Berkely alum wins Nobel Prize

vicissitudes · October 5, 2006, 1:09pm

Hmmm...those are interesting points that you bring up. True, I think more second years are now living in the newly built mini-suites in the units. Still, it seems like the vast majority of 3rd and 4th years live off-campus. I've bumped into a few fourth years in the dorms and it seems like they don't have trouble getting housing. The problem seems to be that most students think the housing is too expensive, the triples too small, the conditions too poor, to justify living on-campus instead of off-campus.

So, I'm not sure if you are right on changing the culture. Maybe if four years of guaranteed housing were offered people would start thinking differently, but from the way I see it if you were going to offer four years of guaranteed housing, at least make the housing more appealing to live in first. Of course there is a lot of current construction and renovation going on in the units, so maybe they are already trying to improve housing situation. I think this should take a precedence over four-year guaranteed housing. So, I see your point, and maybe the eventual goal of four-year housing would be a good one to shoot for.

By the way, where would you propose Berkeley build these new housing? And what kind of housing do you think they should be? I've seen the triples at Beverly Clearly in Unit 3 and they are clearly superior to the triples in the other buildings in the Units. I think more buildings like Beverly Clearly or more mini-suite / suite style dorms should be aimed for in the future if more expansion is to be done.

ucbhi · October 6, 2006, 12:48am

[quote]
#1) The long tail end of relatively weak students.

[/quote]

The short, sweet perspective as a transfer...

Way too many "low-end" transfer students. As I recall 99% of admitted freshman are in the top 10% of their class. High-school 4.0s get rejected. No standards like this for transfers. Hundreds of sub 3.4 transfers get in. And they aren't low-income or first-generation either. Bulllllshiiiiiii. I felt a sense of disappointment when I started running into former classmates I completely outperformed in CC. I still like it here, but it's definitely not the "everyone here is ridiculously smart" thing that they tell you in the speeches.

sakky · October 6, 2006, 12:50am

[quote]
"#1) The long tail end of relatively weak students."

I agree that there are weak students, but there are weak students at every school. It's not like the adcoms at Berkeley knew these students were weak when they let them in. Even the bottom 20th percent of Cal admits are still pretty strong, statistically at least. I know plenty "weak students" that had amazing highschool stats and even have pretty good college stats, yet they don't stike me as particularly smart people. I'm sure the same is true for every school. It just goes to show that stats don't always make the person.

[/quote]

First off, the notion that there are weak students everywhere is a non-sequitur. Sure, there are weak students everywhere, just like there is corruption, greed, and crime in every society. But just because it is everywhere doesn't mean that it's a good thing, and it certainly doesn't mean that we should just sit back and accept it.

More to the point, we are comparing Cal undergrad to the top private undergrad programs. Do the latter have some weak students too? Sure, but LESS. And that's the point. Will Cal be able to get rid of every weak student? Probably not. Just like how no country in the world can eliminate all crime doesn't mean that you don't try to minimize the amount of crime.

[quote]
"#2) The bureaucracy at Berkeley."

Yes, it can be bad, but really how often do you have to deal with it? FinAid was always a struggle to me, but all it meant was once a semester I had to stand in a couple of lines for a couple of hours. Hardly seems like it makes my education any less valuable.

[/quote]

It doesn't matter how few times you deal with it - the times when you do really suck. Just like how you hopefully aren't a victim of crime every day or even every year, but the few times that you are a victim, it really sucks.

[quote]
"#3) Lack of 4 years of guaranteed housing."

I don't agree with this. I don't know anyone who actually wanted to stay on campus for four years. Most were dying to get out after a year.

[/quote]

That's because the culture of Berkeley values off-campus housing, mostly because most other people have had to live off-campus and you want to follow your friends. But the point is, you can CHANGE the culture. Berkeley can change its culture to value campus housing by offering more of it. Put another way, if all of your friends were living in campus housing, then you'd probably want to live in campus housing too.

Besides, I'll put it to you this way. If what you say is true and everybody wanted to move offcampus after 1 year, then why is it that dorms almost never have empty space? After all, if everybody really wants to move off-campus after a year, and the dorms guarantee 2 years of housing, then the dorms should have plenty of empty rooms, right? So why is that rarely the case? It seems to me that every time I check around, the dorms are packed. Hence, it seems to me that more people want dorm rooms than there is space available, which means that Berkeley should build more.

I think this is most true of the graduate campus housing, which as some people have pointed out, is extremely limited. However, undergrad campus housing seems to be heavily impacted also.

[quote]
"#4 ) Impacted majors."

This is not something I've had a problem with and I haven't heard anyone else complain about, so I don't feel the need to argue against it. Maybe it exists somewhere at school, and if that's the case then it should be fixed.

[/quote]

I'll put it to you this way. About 40% of continuing students historically who have applied to Haas don't get in. You know they wanted to get in, because if they didn't, why did they even apply? Furthermore, I am quite convinced that that greatly understates the number of students who want to get in because plenty of students who want to get in don't even apply because they know they won't get in. Let's face it - if you have a 2.0 in Haas prereqs, you know you're not getting in (the average admitted GPA is 3.6), so you won't even apply. But nevertheless, you still were not allowed to major in what you want.

<a href="http://www.haas.berkeley.edu/Undergrad/statsucb.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.haas.berkeley.edu/Undergrad/statsucb.html</a>

The same story can be said for CS, engineering, Econ, and all of the other impacted majors. After all - think about it. If nobody was being denied from these majors, then these majors wouldn't be impacted. The mere fact that they ARE impacted must mean that they are turning people down who want to get in.

Let me throw this in. 10-15 years ago, the only majors that were impacted were engineering, CS, and Haas. That's it. And that was controversial even back then. Now, not only are those majors impacted, but so are several others. For example, econ is impacted. It never was before. Psychology is impacted. It never was before. So, if anything, the problem has not subsided, it's actually GOTTEN WORSE. That's ridiculous. Not only have problems that were well-known 10 years ago not been fixed, but other similar problems have cropped up. I can understand that if by bad luck, too many people in a certain year want to enter a certain major that exceeds capacity, hence Berkeley places temporary restrictions on that major while more capacity within that major is developed. But come, this is 10 years later, and not only are those original restrictions still in place, but MORE restrictions have been enacted. This just tells me that Berkeley just doesn't want to allocate its resource capacity. It's one thing to have a temporary problem that you're working on fixing. It's quite another thing to have a permanent problem that you don't try to fix. Worse of all (which I suspect may be what is happening) is if Berkeley doesn't even see it as a problem - that they actually WANT impaction.

[quote]
"#5) Lack of integration of the grad school and the undergrad program."

Again, I don't know much about this except that I know there are many grad classes that are available to undergrads as long as the professor approves. I would like to see some data that shows how and where Cal is lagging in this area compared to other top schools.

[/quote]

I'm not talking about grad classes that are available to undergrads. I am talking about giving the good undergrads the assurance, either dejure or defacto, that they will be allowed back into Cal for grad school to pick up a grad degree. Harvard is extremely welcoming to its own undergrads. So is MIT. So are many of the other top private schools.

[quote]
Either way, these problems seem to be present at most larger research schools, and I hardly see how they're unique to Cal.

[/quote]

The difference is a matter of DEGREE. Obviously no school is perfect. But that doesn't mean that you don't try to be perfect. The major difference is that the problems at other schools are less pronounced than at Berkeley, and the strengths are more readily available at those other schools.

After all, you asked what makes those other schools better, and I told you. This is like a comparison between Tom Brady and Alex Smith. Obviously both of them are fantastic athletes who are some of the best quarterbacks in the world, for the simple matter that anybody who can become an NFL quarterback must be one of the best quarterbacks in the world (because most people don't even make it to the NFL). But when it comes down to relative performance, it's undeniable that Brady is better. Brady won the Superbowl in his rookie year. Alex Smith obviously did not - not even close, actually. Brady also won the Superbowl in his 3rd and 4th years. How many of us really believe that Alex Smith will win the Superbowl in his 3rd or 4th year? Tom Brady is well on his way to the Hall of Fame. If Alex Smith wants to make the Hall of Fame, he has to be doing better than how he has been doing.

None of this is to say that Alex Smith is a 'bad' quarterback on any absolute scale. Obviously he's a better quarterback than me or anybody else here on CC. The mere fact that he even got to the NFL obviously makes him one of the best quarterbacks in the world. And I'm sure that if he was playing in Arena Football or NFL-Europe, he might be one of the best players there.

But that's the whole point. If you want to play in the big leagues, you are going to be held to high standards. If you want to be considered an NFL Hall-of-Famer, then you have to be one of the very best in the NFL. If Berkeley wants to have a superstar undergrad program, then it will have to adhere to high standards - the kinds of standards that HYPSM adhere to.

Now, if you want to say that Berkeley does not want to have a superstar undergrad program, and is merely content with just being 'good', but not elite, then that's fine too. But if that's the case, we should just admit that Berkeley is not really trying to produce an elite undergrad program, and hence the very best students in the country will not find Berkeley attractive for undergrad. Just like if Alex Smith wants to give up on being a star and is satisfied with being just an average NFL quarterback, then that's fine too. But that of course also means that the 49ers should not have used a #1 draft pick on him and certainly should not be paying him #1 draft choice-style money.

So the bottom line is, does Berkeley want to create an elite undergrad program, or not. Just like Alex Smith has to ask himself whether he really wants to be a star quarterback or not. If the answer is yes to either question, then improvement has to happen. But if the answer is no, then fine. But in that case, we should just admit that we are not really striving to be the best.

sakky · October 6, 2006, 1:18am

[quote]
So, I'm not sure if you are right on changing the culture. Maybe if four years of guaranteed housing were offered people would start thinking differently, but from the way I see it if you were going to offer four years of guaranteed housing, at least make the housing more appealing to live in first. Of course there is a lot of current construction and renovation going on in the units, so maybe they are already trying to improve housing situation. I think this should take a precedence over four-year guaranteed housing. So, I see your point, and maybe the eventual goal of four-year housing would be a good one to shoot for.

[/quote]

What I am saying is that people want to live where their friends are and where cool social activities are. If your friends live in campus housing, then you will tend to want to live in campus housing. Right now, lots of people don't want to live on campus simply because most of their friends don't live on campus. But that can change. Housing arrangement are hence subject to 'network effects', where some entities attract more entities, which attracts still more entities, etc.

Again, to use the example of HBS, the reason why lots of MBA students live on campus is because they know that a lot of other students will be living on campus and so if they want to do networking, which is a major reason to go to business school, then they should also live on campus. Similarly, the reason why eBay is so popular is because it has a lot of sellers, which attracts a lot of buyers, which attracts more sellers, which attracts more buyers, etc. Network effects. The demand itself creates its own demand in a snowball effect.

[quote]
By the way, where would you propose Berkeley build these new housing? And what kind of housing do you think they should be? I've seen the triples at Beverly Clearly in Unit 3 and they are clearly superior to the triples in the other buildings in the Units. I think more buildings like Beverly Clearly or more mini-suite / suite style dorms should be aimed for in the future if more expansion is to be done.

[/quote]

I don't even think that Berkeley really needs to 'build' anything. Not necessarily. Why doesn't Berkeley just buy some of the existing private housing stock that exists around Berkeley? Why not? And then, if necessary, renovate it to be more dorm-like. But you don't really need to 'build' any new structures. Sure, buying private property is expensive, but so is building new structures.

As a case in point, a lot of Harvard housing, especially the graduate housing, are not 'true' dorms, but are apartment buildings that Harvard actually bought from private developers. Either that, or they are contractual arrangements that Harvard has with a landlord agency. For example, the entire Soldiers Field Park (SFP) complex at Harvard Business School is not completely run by Harvard. The complex is privately owned and operated but under a contractual arrangement with Harvard to give strong preference to people affiliated with Harvard. SFP looks and acts just like a regular apartment complex. Just looking at the rooms, you would not be able to tell that it had any anything to do with Harvard. But practically everybody who lives there is affiliated with Harvard (either students, faculty, or staff).

I've always wondered why Berkeley can't do that? There is a whole slew of apartment complexes right next to campus. Why can't Berkeley either buy them or enter into a contractual relationship with the landlords? Why is this so hard to do? Sure it would have been expensive, but hey, building the Clark Kerr complex was expensive too, and Clark Kerr is too far away.

Just look at the situation from a social utility standpoint. I know a bunch of people who live in private housing in the Telegraph/Bancroft/Durant area. That is RIGHT NEXT to the campus, literally within walking distance to many classes These guys graduated from Berkeley 10 years ago. Yet THEY ARE STILL THERE. Why? Sure, when they were Berkeley students back in the old days, it was appropriate to live there. But it's 10 years after graduation, and THEY ARE STILL THERE. At the same time, there have been many other students at Berkeley who would have liked to have lived super-close to campus, but cannot, because these guys are still there.

I don't want to be a cold-blooded guy, but come on, that's ridiculous. If you're not a student at Berkeley, then you shouldn't be allowed to occupy housing that is that close to campus. After all, you have no reason to be living that close to campus. Those guys even admitted that they've barely been to campus at all in the last decade. So if you have no reason to live that close to campus, then from a social utility standpoint, you shouldn't be allowed to stay there. You should give up your space to people who actually have a need for that proximity. Hence, if Berkeley were to buy that building, or to write a contract with the landlord, then Berkeley would be able to offer that valuable space to actual students. Not to people who haven't been students in a decade. Come on, that's not socially efficient.

sakky · October 6, 2006, 1:28am

[quote]
Why, aren't we comparing Cal to other schools?

[/quote]

Uh, I was doing that this whole time, just implicitly

So let me put it to you explicitly. Who has a better average quality of undergrad student, HYPSM or Berkeley? Case closed.

[quote]
Instead of Alex Smith vs Tom Brady, you could say its Alex Smith vs Aaron Rodgers. Both have faults, but becuase they have the same faults, or maybe Rodgers has a few more faults than Smith, they are basically the same and their individual faults are erased by each other

[/quote]

I hardly doubt that the comparison between HYPSM and Aaron Rodgers is an apt one.

But put the analogies away. Forget about analogies. The key question is, for undergrad, does Berkeley want to compete against schools like HYPSM or not? If yes, then Berkeley has to improve on a number of fronts. Now, if the answer is no, and Berkeley does not want to compete against schools of that caliber, then that's fine too. But then we will just have to accept those schools are better for undergrad.

ucbhi · October 6, 2006, 1:33am

[quote]
Ucbhi, its sad to see you say these things. You should defend transfers, not bag on them. There are a ton of people on the Cal campus that don't think YOU should be here simply because they say you took the back door in. I'm not one of those people and from my experience I see no drop off in transfer students. If you're upset that there are people from CCC that you don't think belong here, just imagine what the thousands of people that killed themselves in highschool for 4.4 gpas and insane SATs think about you!

[/quote]

I do defend transfers. I don't see a drop-off in the upper 50% of transfers vs. natives either. But I do see a drop-off in the low-end. And I'm saying that the freshman standard needs to be applied to transfers. The low end should be comprised of 3.5s not 3.3s. People should transfer in on the basis that they were top performers in community college, just like people were top performers out of high school. Especially since this is supposed to be one of the best universities in the world.

The reason why "people on the cal campus" think that transferring is a back-door is precisely because these low-end performers get in. Like I said you can get rejected 4.0 out of highschool and then accepted 3.3 out of CC. I'm saying raise that 3.3 to at least 3.5 or 3.6.

sakky · October 6, 2006, 1:42am

I agree that transfers are a problem. The major problem that I see is that transfer students often times get to skip over some (or in certain cases, all) weeders that the freshman-admits have to take. Why? If the freshman-admits have to be weeded out, then the transfer students should be weeded out too. What's fair is fair.

Some would argue that the transfer admissions process is, by itself, a weedout process. This is a huge red herring. An admissions process is an admissions process and thus inherently eliminates people. The freshman admits had to survive the admissions process too. The major difference is that the freshman admits have to be admitted, AND STILL HAVE TO SURVIVE ALL OF THE WEEDERS. The transfer students get to skip over some of the weeders. This is a glaring source of inequity that Berkeley needs to fix.

Like I've always said, if the transfer students really are that good, then they should have no problem in proving themselves, for example, by taking an alternative weeder comprehensive exam. After all, if they really are that good, then they will find this to be easy, right? So why do the transfer students resist this idea so much? It seems to me that they resist the idea because they have something to hide, because perhaps they suspect that maybe they can't pass such an exam, so they don't want to take it. But if they can't pass such an exam, then why are we allowing them to skip weeders?

ucbhi · October 6, 2006, 1:52am

[quote]
No, they think that because they needed really high SATs, a really high GPA, a ton of quality ECs and alot of luck to get in and they think coming in out of a CCC (no matter your GPA) as an affront to their hard work in highschool.

[/quote]

Obviously the people with this view would be fundamentally against the whole transfer process in general. Once they got over the idea of just letting transfers in, they would be further disappointed that getting admitted as a transfer was even easier than they thought.

CardinalFocused · October 6, 2006, 2:04am

If you guys are comparing GPAs for freshmen and transfers, you have to remember that HS grades are weighted.

ucbhi · October 6, 2006, 2:07am

Well I was referring to CCC transfers since the -mass- majority of transfers are from CCCs. So let me restate to make it clear for you. If people automatically deem CCC transfers as unworthy by nature of the CCC background, then having low-performing CCC transfers would be even worse.

But enough of the little details. You're turning this into an ultimatum. Either don't take CCC transfers at all or let them in with low standards. But it isn't like that. I'm saying raise the standards. If you have a problem with raising the standards then discuss that and not the tangent we got on.

CardinalFocused · October 6, 2006, 2:12am

[quote]
Well I was referring to CCC transfers since the -mass- majority of transfers are from CCCs. So let me restate to make it clear for you. If people automatically deem CCC transfers as unworthy by nature of the CCC background, then having low-performing CCC transfers would be even worse.

[/quote]

Who cares? A lot of douches at this school will judge you based on such as arbitrary criteria as: what major you choose (science and haas kids are respected whereas anything else is considered fluff), whether or not you're a spring admit (some *s bag on spring admits... is that...we might as well start an anti fall admit campaign), blah blah blah the list goes on. Ignore the douches. If anything, let their doucheniness motivate you to succeed.

CardinalFocused · October 6, 2006, 2:19am

[quote]
Yes!! We agree on something!!

[/quote]

haha, I also actually agree with some of the things you said against sakky. Maybe you can join our team? I'm on DRabs and dobbys. I think we're beating the sakky/ Shiboing boing click by a couple points. :cool:

ucbhi · October 6, 2006, 12:06pm

[quote]
Where do you get that? I think the standards are ok. What's the average CCC transfer GPA? 3.7? Something like that? Seems fine to me. What I've been saying is that its odd that someone who is already dircriminated against would feel the need to discriminate against others.

[/quote]

Middle 50% are in the 3.53-3.88 range (I believe these are admits not matriculants). The bottom 25% comes out to about 700 students because of Berkeley's size. Not much to debate if that's fine with you. However, I think that for Berkeley to live up to its "one of the best in the world" reputation, the bottom 25% should end at 3.5. It's no secret that this is the flagship, top-tier UC. So why not treat it that way, send 600 of the <= 3.53 kids to Davis and UCSD and admit 100 really special ones?

I'm not discriminating, at least not in the same way as anti-CCC transfers do. I'm not saying, "You went to CCC therefore your accomplishments cannot compare to high school admits." That's more subjective than objective. I'm using an objective measure, GPA, and saying that if we want a stronger student body then we need to set the bar higher. I'm agreeing with Sakky + others that I have noticed a weakness in the student body, and I'm pointing out a problem I see.

Oh, and Cardinal wants me to call him a dirty slut.

ucbhi · October 6, 2006, 1:03pm

[quote]
So someone with a 3.4 GPA is not smart enough to take a class with you?

[/quote]

Using an incredibly popular term around CC, this is a red herring. Not the point of the discussion, period. Well the whole post doesn't address the point, but anyway...

[quote]
You talk about setting the bar higher, so I'll really make your day. Lets REALLY set the bar high and not let in any transfer students from CCC. You have to admit, if we want to LOOK like we have higher standards then we'll need to do away with CCC tranfers and only admit superstar highschoolers. Then we'll look impressive.

[/quote]

You're going backwards again into the ultimatum. I say raise the transfer standards. You say, instead of raising transfer standards let's do away with transfers. But then it's okay to have transfers with low standards. That kind of ultimatum only exists if you initially believe that transfers are inherently weaker, which means that you seem to be more discriminatory than me. Why? Because you're saying that you accept the fact that transfers are here even though they might not have done well in high school. You're fine with that. But if I say raise the transfer mark, you say wait a minute transfers are already less accomplished so why don't we just stop letting them in. So the only reason you seem to support transfers is to be nice, not because you think that they are great students. Correct me if I'm wrong :p

Also it's not about "looking" like the standards are high, it's simply about having stronger students. I believe that there are many transfers that are much more intelligent and have much more potential than a lot of freshman admits. Which is why, unlike you, I don't just throw my hands up and say high school > transfer so raising standards = dumping transfers.

dobby · October 6, 2006, 1:13pm

[quote]
The major problem that I see is that transfer students often times get to skip over some (or in certain cases, all) weeders that the freshman-admits have to take. Why? If the freshman-admits have to be weeded out, then the transfer students should be weeded out too. What's fair is fair.

[/quote]

This is just such an impractical solution. The whole reasoning behind transfer admissions is that most transfers have already done most of their major's lower divs and now only need the upper divs. So what you're asking for is a complete redefinition of the UC transfer process. That's not going to happen.

But let's say it did and Berkeley were to require transfers to take weeders. Such a practice would probably mean that most transfers would not graduate in time - thus driving up student numbers. Is that really what you want?

[quote]
Like I've always said, if the transfer students really are that good, then they should have no problem in proving themselves, for example, by taking an alternative weeder comprehensive exam. After all, if they really are that good, then they will find this to be easy, right? So why do the transfer students resist this idea so much? It seems to me that they resist the idea because they have something to hide, because perhaps they suspect that maybe they can't pass such an exam, so they don't want to take it. But if they can't pass such an exam, then why are we allowing them to skip weeders?

[/quote]

And is it just me or is there a double standard here? If you haven't noticed, plenty of freshmen admits, incluiding myself, bypass weeders through either AP or community college credit acquired both before and after high school graduation. So, if what you want is fairness - you should also support ending all such practices for Berkeley freshmen admits.

ucbhi · October 6, 2006, 1:32pm

Considering that I had a 4.0, I doubt that I just picked a convenient number lower than mine. I picked 3.5 because relative to the average GPAs I've seen in community colleges that seemed to be a good number. I picked 3.5 because UC Davis' middle 50% transfer GPA is something like 3.1-3.7. Relative to that and the difference in Berkeley-Davis reputation I don't feel like a 3.5 limit is unfair. However, I'm not claiming that this is the final solution, this is just a starting point for the discussion.

As I said earlier, this discussion exists because the problem of "weak student body" was brought up and many agree. You really haven't explained to me why raising standards in general would be a bad thing. If you don't have any sort of platform, just say you don't like the idea and stop faux-debating :)

vicissitudes · October 6, 2006, 3:06pm

[quote]
I don't even think that Berkeley really needs to 'build' anything. Not necessarily. Why doesn't Berkeley just buy some of the existing private housing stock that exists around Berkeley? Why not? And then, if necessary, renovate it to be more dorm-like. But you don't really need to 'build' any new structures. Sure, buying private property is expensive, but so is building new structures.

Just look at the situation from a social utility standpoint. I know a bunch of people who live in private housing in the Telegraph/Bancroft/Durant area. That is RIGHT NEXT to the campus, literally within walking distance to many classes These guys graduated from Berkeley 10 years ago. Yet THEY ARE STILL THERE. Why? Sure, when they were Berkeley students back in the old days, it was appropriate to live there. But it's 10 years after graduation, and THEY ARE STILL THERE. At the same time, there have been many other students at Berkeley who would have liked to have lived super-close to campus, but cannot, because these guys are still there.

[/quote]

So you are proposing that Berkeley pay a large sum to buy off-campus apartments which students already live in, to give to students...to live in. I don't see the difference except that now students can officially call it "on-campus" housing instead of "off-campus" housing.

So you say there are people who take up room in the private housing. Well, I haven't seen that as a problem. Students who want private housing, at least from what I've seen, get private housing. For example, of the 650 spring admits enrolled in FPF this year, I believe housing offers were given to about 250 of them. The rest had to find private housing / themed housing / commute. From those I've talked to those who wanted to get private housing, got private housing. It's not like non-students are taking up all the room in apartments and students have nowhere to live.

I think when we talk about 4-years guaranteed housing, that means 4-year guaranteed housing in the dorms, as opposed to apartments. After all, we are talking about fostering student communities within Berkeley, and it's much easier to socialize in dormitories than in apartments. So, it's not really a matter of Berkeley apartments vs. private apartments; it's a matter of on-campus dorms vs. off-campus apartments.

So, I think if Berkeley wants to push for 4-year guaranteed housing, it should focus on building more dormitories. AND they should be good-quality ones. Look at the new mini-suites in Unit 1 for example. Those rooms are a lot nicer than the freshman hallway doubles and triples, and they persuaded many second-years and transfers to live on-campus. Look at Bowles and Stern - rarely do students want to live there. Most students live there because they were stuck there with no other choice. I understand what you are saying that if your friends live on-campus you will want to live on-campus, but Berkeley has to convince your friends to live on-campus first. This means not only more available housing, but good quality housing, and not existing apartments, because honestly students can simply go to the private-owned apartment next door and probably get it for cheaper.

vicissitudes · October 6, 2006, 3:17pm

[quote]
Middle 50% are in the 3.53-3.88 range (I believe these are admits not matriculants). The bottom 25% comes out to about 700 students because of Berkeley's size. Not much to debate if that's fine with you. However, I think that for Berkeley to live up to its "one of the best in the world" reputation, the bottom 25% should end at 3.5. It's no secret that this is the flagship, top-tier UC. So why not treat it that way, send 600 of the <= 3.53 kids to Davis and UCSD and admit 100 really special ones?

[/quote]

I agree with this.

[quote]
This is just such an impractical solution. The whole reasoning behind transfer admissions is that most transfers have already done most of their major's lower divs and now only need the upper divs. So what you're asking for is a complete redefinition of the UC transfer process. That's not going to happen.

But let's say it did and Berkeley were to require transfers to take weeders. Such a practice would probably mean that most transfers would not graduate in time - thus driving up student numbers. Is that really what you want?

[/quote]

Why is it so unrealistic? Hey they just did a complete overhaul of the SATs a year ago.

And I don't think sakky is proposing that the transfers take all the weeders again, but a test equivalent to the weeder's final exam, on a P/F basis, to show that the transfers are capable of passing these weeders.

[quote]
And is it just me or is there a double standard here? If you haven't noticed, plenty of freshmen admits, incluiding myself, bypass weeders through either AP or community college credit acquired both before and after high school graduation. So, if what you want is fairness - you should also support ending all such practices for Berkeley freshmen admits.

[/quote]

First of all, I don't see that many freshmen passing out of weeders. The vast majority still take Math 1B. Anyone who wants to apply to Haas still takes UGBA10. I don't think it's possible to pass out of Chem 3a. So on and so forth.

But even so, at least you took an AP exam. That's similar to sakky's idea to give transfers a "weeder final exam." If you got a 5 on the AP exams, you can skip the weeders, like how if transfers can pass these "weeder final exams," they can skip the weeders at Berkeley. Right now the only basis we have that they could have survived Math 1B is their grade in a CC calculus course. Just like Berkeley doesn't let you pass out of Math 1B if you got an A in your calculus class (you need a 5 on the AP Calculus BC exam), Berkeley shouldn't let transfers pass out of weeders like Math 1B based only on a CC calculus course.

In any case, I'm not sure if I agree with this method, because I think it's unrealistic unless Berkeley makes a deal with ETS or another company to create a standarized test similar to the ACTs for transfers and use it as an admissions criterion. But I do agree that the standards for transfers should be raised.

sakky · October 6, 2006, 4:10pm

[quote]
This is just such an impractical solution. The whole reasoning behind transfer admissions is that most transfers have already done most of their major's lower divs and now only need the upper divs. So what you're asking for is a complete redefinition of the UC transfer process. That's not going to happen.

But let's say it did and Berkeley were to require transfers to take weeders. Such a practice would probably mean that most transfers would not graduate in time - thus driving up student numbers. Is that really what you want?

[/quote]

Uh, no, I think if you read my posts carefully, and especially if you search through my old posts, you will see that I dealt precisely with this issue. I don't propose to have the transfers take the weeder courses, although they certainly could do that. I would also allow them to simply take equivalent exams. These exams would act as waivers. If you can't pass these waiver exams, then you should have to take the actual course.

The presumption is that if the transfer students really are as good as people say they are, then they will have no problem in passing these waiver exams.

[quote]
And is it just me or is there a double standard here? If you haven't noticed, plenty of freshmen admits, incluiding myself, bypass weeders through either AP or community college credit acquired both before and after high school graduation. So, if what you want is fairness - you should also support ending all such practices for Berkeley freshmen admits.

[/quote]

I support that too. But let's deal with one problem at a time. For example, if you're a policeman, just because you can't stop ALL crime doesn't mean that you shouldn't stop ANY. You don't see somebody stealing and say to yourself "Well, there are probably other thieves who are getting away with their theft, so that means I should let this thief get away with his theft." No, if you see a problem, you should fix it, even if it's not "fair" that you're not fixing all of the other problems. Fixing some problems is better than fixing none.

The point is, I see several problems, and I would ideally want them all fixed. If we can't fix them all, then we should at least try to fix some of them. The worst choice is to fix NONE of them.

sakky · October 6, 2006, 4:26pm

[quote]
So you are proposing that Berkeley pay a large sum to buy off-campus apartments which students already live in, to give to students...to live in. I don't see the difference except that now students can officially call it "on-campus" housing instead of "off-campus" housing.

So you say there are people who take up room in the private housing. Well, I haven't seen that as a problem. Students who want private housing, at least from what I've seen, get private housing. For example, of the 650 spring admits enrolled in FPF this year, I believe housing offers were given to about 250 of them. The rest had to find private housing / themed housing / commute. From those I've talked to those who wanted to get private housing, got private housing. It's not like non-students are taking up all the room in apartments and students have nowhere to live.

I think when we talk about 4-years guaranteed housing, that means 4-year guaranteed housing in the dorms, as opposed to apartments. After all, we are talking about fostering student communities within Berkeley, and it's much easier to socialize in dormitories than in apartments. So, it's not really a matter of Berkeley apartments vs. private apartments; it's a matter of on-campus dorms vs. off-campus apartments.

So, I think if Berkeley wants to push for 4-year guaranteed housing, it should focus on building more dormitories. AND they should be good-quality ones. Look at the new mini-suites in Unit 1 for example. Those rooms are a lot nicer than the freshman hallway doubles and triples, and they persuaded many second-years and transfers to live on-campus. Look at Bowles and Stern - rarely do students want to live there. Most students live there because they were stuck there with no other choice. I understand what you are saying that if your friends live on-campus you will want to live on-campus, but Berkeley has to convince your friends to live on-campus first. This means not only more available housing, but good quality housing, and not existing apartments, because honestly students can simply go to the private-owned apartment next door and probably get it for cheaper.

[/quote]

I completely disagree with your line of thinking. It's not that people can't find private housing. Of course they can. The issue is that they often times can't find CLOSEBY private housing. I've known plenty of people who have had to live a good 20-30 minutes walk from campus. That's just too darn far. Ideally, you should be living as close to campus as you can.

Again, I would point to the example of Harvard Business School. The campus housing for HBS is RIGHT ON THE CAMPUS, meaning that your classes are literally a 2 minute walk away -i.e. literally right across the street. The gym is literally a 2 minute walk away. The majority of the student body lives no more than a 10 minute walk away. People say that HBS gives you access to the best networking opportunity in the world, and I am quite convinced that the sheer proximity of the living arrangements are a huge factor in why that is the case.

Furthermore, the HBS campus housing is not all dorm-style. Some of it is dorm-style. But a lot of it is pure apartments. The whole Soldiers Field Park complex, as well as the 1 Western Ave complex, are PURE APARTMENTS. Hamilton Hall is basically an apartment complex. I would say that Morris and Chase are apartments (small apartments to be sure, but apartments nonetheless). Yet there is a wide consensus that the sheer proximity of all the students is a big reason for why the HBS networking opportunites are so vast.

In other words, it is PROXIMITY that I am after. The students all have to be as close to each other as possible, and also close to the campus. The value of buying/leasing/contracting private housing near the campus is that it is near the campus. The major problem of, say, Clark Kerr, is that it is just too darn far away from campus.

The related issue is that quite frankly there really are a lot of people who are living right next to campus who are not students. Like I said, many of them were former students, but they aren't students anymore. Yet they're still hanging around, keeping their old apartments. If Berkeley actually owned or leased those apartments, then these people would be forced to vacate in favor of the new batch of students who could really use the proximity. For example, getting back to the HBS example, once you graduate from HBS, you can't just continue to linger at Soldiers Field Park. Once you're done, you're done, and you have to make way for the new batch. You had your time, so you should let other people have their time.

Hence, obviously anybody in Berkeley who wants private housing can get it. The issue is, can you get CLOSEBY housing? In the present situation, probably not. But from a social utility standpoint, the people who should have priority on closeby housing are Berkeley students. Not former students or random dudes who just happen to be living in Berkeley. Seriously, those people can live anywhere. Why should they have to hog some of the spots closest to campus?

In other words, from a housing standpont, I would like to see Berkeley behave more like HBS. Now obviously I am well aware that Berkeley will never have the resources-per-capita that HBS has. But at least you can try to do some things to create community.

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