The University of California has updated its admissions guidelines to allow high school computer science classes to count as a student’s recommended third year of science (UC category D) for admission to the University. The change, which has been over 5 years in the making, will have a seismic impact on computer science in the State of California and beyond.
Previously, the UC considered most computer science courses as electives (UC category G), causing students and high schools to assign lower priority to computer science than to “core” academic categories. Ironically, computer science has counted towards UC core graduation requirements for 95% of Bachelor of Science degrees, but was not similarly recognized in university admissions.
With this change, high school computer science will now be on a similar level as other core academic disciplines, giving California students a new incentive to enroll in computer science classes. This policy will also increase diversity in computer science, because history has shown that when computer science counts towards core academic requirements, young women and underrepresented minorities are more likely to study it.
The impact of this change will be felt beyond California. The UC is the largest public university system in the U.S. to adopt a policy which allows computer science to satisfy a core, non-elective academic requirement for admissions. Because of the size and influence of the UC, we expect other universities will follow suit.
(Source: Code.org)
