CAPs

I think there might have been a post about this before, but nevertheless, I'll just explain the different types of CAPs you get on your transcript again.

Subject CAP - CAP of all your modules in that subject. Includes honours modules. Electives are optional. [edit] The optimal CAP is already computed by the system [/edit]

Graduation CAP - CAP of all your modules ever taken, weighted appropriately in two-year blocks (20-40-40 (we'll check on this one and update) or 50-50, depending if you entered in Year 1 or Year 3). Includes honours modules. Electives are optional.

Major CAP - CAP of your Year 5&6 modules in that subject. Does not include honours modules. Electives are optional. [edit] Shows up much more prominently than your subject CAP on your graduation transcript. [/edit]

Honours CAP - CAP of all (and only) honours modules in that subject.

Yr 5-6 CAP - CAP of the modules you've taken in Year 5&6. It's the same way as they've been counting for those two year CAPs. This is quite important for local uni applications as they demand this separately from your graduation CAP.

A note about optional electives: You can only make selection of electives once. Those you choose to exclude will be excluded from all CAPs, and vice versa. Why is this important? Let's use a hypothetical Year 5 biology elective as an example. You scored A- (4.5). Your graduation CAP (the overall one) is currently at 4.3, but your biology subject CAP and major CAP are 4.7 and 4.8 respectively. If you include this module, your graduation CAP will increase, but your subject CAP and major CAP will decrease. Which will you choose to "sacrifice", in this case?

I'm not sure if the school has fully automated the elective selection process. In any case, you should still choose your electives carefully, because you can't predict what the algorithm would pick in the above situation. [Edit] The process is now fully automated. The system will choose to include/exclude elective modules that do not help boost your CAP. But being a computer system, the process can be flawed, and you will be able to manually request to include/exclude certain modules to boost your CAP. [/edit]

(Personally, I'd exclude that module because it probably won't affect graduation CAP much, or subject CAP for that matter, but it would have a noticeable impact on major CAP.)

[edit] What if you decide to drop honours for whatever reasons, and you no longer want to count the honours module into your CAP? If I'm not wrong, the system will automatically consider it as an elective and process it as what it does with elective modules - erm, remove it. [/edit]