Is the vibe at Cal really all that different from, say, Cornell and Columbia?
I’m sure there are people who have attended both Cal and those other two schools (for undergrad and grad) who can compare and contrast.
What does “above and beyond” mean in terms of competitiveness?
I think we could create a list or an index for “competitiveness” of various colleges- and you’d have Johns Hopkins, Cornell, Cal, MIT at one end, and Evergreen, Marlboro, Bard, Bennington at the other. OK- a kid looking for the Marlboro experience is poorly serviced by JHU. No argument there. We’d debate a little about places like Reed, U Chicago, Bryn Mawr, since there are kids who are quite intense and personally competitive who end up at these places-- and there’s an intellectual climate there that both supports the intensity but not necessarily the competition which allows for a healthy discussion and dispute about how competitive these colleges are…
But I think these colleges are all HUGELY transparent about their climate. Nobody shows up at MIT and at the end of the first week says “gosh, there’s a lot of work, and there are so many math and science classes I need to pass”. Nobody shows up at Bard and says “Why aren’t there more pre-meds here?”
Transparency. So why the angst from the Californians? It’s competitive to get into Berkeley, and in many disciplines, it requires a LOT of work to stay there and graduate.
Why is this unusual?
Would not be surprised if it were associated with certain majors which have become very popular these days in the era of increasing (perceived) importance of pre-professional preparation in college (where economics (commonly used as a substitute business major) is now the largest major at many of the most selective schools, presumably by Wall Street hopefuls). Examples:
- Business and economics. Business is a competitive admission (in the second year) major that is a minor Wall Street target (not as much as HYP, but more so than other majors at UCB). It also admits subjectively, so it is not just a matter of hitting certain grade or GPA benchmarks. Economics, where many business rejects end up, is now the largest major at UCB, though it has a 3.0 threshold GPA to enter.
- Pre-meds. Molecular and cell biology, which is strongly associated with pre-med students, is the third most popular major at UCB (though it used to be first, before economics and L&S CS passed it). However, only about a quarter of students in most of the typical pre-med courses earn A- or better, and pre-med cutthroatism in those courses has a reputation stretching back for decades (though probably not unique to UCB -- JHU probably has that reputation because of the large number of pre-meds there).
- L&S CS. Now the second most popular major at UCB, it needs a 3.3 GPA in the three prerequisite courses. But the grading policy of at least two of the courses is explicitly not on a curve, presumably to discourage cutthroat behavior. But do students actually notice that?
But would a student not seeking a competitive admission major, medical school, top 14 law school, or elitist employment like Wall Street have any reason to try to cutthroat other students? In particular, the engineering majors are direct admit to major, so there is not the sense of having to compete against other first year pre-engineering students for placement into your major like at many other popular state flagships.
Of course, the lack of incentive to cutthroatism is different from the existence of rigorous courses and curricula in many majors. But the courses and curricula being hard is different from cutthroat competition (have not heard much of MIT being cutthroat, even though it is well known for being highly rigorous).
@stardustmom, Since you yourself say “UCB has always had the reputation of being cut-throat” why did you encourage you son to apply there, and why did you want him to go there?
I’m trying to understand the mentality of someone criticizing one of the greatest (if not THE greatest) public universities in the world because it’s too competitive, while acknowledging its competitiveness and wanting her son to go there when admitted.
There’s such a disconnect here.
And I can’t believe it – sorry, you’re not persuasive – that Cal is somehow more competitive than Cal Tech. Or MIT. Or Chicago. Or Stanford – or any of the schools renowned around the world for the talent they attract and their intellectual and technical impact.
And much of this varies by discipline. I’m going to guess that Classics majors at Cal don’t find the U particularly competitive- even though the competition for post grad opportunities in Classics or even “Classics adjacent” is huge since there are so few funded PhD spots, jobs as HS Latin teachers, jobs transcribing inscriptions at museums, etc. And for the vast majority of Classics majors who do NOT end up in a Classics relevant role- the competition is even MORE fierce since they go to MBA programs, Law school, Med school, etc.
So sure- Econ is competitive. But is philosophy, art history comparative literature?
Kids with a competitive streak are more likely to end up in econ than in Medieval studies.
Someone is going to argue with me on this- to cite my sources- so bring it on. I have no source. But I studied Classics and a more chill group of classmates, professors and administrators you could not find!!!
@katliasmom I really don’t want to get into an argument with you. I am sharing my college search experience with others, which is what CC is for. As most parents do, after my son was admitted to various universities I dug down and did my research. I invite others to do the same. Yes, I heard rumors, but when UCB became a real option my son and I went to campus to check things out on our own. If you think it’s normal competitiveness for certain groups to be shut out of TA discussions, as I have heard from a few sources that they are at Berkeley, then I suppose UCB is the right place for you.
This thread poses the question, Should California parents feel justified having their children shut out of the UC system? My son was not shut out, but the UCs have changed greatly since I attended. Some of the bitterness people feel is due to these changes.
I also do not want to imply that UCLA is better than UCB. I attended UCLA in the 90s and cannot speak to the climate there now. I toured in the summer. I did, however, spend time at UCSB recently and was very impressed with what I saw there.
guess what though- lots of colleges have changed since we were undergrads.
I went to Brown during the mid 1970’s. When I go back I barely recognize the place. Not just the physical plant- but the type of students there and what they want out of their college experience. Spouse says the same about the colleges he attended for both grad and undergrad. Siblings say the same, cousins say the same and we’re talking about places as different as U Arizona, Cornell, Holy Cross, Brandeis, Yale, U Mass, Clark.
Name a college which is the same as it was back then? Some of the changes I see at Brown are absolutely good- the buildings were shabby and in disrepair back then, everything is gorgeous and well maintained now. The med school and all the life sciences were strong academically back then, but everything was dispersed and stuck in different marginal locations in run down parts of Providence. Now you can see gorgeous facilities and labs and centers for the study of different parts of human behavior, disease, public health management, etc. all with a strong focus and identity. I had a roommate who took classes at RISD and dealing with the deans and getting credit took over part of her life. Now it’s an actual program! You just cross register!
Do Iove the pre-professionalism of a lot of the student body? Probably not. Do I love getting emails from alumni relations asking if I can give an undergrad an internship this summer- with the stats about the percentage of students who are doing “career” type work in the summer? It makes me sad- apparently nobody goes home, waitresses at the diner they worked at in HS and hangs out with their HS friends like I did.
But am I bitter? This is life. You hit 55 and 60 and the world starts to change pretty dramatically. Why be bitter?
General statement: I don’t get parents that feel like their CA resident child somehow deserves a UC education. A degree from a world class university is no one’s birthright.
Have we all forgotten that there is an entirely separate (and great, I might add) California State college system chock full of great universities in every corner of the state with much more attainable admissions standards? It’s not like you are being blocked out from an affordable public education just because you didn’t get a 4.3 GPA and 1500 SATs!
Exactly @KTJordan78. My daughter is a great A/B student, which just isn’t good enough for most UCs. Thanks to research on this site, she was wise enough to apply to the three UCs she wanted to attend, as well as three CSUs and some out of state schools which we knew were more likely to accept her. We were hopeful for an admission to UCSC or SDSU, which both looked like matches according to Naviance, but she was waitlisted at both. The other UCs and one CSU were all denials, which didn’t surprise us at all, but she wanted to take a shot at them. CSULB, however, did accept her and is where she is planning to attend. She is happy with this choice.
Had she not gotten into CSULB she’d be going OOS to another school where she was accepted. Yes, she could have gotten into UCR or UCM, and most definitely some of the other CSUs, but the locations weren’t a good fit for her. We don’t feel that she was shut out at all, but then I think our expectations were in line with reality.
Uh, I myself am not bitter. Both of my sons had plenty of options. There are plenty of people in CA, however, who have issues with the system and this thread is supposed to be a conversation about why that would be. If you just want to attack people for discussing issues with the UC system, then this thread should be closed because the conversation is over. However, the UCs will still be underfunded and overpopulated and next year there will be identical threads to this discussing the problems.
I’m not attacking. I’m trying to understand a POV which is not just confined to CC-- I have work colleagues in LA and SF and they are as disgruntled with the system as some of the folks here are. Which is confounding to the rest of us who have such options at UIUC ( a phenomenal university which is apparently being “de-funded” at a rapid clip); Rutgers (very strong in many departments but in a somewhat unattractive place so the instate students love to bash it), U Conn (stuck in a cow pasture but great for basketball), and my colleagues in NY and DC who have no flagship at all. We look at the California system as “something for everyone” so their perspective is totally confusing to us.
Back in post #301, I wrote a summary of complaints:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/21414633/#Comment_21414633
The first two were:
A. Student wants to attend a “prestigious” (i.e. more selective) UC, but is angry that those are so selective that they do not admit him/her.
B. Student thinks that the less “prestigious” (i.e. less selective, more likely to admit) UCs or their students are “beneath” him/her.
I.e. students are overreaching for prestige instead of realistically looking at where they are likely to be admitted.
Overreaching may also be encouraged by (a) applicants looking at their exaggerated high school weighted GPAs (e.g. 4.5/4.6/4.7) and comparing them to UC weighted-capped GPAs (e.g. 4.2) and assuming that the UCs are not as selective by GPA as they actually are, (b) “test score heavy” applicants not realizing that test scores are weighted less than GPA at UCs, and (c) applicants not realizing that some divisions/majors are much more selective than others at the same UC.
@stardustmom, If there are more highly qualified students than there are seats at the UCs, what are CA residents suggesting as possible solutions? The state already has an additional set of universities. Are the kids who aren’t getting into the UCs being shut out of the CSUs too?
Offering a few 4-year programs at your cc’s seems like a good start, but I’m not sure what else – short of constructing additional universities – can be done to resolve overpopulation issues. Guaranteeing seats to the top 9% doesn’t increase the number of spots, it just changes who’s getting the acceptances to the most popular campuses and who’s going to be left with Riverside, Merced, and the CSUs. What changes have made current parents so bitter, and what would they like your colleges to do differently?
But there simply aren’t more students than seats. No one who meets guaranteed eligibility criteria is being turned away. It’s just that the students don’t like the new campus that was established more than a dozen years ago specifically to provide more spots.
There are also UCR and UCM, but many students seem to think that those campuses are “beneath” them. Those same students are likely to think of CSUs other than CPSLO as “beneath” them.
Of course, building new campuses would mean that the new campuses start at the bottom of the prestige hierarchy, so people will still complain if the top six or so UC campuses do not admit them. Expanding the existing campuses that are higher in the prestige hierarchy may be more satisfying to those who want more prestige without out-of-reach (for them) selectivity, but would that be significantly more expensive than expanding in Merced?
Is it possible that the diversity problem is not so much the under-representation of African Americans, but instead the over-representation of Asian Americans, and, subsequently, a diminished white population?
African Americans comprise 3% of Berkeley’s undergrad population. At USC, they make up 4.6%, which is better but still considerably under-represented compared to the state’s overall African American population of 7%. Seems, African American diversity is a problem at both campuses. I doubt that most visitors can see the difference between 3% and 5% while visiting.
However, there is a significant difference between USC and Berkeley in the number of Asians. At Berkeley, Asians outnumber whites (40% asian vs. 29% white). At USC, it is the opposite where whites outnumber Asians (40.9% white vs. 22.6% asian). That flip-flop of demography is probably very obvious, from an optics standpoint. Casual visitors on a campus tour will easily pick up the difference at a glance.
@calmom, I guess I’m just not understanding the title of the thread. Students aren’t being shut out, they’re just not getting accepted to their preferred campuses? That’s no different than what’s happening in other states. NYS has a lot of students who aren’t getting into Stony Brook, Albany, Buffalo, or Binghamton, but we have more than a dozen other 4-year universities for them to choose from. I think some of our neighboring states have a similar situation. This isn’t unique to CA. Why are CA families so bitter? Is it because the colleges they graduated from are no longer guaranteed options for their children? That’s no different than what’s happening in NY either. The SUNY I graduated from is one of the state’s most popular. A lot of kids we know are getting rejected. Many start at a local cc and take advantage of our state’s guaranteed transfer program. Does CA have anything like that or is there a problem transferring credits from a cc to one of your 4-year schools?
@blossom, actually, from what I hear, the U of I system has been able to weather the budget craziness in IL without a noticeable decline (thanks in large part to UIUC’s reputation being able to draw in a large number of International/OOS full-payers) but the other IL publics have definitely been hurt, so IL is kind of down to being a 2.5 public university state (I would not recommend the other IL publics if someone has other options and UIS might not even qualify as a CalState in CA). This being a state of 12M as well.
@bacmom CSULB is a great school in an awesome location, and your daughter is going to have a great time there!
ok,
so I’m going to mention the “gorilla in the room” that has had a huge impact in the past few years on who does or does not get into UCB ,UCLA, UCSD, and to a lesser extent all of the UC campuses. And that is the huge “finger on the scale” of preferential treatment that first generation students now get , particularly at UCB and UCLA.
UCB reserves almost 40% of its spots for first gens, and UCLA reserves close to 35%.
I obtained these figures from an private college counselor who has been in the business for over 30 years. She got them directly from the schools , when they met with college counselors from across the state. Her reaction, and the reactions of her colleagues, has been " what the hell are we supposed to tell parents who have been paying taxes for all these years?
So yes, I think that some Calif.parents are justified and have a right to be upset that it IS harder for tip-top native Calif students whose parents DID go to college to be rejected at the best UC’s because the majority of spots now go to first gens and OOS students.
Now, I have no skin in this game- DS never applied to any UC’s 14 years ago, cause we had learned of many negative funding changes coming out of Sacramento then, and made the decision to apply only to private colleges.
Do I have an answer to how to fix this? no, and I dont see one coming down the pike, unless the state decides to revamp how the UC’s are funded.
{ ducking for cover now }