Mission and History

Leveraging innovative technologies and the creativity and expertise within the
University of California, UCCP develops high-quality educational resources
to promote equitable access to college preparation materials that students want to use.

Founded in 1999, UC College Prep Online (UCCP) was created as a University of California initiative in response to a state mandate to provide equity in access to Advanced Placement® courses for academically disadvantaged students in low performing schools. This funding allowed UCCP to develop some of the finest high school online AP® courses in the country.

The mandate was extended to include college prep or "a-g" courses in 2004. UCCP began instructing its courses and, with diminished funding, shifted to a fee-for-service model in which schools paid a portion of the cost for UCCP instructed courses online. UCCP also provided tutoring and college planning resources for California students. The program won a WCET award for its cybertutor program.

A statewide program of the University of California, UCCP has delivered online courses, instruction, tutoring and college planning resources to over 150,000 California students in 56 counties across the state. Through UCCP's online courses, many students gained access to AP and other courses that were otherwise unavailable to them. UCCP's college planning portal, Gateways/CollegePath, offered students tools to prepare for college.

In June 2007 UCCP inaugurated a new strategic direction to provide better service to California students in the future. It was determined that UCCP could best serve the state's high school and middle school students by developing new college preparatory content from the UC system and making it widely accessible in formats students would enjoy using. Instead of instructing and tutoring its own courses, UCCP partners and collaborates with schools, districts and other programs that provide such services.

University of California College Prep is overseen by the University's Office of the President, by the enrollment management unit of the Student Affairs division of UC Santa Cruz, and by an Advisory Board of educators, administrators, and others expert in educational standards and policy, teaching and educational technology.