Scholarship Requirement

• The student must attain;
  
  • Local Eligibility or the Eligibility in the Local Context (ELC) program recognizes students who have created a distinguished academic record in light of the opportunities provided at their high school.  If the student ranks in the top four percent of students in his/her California high school’s graduating class as determined by UC, and the student’s high school participates in the program, you can become UC-eligible through ELC;
  • Eligibility by Examination Alone provides students who come from non-accredited home and private schools an opportunity to become admissible to UC; and
  • Additional requirements included are a submitted essay and the possibility that the student may need to take the Entry Level Writing Requirement.