If I take a step back, I think in one sense the article title and the report are misleading. Unless I am missing something, overall the out-of-state kids getting in in bulk still have similar GPAs (and higher unweighted GPAs), and higher SATs. So in an absolute sense standards are not relaxed for out-of-state kids.
But on a relative basis, the degree to which there was a higher hurdle for out-of-state students DOES seem to have been relaxed over the last 3 years.
Is that “ok” or not?
The answer to that depends what you think the appropriate hurdle should be. I would guess most agree that a higher hurdle for out-of-state students is appropriate, since in-state parents pay state taxes. So it comes down to a matter of degree. I don’t know what the right answer is (how much harder it should be for out-of-state students to get in), but it sure pains me when a strong aspiring engineering student from in-state is almost shut out of the UCs. For those who live in the state, you will hear similar stories if you ask around. This is not an isolated case, unfortunately.
@CaliDad2020 I think you raise some interesting questions. I hope everyone will keep an open mind that the UCs may very well need some reform, even though we appreciate them and what they do.
Surely, there is lots of stuff that can be trimmed. Most people would agree on general principle to “cut wasteful spending”. But it is more difficult in a political sense to cut specific spending items, because each one has a constituency (those served and/or those employed) who will loudly defend such spending. This can apply to any organization, not just a college or university.
This is not new. UCs generally tend to like those who overcame adverse or disadvantaged situations, which tends to lead to a much higher percentage of students from first generation and low income backgrounds than at most schools of similar selectivity. I.e. “SES affirmative action”, though one can also say that it is another aspect of “merit”, since a given level of achievement starting from a disadvantaged situation indicates greater strength than a similar level of achievement starting from an advantaged situation.
I would submit that the analysis should be refined even further. I would suspect that the vast majority of low income/first gen students are instate, by far. And those folks get admissions bonus points – a good thing for a Public Uni. Thus, the OOS’ers are really competing, not for the first gen-low income slots, but mostly those full pay slots. (To the extent that UC has low ec targets.) Since the first gen/low income students get bonus points and since they tend to have have lower average test scores, such acceptees bring down the "average’ that UC is more than happy to publish.
So, to me, the proper analysis is to compare the stats of middle(?) class applicants (like CaliDad?) from instate vs. OOS.
@CaliDad2020 , As long as Asia/S. Asia provide a steady stream of engineers willing to work for a fraction of what US trained engineers make we won’t see much effort to boost production of US engineers. Engineering professors are second only to Med school and some Biz school profs in salary, so it’s expensive to hire and retain them. Companies, especially in CA, pay lip service to the shortage of women and URM applicants then use the “shortage” as an excuse to bring in cheaper labor:
“Forty-eight percent are first-generation college students and 35 percent are from low-income families.”
“Doesn’t that percentage of first generation college students quite high?”
Wow, I knew the percentages were high, but I didn’t realize that they were that high.
Perhaps these included top students from lower-tiered CA public high schools where AP classes weren’t been offered and SAT scores were lower.
“I hope everyone will keep an open mind that the UCs may very well need some reform, even though we appreciate them and what they do.”
Even though I strongly believe that all CA students deserve their chances at UCs at stated above, I hope when you mentioned reform, you were not referring to give out more spots to URMs as the percentages were already quite high.
“The answer to that depends what you think the appropriate hurdle should be. I would guess most agree that a higher hurdle for out-of-state students is appropriate, since in-state parents pay state taxes.”
That’s not the right way to look at it. There’s no particular reason to require OOS applicants to be 1 or 3 or 5% stronger than in-staters. And no particular problem if the OOS-ers turn out to be 1 or 3 or 5% weaker either. The two applicant pools are completely distinct and separate from each other. It really doesn’t much matter how the apples compare to the oranges .
The correct method is (i) determine if your state flagship wants to be in the OOS business or not; (ii) if yes, determine what percentage of your seats you want to allocate to OOS. Then the admissions chips fall where they may.
As you increase/decrease the percentage of IS seats, the qualifications of the IS admitted will decrease/increase. As you increase/decrease the percentage of OOS seats, the qualifications of the OOS admitted will decrease/increase. go down.
The allocations at UM, UNC (18%) and UVA (33%) result in higher standards for OOS-ers. The allocations at UCLA and UCB result in very slightly lower standards for OOS-ers.
The extreme case is Univ of Colorado, which is allowed to fill 45% of its seats with OOS-ers. To fill those higher priced OOS seats, CU’s acceptance rate is typically above 80%.
True that IS-ers pay taxes. Also true that OOS-ers pay more tuition. Each school/state just has to decide what it wants to be and who should pay how much for it.
And then make sure that the funding, whether based on state subsidy, in-state tuition, or out-of-state tuition, is sufficient for the desired mix. If you ask most people, they will want almost all seats in the public universities (that they want to provide a full-featured high quality academic experience, of course) to be for in-state students, with as low as possible in-state tuition, and while paying as little taxes as possible (i.e. less money for the state subsidy for the public universities). Somewhere, hard choices need to be made.
@ucbalumnus California is one of the few states where the voters have agreed to raise the personal income tax as well as the state sales tax (and yesterday they agreed on a $15 minimum wage)
"Companies, especially in CA, pay lip service to the shortage of women and URM applicants then use the “shortage” as an excuse to bring in cheaper labor: " That is certainly not true in silicon valley. Zuckerburg has publically acknowledge that he wished he knew how to solve the problem with women and URMs. I think the same is true for Google and Apple and the other companies in SV. Also I don’t think there is cheap labor in SV.
How bad is this school really? If enough good students aren’t getting into other UCs and they go to Santa Cruz instead, the school is going to be pretty good.
Which companies recruit at UCSC? Companies engineers would like to work for?
Parents take rejections so personally and the schools really don’t know their kids.
I have a friend who runs a department at a grad school. She travels all over the world giving speeches. She told me her best grad student went to UCSC for undergrad.
@proudparent26 Google, Apple & Facebook sit on enormous piles of cash and their business models are highly dependent on public approval. They can afford to pay top dollar for home grown talent and even lavish extraordinary perks on their employees. But in the majority of companies the bottom line is more closely monitored. According to this article, 75% of tech workers in Silicon Valley are foreign born, many on H1B visas. http://www.mybudget360.com/h1b-visas-low-tech-wage-workers-visas-silicon-valley/
It’s a hot button political issue now and there are efforts to reign in the number of visas granted.
While this statement may be true, it would be misleading to believe that 75% are on H-1B visas, which some people may mistakenly believe from this statement. Many of the foreign born workers are US citizens or permanent residents.
Notice that most of the visas go to low end IT outsourcing companies. Note that IT is different from the design and development that GAFAM and such hire CS graduates to do. Obviously, the low end IT outsourcing companies’ markets are other companies that think that they can cut costs in IT.
Here is a more recent listing: http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2015-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.aspx . Note the difference in pay levels for the low end IT outsourcing companies and those who hire design and development staff (e.g. GAFAM). The latter companies’ pay levels are consistent with the pay levels one may expect for recent CS master’s degree graduates with 0-6 years experience. Most of the outsourcing companies’ pay levels are much lower.
Fighting over the number of H-1B visas is the wrong fight. Changing it so that outsourcing companies cannot use them, or are greatly limited in using them, would be a more useful reform.
@momsquad 75 per cent of the tech workers in silicon valley are not foreigners. There are 85k H1B visas for the whole country across all professions. I would be surprised if there were 20k H1B visas in all of SV. There are probably a million or more workers in SV. Also if you go to Glassdoor you will find the salaries across most of the tech companies are pretty uniform. Software engineers make between 10 to 15k per month in SV. I am not a big fan of H1B visas because I think all of those high paying jobs should go to US citizens
