^Indeed, I’d rather Texas than CA any day;)
My point is that I take issue with the concept of “better” campuses. From a policy perspective, the state should be viewing all campuses as equal. And if anything, state policy would be served by redirecting some strong students to less popular colleges, as a way of improving student perceptions of those colleges.
I can understand concern when the CSU’s that are primarily commuter schools can’t serve their local populations - that’s where people who really need the system to work are getting hurt.
Also- “high-stat” really in my eyes does not mean “most deserving”. Standardized tests favor wealthier & more pivileged students-- and many of those students are coming from private high schools or publics in affluent areas with far more resources for the students – so yes, those students can run up their scores and weighted GPA – but that doesn’t make them smarter or better than the kids attending urban or rural public schools that don’t have the same quality of resources.
CSULB has a very strong admission preference for local applicants, so it may be rather hard to get into by non-local applicants. SDSU and CPSLO are the two that have gotten significantly more selective generally, with apparently minimal to no local area preference. SJSU has gotten very selective for some majors (e.g. computer science), but is not that selective for many other majors. Nursing seems to be very selective everywhere.
But most majors at most CSUs appear to be accessible to B/B+ HS students, particularly those local to the CSU campus, although there are some population areas that are not that close to a CSU campus (or where the close one is SDSU or CPSLO).
I think some of the angst is from parents/grandparents who remember back when a kid with great grades and super high SAT scores had no problem getting into Cal or UCLA. Fast forward 25-30 years or more and it is a shock when you find out how much the admissions landscape has changed. High schools with dozens of NMFs can be super competitive, so if you want Cal or UCLA, you better compete hard. Even then that may not be enough. Results at the UCs can seem random at times - how does a kid get Regents at UCSB or Davis and not accepted to the other? (Their admitted stats are nearly identical.) Our kid was one fluke decision away from not getting into a UC because we didn’t know enough about how many campuses you had to apply to now. I worried that our next kid might be the one who got all unlucky decisions. Seems like that must happen to a few kids such as the OPs. We’ve also seen how a really strong application with great essays can get consistent acceptances at the UCs. I don’t doubt some kids get very unlucky and I’d be frustrated too.
There is most definitely a pecking order at the 4 SUNY university centers. Its mostly by major or school though.
I always thought there should be a true flagship. Albany makes the most geographical sense, but they lost their way once the drinking age went to 21, the rise of the frats, and then the splitting off of Nanotech into SUNY Poly.
Buffalo and Stony could be the UCLA/UCB combo and Bing could be the top LAC. If only the Governor would listen to me 
Ironically, we kind of do have a flagship, SUNY@ Ithaca, A.K.A Cornell CALS and ILR. Also the privates are funded nicely by the state. Look into the original funding of Carrier Dome if you have the interest.
That is probably a reason why the UC/CSU weighted-capped GPA calculation limits +1 honors points to 8 semesters’ worth (or about 0.3-0.4 in the overall GPA), and why they tend to weight GPA more heavily compared to SAT/ACT scores than many other colleges.
It is simply untrue, and not very helpful to currently highly qualified students, to use Merced’s and Riverside’s relative under-enrollment as proof that that UC campuses as a whole are not full. M & R are not Berkeley in terms of student body capability. Some of my students have visited Merced, for example, and were dismayed and rightfully discouraged at the quality of the students they met. Ditto for R. Of course Merced and R may eventually get to parity with Berkeley, but that possibility does not help our currently graduating seniors.
Nevertheless, as I’ve said elsewhere, the demand for CA higher education can be “blamed” partly on the industry itself, which is as attached to its tony California comforts and lifestyle as are many of its other residents. It shouldn’t be ascribed to immigrants: they are needed here and attracted by the availability of jobs to match their skills. If those same jobs were out of state, I’m pretty sure they would follow the money. I maintain that SV bears significant responsibility in the pressures on UC admissions.
But many kids are at high schools that don’t even offer 8 semesters’ worth of honors or AP’s – so even that cap still puts many at a disadvantage.
Way more than “a few.” So far, every one of my students has been “unlucky,” and this historically is a first for me.
Not a recent addition. This has been in place for many a year.
I have a simple advice for high stats CA kids who cannot get into top UCs: just go to OOS Honors Colleges. You will get just as good education, if not better, and it’s way cheaper because HCs will likely give you big merit money. That was our plan had not our kid gotten into UCLA/Berkeley and Stanford. What I am saying to all high stats kids and parents are: Have a back-up plan and be ready in case you get denied from top UCs.
I am actually in favor of doing away with test scores and GPAs and am in favor of “on the spot” tests given out by each college. If you want to get into CS Dept at MIT, you show up at their test center and take a 2 hours test, and professors can decide. lol IMO HS GPAs show diligence but for many kids, HS (even AP courses) are not too difficult to distinguish among smart kids. Also, the level of competition varies greatly among high schools, so I am not sure getting 4.0 GPA means all that much other than the kid was diligent and is somewhat academically intelligent.
The only way for Merced and Riverside to rise in quality is for high stats kids to attend. Someone has to be first. Also, I don’t know how you judge the quality of a student simply by meeting him or her on campus? What criteria are you using to make that determination? If you sat in on class and found the level of discourse lacking, that would be a different matter.
“High schools with dozens of NMFs can be super competitive, so if you want Cal or UCLA, you better compete hard.”
So, the message then is that future prospective UC applicants had better follow at least some of the points on @VickiSoCal 's list if they want a top-tier UC?
They did.
However, if these are the students who do not get admitted to UCB/UCLA/UCSD/UCSB/UCI/UCD, what would they think if the students who do get admitted to those campuses look down on them as the “low quality” students who are “beneath” them?
You can study for PSAT, SAT or ACT on your own and do just as well, if not better, than kids who go to prep courses. In this sense, going to prep courses is not an advantage because a motivated kid can do just as well by preparing for it himself.
Because I myself scored 99.9% on SAT by studying 1.5 hour every day during a summer vacation, I told my kid to learn to self-study. It’s a waste of time going back and forth to prep courses. You can use the travel time to study more.
That is a good public policy reason for the state to divert more high performing students to those campuses.
The UC system was not designed to serve just so-called “high stats” applicants – it’s meant to provide equal opportunties for the top 12.5% of all Californians, with guaranteed admission for the top 9% (based either on academic index or actual class rank). That means that that the kid whose “stats” are at 91% has every much of a right and expectation to a UC educationa s the kid whose stats are at 99%.
And I don’t think the system should be hierarchical within the 9-campus system – because a hierarchical system simply reinforces existing class and ethnic barriers.
I agree, and have vigorously recommended that to all of my students, and I mean all, in the last 10 years minimum. But it still doesn’t make it right, i.m.o., to admit OOS’ers in the current objectively verifiable application reality. I think our best students should also be very public with their dissatisfaction with current UC practices and vote with their feet. Some of my STEM students have been favoring U of Washington Seattle for some time, for that reason, and there’s tech industry in that town, so more power to U of Washington, i.m.o.
I’m game.
@stardustmom No, where do you get that from? More like, if the top kids in your HS are taking 9-10 APs, you better take that many to be competitive with your classmates to have the best chance at the top 2 UCs. You might need a perfect or near perfect GPA. You will need an EC or 2 that you’ve dived into because that is what your competition will have done. Other than encouraging our kids to do an EC year round, we basically did none of those 12 points. One kid did sports, the other did a more academic EC. We’re fortunate to have 2 kids who showed a lot of discipline by self-studying for the SAT, getting good grades, etc. We didn’t know how many APs other kids were taking, so that was a surprise to us and something kid 1 didn’t benefit from. But he was fine with it and happy where he’s at.
Sadly, in many cases, that is a snap judgment based on ethicity.
Merced is 53% hispanic. Riverside is 41% hispanic.
Berkeley is around 12% hispanic. UCLA is 21% hispanic. UCSD around 16%.
Statewide, California is about 37% hispanic. So the current system results in marked differences in ethnic makeup from one campus to the next. (African American enrollment is dismal just about everywhere)