What Are A-G and CC Courses? What Parents Of California High Schoolers Actually Need To Know
The fluorescent lights in the counseling wing had already clicked down to half power last Tuesday, and I was shoving my leftover conference cookie into my bag when Lisa tapped on the open door. She was leaning against the frame, holding a crumpled sophomore course selection sheet, her 15-year-old son Javi trailing a few steps behind, staring at his shoes. “I’m so sorry to bother you,” she said, “but everyone is telling us different things about A-G requirements and CC dual enrollment, and I don’t want to mess this up. Javi wants to go to Cal Poly for mechanical engineering, and I’m this close to just crossing everything out and letting him pick whatever.”
I pulled the extra chair out from against my desk and gestured for them to sit. Javi plopped down, and I glanced at his course sheet—there was a detailed doodle of a lifted truck in the margin, and the line for winter elective was scribbled over three times: Auto Tech, Local CC. That’s the question I get more than any this time of year, right after “do colleges still care about AP?” Most parents have heard the acronyms, picked up bits and pieces from other parents at soccer practice or random Facebook groups, and end up more confused than when they started.
First, I walked them through A-G simply, the way I do for every confused family. A-G isn’t some secret test or ranking. It’s just the list of subject requirements the University of California and California State University systems require for freshman admission. There’s A for history, B for English, all the way down to G for college prep electives. Each area requires a certain number of years of approved courses. The key word here is approved: your high school has to submit courses to the UC system to get them labeled A-G, and that same approval applies to any dual enrollment CC course your kid takes at a community college.
The biggest mistake Javi and Lisa almost made? Javi’s high school cut its auto tech program two years ago, when the budget got tight, so he signed up for the same class at the local community college through the dual enrollment program—meaning he’d get both high school graduation credit and college credit for it. But the CC auto tech course wasn’t approved for A-G. If Javi had taken it as his required G elective, he would’ve graduated high school, but he wouldn’t have been eligible to apply to any UC or CSU as a freshman. That’s the confusion most people miss: not all CC courses count for A-G, even if they count for high school graduation and college credit. CC advisors focus on college credit requirements, not high school A-G eligibility, so it’s on families and high school counselors to check.
I pulled up our school’s online A-G course list on my laptop, which is posted right on the homepage of our website for anyone to access, and searched the dual enrollment offerings. Sure enough, the auto tech course wasn’t on the approved list. It counted for high school elective credit, just not A-G. Lisa’s shoulders tensed up, and Javi mumbled that he didn’t want to take the studio art class that was the only other A-G elective option. “I can’t draw,” he said. “That’s gonna be miserable.”
I didn’t panic, because this is an easy fix, not a catastrophe. We talked through options: he could still take the auto tech CC course he wanted, he just needed to check off his A-G G elective requirement somewhere else. The district offered a 4-week summer A-G approved visual and performing arts class for $50 that would check the box. It met in the morning, so he’d still have the afternoon free for his part-time job at the local bike shop. That worked for everyone.
Over the years I’ve seen so many families overcomplicate this. Some parents think all A-G classes are honors level, and if they don’t do all honors A-G they won’t get in. That’s not true. Any approved A-G course, regular or honors, counts toward eligibility. Others think taking as many CC courses as possible will make their kid’s application look better. Most of the time, for UC and CSU, an approved A-G CC course counts the same as an approved A-G course at your high school. The real benefit of CC dual enrollment is that you get transferable college credit for a fraction of the price, which saves you thousands of dollars once you get to college. That’s the win, not that it impresses admissions officers more.
The concrete thing any parent can do right now, before course selection ends, is pull up your high school’s A-G list. It’s always online, no login required. If you’re looking at a CC dual enrollment course, search for it on that list before you sign up. If you don’t see it there, don’t assume it counts. Send a quick email to your kid’s counselor to ask. That takes two minutes, and it avoids the mess I saw two years ago, when a senior found out three of the CC courses she’d taken didn’t count for A-G, and she had to cram a semester-long course into summer school just to graduate eligible.
If your kid wants to take a non-A-G CC course that they care about, that’s not a problem either. You don’t have to force them into a class they hate to stay eligible. You just plan ahead: fit the required approved course into a free period, do it over the summer, take it junior year instead of senior year. It’s almost always manageable.
When Javi and Lisa left my office, I saw Javi leaning against the front bumper of Lisa’s SUV in the parking lot, twisting a wrench on the engine of his dirt bike. He looked up when they walked past, and waved. We got this one sorted out before it became a problem. There’s still a lot left to figure out—his junior year SAT, his extracurriculars, how he’ll pay for application fees—those conversations are for later. Most of the time, all these scary acronyms just boil down to checking a list, and making sure your kid gets to do the thing they’re excited about, too. It’s not that complicated, once you cut through the noise.
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