Audit shows UC admission standards relaxed for out-of-staters

Parents Forum
461

@bluebayou See, this is where folks get confused. It is not against prop 209 to accept less men. Just like it is not against prop 209 to accept less women, or there would have been a problem in 2009, 2010 and 2011.

There are plenty of women admitted to UCB LS. It does not violate 209. You could, tomorrow, if you wanted, adjust your criteria for admission to, for example weight GPA higher and Math SAT lower. That would change the make up of your incoming class. It might even change your gender weight. And there is no evidence out there that SAT is better than GPA as a predictor of college success. Many studies suggest that GPA is better. Maybe that would be an interesting place to start. Maybe a more varied educational experience would be something to weight higher. Or higher SAT wr scores, since many companies complain their “human calculators” can’t communicate well. Any of those changes would like change the make-up of the class. Who knows how.

Again, as long as gender is not part of that equation, there is no reason you couldn’t (or shouldn’t) do it.

But the net effect of increasing the number of women who attend, obviously, if more students are not added, would be for less men to be enrolled. But if you could increase total enrollment you could, of course, keep the men’s admit rate steady (but again, why are those numbers fairly constant. It suggest gender already plays a part.)

In fact, if you simply increased the FEMALE yield to the same as the MALE yield for COE you would increase the gender diversity levels instantly. And you would not have a problem as these women have already been admitted. It is simply a question of convincing them to attend. Taking the easily found UCB COE CS&E data. 101 women admitted, 32 SIRd. A 32% yield. The yield for the men was 50%. If UCB could only get an equivalent yield, they would have admitted 20 more women to COE in 2014 in a single department.

Women have always had a lower yield rate at UCB, for instance. Why is that? Why hasn’t the school done more to fix it? Is that inability? Disinterest? Incompetence?

Just like UCSD is harming its program by not getting better yield from its female engineering undergrads, since it does a better job of selecting women than men, UCB would instantly get greater diversity with no 209 issues for its program if it just increased yield.

462

"Why is that? "
perhaps because UCB now has the reputation of being an intense, hyper competitive, dog eat dog environment full of stressed students, many of them Asian, who all seem to be trying to get into the Engineering or Business programs…
that might, frankly, turn many women STEM majors off…
So , if given a choice between that kind of environment and a less stressful, but no less academically rigorous college experience, many women may decide to enroll elsewhere …
who can blame them?

463

Women students now have some outstanding STEM opportunities at universities that are more supportive and that frankly have have better resources than Cal. In the case of women’s college, Smith, Barnard, Wellesley and Mount Holyoke all have highly regarded STEM programs and offer funded internships and other research opportunities as a matter of course. Unlike UCB, you don’ have to fight to land these opportunities. Other universities ranging from USC to Michigan also have less insanely competitive environments and offer a better overall experience.

I say this with some sadness. The UC system used to be fantastic. Berkeley was brilliant. But as written above, it has now become a place where increasingly, competition has replaced any sort of community.

I’ll add a further caveat. Many students LOVE UCB. It has a great reputation. I just this the atmosphere is not the best.

464

Absolutely loved UCB when visiting from the East Coast. Seemed real unlike another faux Stepford Wivesy Bay Area school. Viscerally disappointed that a 459 UC score wasn’t good enough for ‘admission by exam.’

465

Statistically that may be true, but increasing female yield may not be that easy without a UC thumb on the scale, particularly when UC is competing with top privates for high stat female quant-types (who do put a thumb on their scales, and perhaps a full hand).

And that was what I was trying to get to upthread. The CoE requires strong quant skills, and proportionally, no more girls take Calc BC than they did 10-15 years ago. To address the shortage of females in STEM, IMO we need more girls keep up with math in middle school and continue to track in the highest math levels so that they can get to Calc BC (and Physics C). In other words, by the time they get to UC, it’s too late.

Regardless, I think you are buying into the UC spin-meisters and interpreting it in only one way. When the Politico Napolitano said that she wants to increase women and URMs in STEM, no where does she say only at Cal/UCLA. For the UC powers-that-be, they are fulfilling their pledge by offering Engineering to nearly every B student in the State with Merced.

Sure there is: 1) GPA is paramount in UC admissions, much more so than test scores; 2) women have higher GPA’s than guys in high school; 3) L&S does not admit by intended major. The math is simple.

So, you discriminate against men to help women? Not sure why you keep bringing this idea up because it is blatant anti-guy.

OTOH, the only way to pull this off would be to decrease the important of test scores even more (in favor go GPA, but note that still a much higher proportion of guys take a more rigorous math schedule with Calc BC and Physics C), but I have no idea what threshold level CoE uses today, to know if that is even a possibility.

466

@ethellou
“Seemed real unlike another faux Stepford Wivesy Bay Area school.”

LOVE THIS. (Go Bears.)

467

So disappointing. Sigh. Gotta suck it up and move on.

468

I used to think this way too, until I read that 80-90% of students admitted to CoE at UCB and UCLA successfully complete their degree in those programs. Competitive means that some must lose while the strong survive. In any major, and especially a rigorous major like engineering, there is going to be a certain amount of attrition, either due to students deciding they prefer a different subject (like Fish125’s daughter) or the need to drop out for family/financial reasons. Low income students are more susceptible to family hardship, even if the majority of their fees and tuition are paid, and UC has a high percentage of low income students. Yet less than 10-20% drop out or switch majors before graduation. So although the curriculum is no doubt rigorous, it doesn’t seem accurate to call it competitive.

469

@momsquad

“Yet less than 10-20% drop out or switch majors before graduation. So although the curriculum is no doubt rigorous, it doesn’t seem accurate to call it competitive.”

Well, perhaps Berkeley’s highly selective admission process has already weeded out the weaker ones, those likely to drop out. Imagine now that you have some extremely competitive kids fighting for those A’s.

470

“I used to think this way too, until I read that 80-90% of students admitted to CoE at UCB and UCLA successfully complete their degree in those programs.”

Graduation rates are primarily a function of the strength of the students when they come in. If you start with extremely strong students, you will wind up with very high graduation rates. Pretty much no matter what the school does (or does not do) to the kids while they are there.

Community and directional colleges are not comparatively tough academically, yet they have the worst graduation rates.

471

@bluebayou

Many schools that attract the women who are accepted to the COE are not able to put a financial “thumb on the scale.” Sure Mudd, USC, UMich, CIT etc. can, but Harvard, MIT, Columbia, Upenn, Cornell, etc can’t. So for in state students the finances from those schools needs to be need based and has to get them down to at best 13k. And, of course, UCB and others have aid money.

(BTW, this is an interesting “self-reported” survey of where kids choose to go, fwiw. Much of the UC competition is other UCs. It does not tease out for engineering. http://www.parchment.com/c/college/college-rankings.php?page=1&perPage=25&thisYear=2015)

If the report is true that fin aid is going to OOS/international students it would make clear there is no real will to fix this problem. (I don’t know that it’s true.)

But obviously, increasing yield to by even 10 or 20% points would go a huge way to ameliorating the gender disparity. I can say 1st hand that experiencing outreach from other non-UC state schools and privates, some have amazing outreach to accepted students. Very personal and persistent. And some are very mediocre as well. This has to affect yield at those schools.)

The argument that I find really head-scratching is the “discriminating against men” line. How, in anyone’s understanding of the demographics of the world, could moving an 80/20 gender split to say, 60/40 be considered “discriminating?”

From 2007 - 2015 the UCs have enrolled 29,000 undergraduate students in engineering/CS.
Of those 29,000, 22,000 have been men. 7000 have been women.

Again. In the past 8 years.
22,000 men
7,000 women

The discrimination would be???

This is the part of the response on these boards that is so shocking. Were those figures to be reversed, the reaction would be so different. I mean, I’m a guy. And it blows my mind. What do you think it says to our daughters?

472

"Harvard, MIT, Columbia, Upenn, Cornell, etc can’t. "

HA! Who the hell says they cant??? They are private colleges who can accept who they choose!
Or do you have fly on the wall or an inside source who is in the conference rooms when admissions decisions are made at those colleges??
a factual basis for you statement is something I would love to see…

473

The anecdotal “girls drop out line” is proved not to be true at UCSD or UCSD engineering. Women consistently have as good or better graduation rate than men - and do it in as short if not shorter time:

2013/14 “time to degree” at UCSD engineering: Women mean: 13.4 Men mean: 13.5
2012/13 “time to degree” at UCSD engineering: Women mean: 13.6 Men mean: 13.6
2011/12 “time to degree” at UCSD engineering: Women mean: 13.3 Men mean: 13.7
2010/11 “time to degree” at UCSD engineering: Women mean: 13.6 Men mean: 13.6
2009/10 “time to degree” at UCSD engineering: Women mean: 13.3 Men mean: 13.4
2008/09 “time to degree” at UCSD engineering: Women mean: 13.5 Men mean: 13.8
2007/08 “time to degree” at UCSD engineering: Women mean: 13.3 Men mean: 13.8
2006/07 “time to degree” at UCSD engineering: Women mean: 13.9 Men mean: 13.9
2005-06 “time to degree” at UCSD engineering: Women mean: 13.3 Men mean: 13.3
2004/05 “time to degree” at UCSD engineering: Women mean: 13.0 Men mean: 13.5
2003/04 “time to degree” at UCSD engineering: Women mean: 13.5 Men mean: 13.8
2002/03 “time to degree” at UCSD engineering: Women mean: 13.8 Men mean: 13.9
2001/02 “time to degree” at UCSD engineering: Women mean: 13.2 Men mean: 14.1

Female vs. male 1 yr + 2 yr retention rate (entire school)
2014: Female: 95% Male: 94%
2013: Female: 95%/91% Male: 94%/88%
2012: Female: 94%/89% Male: 94%/89%
2011: Female: 95%/89% Male: 93%/87%
2010: Female: 96%/91% Male: 95%/90%
2009: Female: 96%/91% Male: 96%/90%
2008: Female 95%/91% Male: 96%/90%
2007: Female 94%/89% Male: 95%/88%
2006: Female: 94%/87% Male: 95%/89%
2005: Female: 94%/88% Male 95%/90%

I stumbled on the UCSD engineering stats after I started posting here and it is very telling how consistently women engineering students do as well if not better than the male engineering students.

It is clear UCSD could work hard to improve their female engineering yield as it would improve the quality of the students in the program.

474

@menloparkmom they can’t offer merit aid. They have agreed not to. So if you don’t qualify for need based aid, they cannot “put a thumb on the scale” financially.

If you need me to link you to the agreement I can, but it’s pretty well known.

Again, we are talking about Yield. Yield means already accepted. “Hi smart student, we want you.” UCB and UCLA actually CAN put a thumb on the scale at that point (scholarship, Regents, etc.) Harvard, MIT, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, UPenn, Brown, Dartmouth, Columbia cannot.

Chill menlo, chill. A macha and some yoga. deep breathing. keep the bp down…

475

Oh lordy,
yes I know they dont offer merit $$, but guess what- they can offer acceptence letters to as many students of the female persuasion as they want. And they can tweak FA offers for the ones they REALLY want to land. The UC’s CANT do that!!
You are continuing to compare apples-enrollment of women in the UC system -and oranges- enrollment of women at private colleges.

If you want to continue laborin to try and solve a [ currently] unsolvable problem, despite the constraints that the UC’s have on who they CAN and CANNOT discriminate against in admissions, go right ahead continuing to research this to your hearts content…
I’m off to get my nails done…

476

Uh, not really. UC costs $35k per year to attend. (Sort disingenuous to use the commuter cost, and ignore the fact that mom and dad still need to feed Junior, and Junior needs to commute to school)

Many of those with the GPA+test scores for Cal’s COE, in other words, middle class kids, can attend Harvard, MIT, Columbia, Upenn, Cornell, and the Junior University on The Farm, with enough aid to make it less out of pocket than a UC at the instate rate. (My S attended one of the Ancient Eights for this very reason.) So in essence, those schools can put a financial thumb on the deal. In addition, those same schools can put another thumb on the admissions scale for female Engineers. It can become a no-brainer to attend a top-ranked private school at the same, or similar price. (Better housing better advising, less bureaucracy…)

And those, in the top % of income brackets, are happy to pay full fare for a private school.

Not if the admissions and yield are no different.

And that’s my pov: perhaps the CoE admissions is not as nefarious as you believe; instead, the strong female applicants have other choices, and vote with their feet (and wallets).

OTOH, I have said repeatedly that its a shame that our top students have to go OOS so that (less qualified?) OOS’ers can come here. Such a policy affects both men and women…we’d have to conduct a statistical study by College (remember Simpson’s Paradox) to see if they are differentially treated.

477

@menloparkmom

I didn’t realize anyone needed to be persuaded to be female.

I was pretty clear in that sentence that it was “financial.” And what do you mean “UC’s can’t do that?” They have holistic admissions. They are actually allowed to give financial aid. So that doesn’t make sense.

The problem is not unsolvable. Increase women yield. Lessen disparity in gender. Make Dean Sastry happy!

478

@bluebayou It is not “disingenuous” at all. It is easier - and fairer - to compare tuition to tuition, but if you want to compare Brown’s 60k to UCB’s 30k, that works too. It’s still a lot of fin aid for a CA woman to induce her to go east.

The Ivies, MIT etc. all have cost calculators on line. If someone wants to they can runs some sims and find the break-even income level. Harvard might be fairly high (IIRC they don’t include equity in home) but others will be lower. Sure, some can go for less, but for many it’s close to a wash.

I don’t understand how you say increasing the yield won’t increase the number of women at UC engineering.

The UC engineering female yield is much lower than the male yield (or the female LS CS yield at UCB which got up to 60%, IIRC)

I don’t understand the math there?

479

Some of senior posters need to stop lecturing Calidad like they know everything. It is not an unsolvable problem.

480

" And what do you mean “UC’s can’t do that?”
they can’t make admissions decisions based on gender.