I think @going4three is referring to the issue of ethnicity as it relates to college admissions. It is a hot button issue on CC with many unhappy that some might have an advantage at certain schools based on race. There are quite a few on CC who believe all admissions should be entirely based on stats, as they are at the UCs. Personally, I don’t think doing away with AA has helped the UCs. When you visit certain campuses you see some groups way overrepresented and other groups seem to be missing entirely. I think there is value in making sure all groups are represented, even if it means the average GPA of admitted students at a university dips a bit. Part of the university experience should include engaging with people from different backgrounds, as being exposed to different perspectives will help students in their future careers.
@going4three – California universities are prohibited by law from considering race or ethnicity in admissions decision. It’s in the state constition: quote The State shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.
[/quote]
So it’s not a question of pro or con … it is simply not a factor that can be directly considered. You can read more about the implementation of that law (which was enacted via by a ballot proposition 20 years ago) and its impact on enrollment here: https://www.ucop.edu/student-affairs/_files/aa_final2.pdf
@svlab112 – thanks for correcting my math – you are right- I made an calculation error
I was at UC as an undergrad from 1970-1974. From reading the report I linked to above, apparently the UC Regents implemented a “2-tier” admission system for all campuses in 1971, which meant that campuses that were unable to admit all UC eligible students were mandated to select half the class based on academic criteria and that the other half was to based on a more holistic overview, including recruitment efforts aimed at minorities. The policy was designed “in part to ensure that all campuses selected their students from the full range of the applicant pool in terms of academic and other factors.” – in other words, precisely to avoid the hierarchical system that has evolved today.
At that time students could apply to one campus only but would be redirected to other campuses if they could not be admitted to their preferred campus.
@stardustmom
I’m aware of all that you say in your post 280. I’ve been on CC since 2004 and have contributed significantly to the so-called “Race” debate on that thread by name and many other threads. What I’m saying is that I haven’t happened to have seen mentioned any antipathy toward Native Americans in particular. The three main targets are in this order: Blacks, then Latinos, then those of White European ancestry.
So funny how epiphany dumps on “illiterate” Latinos in Post #216! So now they are bringing Merced and Riverside down!? Sheesh! They are working hard and moving up…you will see! Irvine also has about 30 percent Latinos (and increasing fast) in that other “illegal illiterate” thread where the roommate had to take a gap year at UCI. They will prove you wrong on their academic potential soon!
No, Mr. Fisherman. How intellectually dishonest your reading of my posts were. Clearly I indicated a range of ability among Latinos, specifying both those prepared and those unprepared. Grow up, What a childishly and transparently selective distortion of my statement. As someone representing excellence in standards in U. S. education and CA education, I maintain those standards in all I do, including my work with the under-represented. You obviously don’t know me, but you clearly have no intention of reading others’ posts accurately. I oppose illiteracy, sir, across the board. Illiteracy never served black students, either, and it is why blacks themselves began particularly rigorous urban charter schools dedicated specifically to raising the literacy rate and competency of black high school students to be competitive in college admissions. Before that happened, many of them were once also admitted to UC in the early days of AA, just as unprepared as SOME of the undocumented immigrants are now, and the tragic result of those blacks being unprepared is that they failed. There was insufficient remediation at UC to bring them up to college level, just as there will be insufficient remediation for the young woman I mentioned, and the fault in that lies with UC for admitting her. You obviously know very little about the the K-12 public school preparation of the populations I am clearly better acquainted with.
And I’m surprised at you, calmom, for thanking a post that was patently a misrepresentation. Apparently you have forgotten a lot about me. I despise illiteracy wherever I find it – in Asians, whites, blacks, and Hispanics, and my response is that I tutor in literacy – another fact neither one of you seems to care about. The University of CA was not designed, then or now, to remediate across the board in the most basic kinds of literacy. That’s for special preparation programs as well as for high school.
Sheesh yourself is my opinion of your character assassination and your gross misrepresentation of the actual words of others and the assumptions of the work of others within the URM communities.
By the way, to the brave poster who dared to disclose the real situation in some of the community colleges in the state, thank you for your testimony. I’ll get back to that one later.
Admission standards for all students at the UC’s are the same. Minimum GPA, a-g requirements. As posted above, ethnicity is not considered at all, and has been prohibited by law since 1996, which is well before most entering freshmen were born.
I don’t think this is a good thing. When I came to California in 1970, in state residents paid about $600 per year in fees, and my classmates came from all walks of life, with a large number of kids from working class families, many paying their own way to attend. The low cost of attendance made that possible. The university seemed to be committed to encouraging minority enrollment and supporting students once enrolled. I think that made for an enriching experience for all.
I don’t think admission standards that result in de facto segregation or perpetuation of cultural stereotypes are at all helpful. I don’t like the “stats” based segregation either. The world is full of intelligent and capable people who were not particularly good students in high school or aren’t particularly adept at standardized tests.
I wish the UC’s would go back to a system of allowing applications to one campus only, with students able to indicate their preferences among the nine campuses if they didn’t get admitted to their top choice. It would result in an immediate increase in admission rates for all students, because no single student could be admitted to more than one school. And it would enable creation of greater balance and parity among the campuses.
“I wish the UC’s would go back to a system of allowing applications to one campus only, with students able to indicate their preferences among the nine campuses if they didn’t get admitted to their top choice”
This seems like the best solution. Any chance of it happening?
Another idea: time for Elon Musk or other great idea people in CA to open up a technical training School for all those CS kids that don’t want a well rounded college experience and just want to learn to code and make a lot of money in tech. The school could also have entry/training for lower level tech jobs that need skills but not the high skills required for programming. They could build in mandatory employment at the firm for 5 years to partially cover the costs of the school.
This is an offshoot of the German model where apprenticeship education is the norm.
The system is not working (not only in CA). We need a huge idea to shift it. Like what Uber did to the Taxi business model.
@suzyQ7:
“Another idea: time for Elon Musk or other great idea people in CA to open up a technical training School for all those CS kids that don’t want a well rounded college experience and just want to learn to code and make a lot of money in tech”
Coding bootcamps already exist.
And how many high stats kids aiming for CS (the ones who are driving acceptance rates for CS programs in CA down to insane levels) don’t want the college experience?
Apprentice and vocational schools are a very good idea, but as purpletitan mentions, the high stats kids are not going to go there and if you’re going to make a lot of money in high tech, you have to work with people and communicate well, which these vocational schools are probably not going to teach a lot of. If you love cars and see yourself as an auto mechanic, that’s a good place for a vocational school, like in Germany.
Coding bootcamps do exists, but code monkey will never be anything but that. You can’t attend trading school of some sort that teaches coding and expect to become software architect one day.
I tried to read through the whole thread, though I confess I glazed over at some of the CA admissions minutiae. That aside, I remain perplexed by the position of CA students being specially thwarted, in relation to the rest of the country. I live in NJ. We have ONE public university in the top 100, and we pay taxes that I am sure rival yours in CA. This university is at Number 69 in the rankings. You have SIX public unis in the top 50 of all national universities–for what that’s worth, which is apparently everything according to many posters here. Despite this ranking, RU is not that hard to get into, and the rest of the public colleges (possible exception TCNJ) are more or less equivalent to CSU’s, I would guess.
Somehow, our top students make do, even those going to (gasp!) Rutgers or TCNJ, or even Montclair or Rowan or Stockton. Or they take those stats to privates, often garnering merit scholarships. I do think NJ should put more money into higher education. But I can’t even begin to understand the attitude of–“we have the BEST schools, so my kid should get to go to one of them. Not end up at one of those other schools”. Most states don’t even have even one of those socalled BEST schools. But the kids are alright.
In Germany, the apprenticeship is traditionally how coders (including those who become software architects) get started but
- German unis don’t offer the “American college experience”, with pretty much all of them being bare-bones commuter schools.
- The apprenticeship is already the traditional path to software development in Germany. Much harder to start that in the US when the top budding CS talent are currently in colleges, forming networks and forming companies.
@garland just keep in mind that California population is close to 38 million and New Jersey is barely over 9. California is what, the 6th largest economy in the world? California has more schools but it’s also got a lot more people. It’s is a huge piece of property and not getting into the local UC can make life difficult for kids who maybe need to be closer than a 10 hour drive from home.
Plenty of top students “make due” without the UC system. Mine go to out of state private schools along with all of their friends through activities. Most of their classmates though rely on the local CC’s, CSU’s and UC’s and they live at home for the first couple years. It’s survivable but of course a top student is going to get upset when they qualify but don’t get in. I’m pretty sure Jersey kids and parents vent at that situation too.
@turtletime, but what does “qualify” mean?
Tons of kids “qualify” for the Ivies/equivalents but only a small percentage get in because of space limitations.
It does seem like the problem is a big mismatch between expectations and resume. As I said, if the UC’s went to a TX-style quota for in-state students, probably only the top 1% can be guaranteed Cal (but maybe not for their desired majors), top 2% for UCLA, top 3% for UCSD, etc.
As admissions are still holistic to an extent at the UC’s and admissions to popular majors could be several times more competitive, you have to make allowances for that too.
But at least a kid in the top 9% (by the criteria the UCs set) are guaranteed a UC.
California has a great network of state univeristies and colleges, at various levels, from elite to easy acceptance.
State universities in EVERY state accept a percent of OOS and International applicants. Some people aren’t lucky enough to live in states with excellent universities, yet most ALSO paid taxes to fund the educational system.
Also, all the 4.0 grades don’t always mean the students are smarter than students with lower grades but from schools with challenging grading systems (common in the Northeast). I’m sure many CA students are very smart, but so are students from elsewhere. Sometimes you can see this in the test scores or rigor of the transcript or sometimes in unique EC’s or leadership or athletics. This is what “holistic admissions” is about. It’s not only about stats.
@garland While CA may have a more prestigious public U landscape, NJ has many of the best primary and secondary public school districts in the country, yes?
Applying to ONE UC was how it used to be.be back in my day. Needs to be that way again! And epiphany, UC Riverside is one of the most diverse campuses with graduation rates of other races HIGHER THAN WHITES! There is an article in the LA Times about how well African Americans do there. This should be encouraged at ALl UC’s!!