Calif Asians are losing UC spots to Chinese and OOS students

[ucbalumnus]

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@4thfloor

Impressive gains at Cal, though.

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<p>Probably due to a combination of increased entrance selectivity (much lower need for remedial courses, students better prepared to handle 15 credit course loads, more students with AP credit) and higher in-state tuition costs (more incentive to finish on time to avoid extra semesters’ of tuition).</p>

[cobrat]

<p>

@ucbalumnus

Don’t know how those stories get credibility, but a quick look at University of California: StatFinder shows that 4 year graduation rates at Berkeley have been rising from the 1990s to recently.

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<p>Probably from relations who experienced this firsthand like some of my California cousins who experienced this as STEM majors in the mid-late '80s. From their experiences…being shut out of some required major/core courses meant they graduated a semester to a semester and half late. </p>

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@4thfloor

I think Cal lost ground to HYPSM at NYC STEM magnet schools when stories circulated that Cal STEM students often got shut out of required courses and could not easily graduate in 4 years. In addition, most NYC magnet school students come from financially disadvantaged families, and HYPSM financial aid packages usually beat out Cal’s.

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<p>Most kids who were admitted to UC Berkeley or UCLA were also admitted to Ivies and various elite colleges/universities. Unless they were gung-ho on California and failed to get into Stanford or Caltech…they’d usually opt for those other elite schools…especially considering the 5+ year graduation issue and better FA/scholarships. And I’m talking about the '90s…well-before the Ivies and some elite schools made their FA/scholarships more generous. </p>

<p>Not too many kids applied to other UCs because of admissions difficulty, cost, and plethora of perceived better options academically/financially (i.e. UMich, UW-Seattle, UWisc-Madison, U-Texas-Austin, UVA, UIllinois-UC, other elite universities/LACs, etc).</p>

[ucbalumnus]

<p>

@cobrat

Probably from relations who experienced this firsthand like some of my California cousins who experienced this as STEM majors in the mid-late '80s. From their experiences…being shut out of some required major/core courses meant they graduated a semester to a semester and half late.

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<p>Hmmm, I do not recall seeing that problem at that time. However, the 4 year graduation rate was low because a lot of students took light course loads (12 or 13 credits average instead of the usual 15 average) because the normal course loads were “too much work”. In-state tuition was cheap enough then that many students did not have a lot of incentive to finish on time.</p>

<p>Another factor delaying graduation for many students then was having to take remedial English courses – about half of entering freshmen in the 1980s had to take them. At the time, they also did not give full credit for remedial courses (they counted as 4 credits of work in your schedule, but only 2 credits to the 120 needed for graduation).</p>