My high-stats nephew went to Cal-Poly, so that is definitely a place with a “meaningful peer group”. It seems to me like California has a glut of great schools, but then, I’m clear across the country and don’t enjoy the local prejudices.
@MusakParent:
“I just understand why a family with a kid with a 30+ ACT score would be disappointed and frustrated by their kid only having Merced as a state option.”
So should an NV family be disappointed and frustrated that their 30+ ACT kid only have UNLV and UNR at in-state prices?
A 30+ ACT CA kid likely would be able to get in to UCSC and UCR are well, but often times, they don’t even apply.
Re: the 30+ ACT student
Note that UCs are more GPA sensitive than SAT/ACT sensitive, so using SAT/ACT scores as a market for student strength with respect to UC admissions can be inaccurate when GPA is not aligned as assumed with the SAT/ACT scores. In particular, SAT/ACT score heavy applicants who fall somewhat short on GPA are more likely to be disappointed by their UC results.
Redding is 1-1/4 hours from Chico State. Not exactly a horrendous distance, esp when many folks do that kind of commute on a regular basis in that part of the state.
What’s wrong with Merced? Or Santa Cruz or Riverside for that matter? I realize it can be an issue if the school doesn’t even offer the desired major – but the concept of “meaningful peer group” is simply misguided elitism. The entire UC system is structured around an academic index which is geared to the admissions of the top 9% of high school grads-- there are smart & capable students at every single campus. (And plenty at the CSU’s as well)
@PurpleTitan : The Nevada parents have not been paying California taxes. If they are frustrated, well … it was their decision to live in Nevada. I think it’s legitimate for California residents who have supported the UC system for years to feel frustrated if a high-achieving kid cannot get into a, shall we say, desirable campus. I’m not talking racial percentages at all: I find the OOS admission percentages annoying.
Cal kids are welcome at SUNY! The cost, even OOS is similar. Our great schools can’t attract many OOS kids. (Not sure they really try though).
“So should an NV family be disappointed and frustrated that their 30+ ACT kid only have UNLV and UNR at in-state prices?” @PurpleTitan
Well, if Nevada doesn’t have good options for their high stat kids, yes, I would find that frustrating and disappointing as a resident of that state. But they aren’t paying California taxes.
Our friends sent three kids to an upstate CSU. Two were salutatorians, one was a val. All 32+ ACT/2150+ SAT. Did not lack for peers or opportunities. Between the three of them, they turned down Berkeley, UCLA, Davis & CalPoly/SLO.
Interesting first post. It sounds familiar with bringing up IQ, negative comments towards immigrants and other races, talking about the UC system being majority Asian, …
Asian students are no doubt overrepresented in the UC system ,but are not the majority. This partially relates the UC system being legally bound to admit by merit, without giving preference to specific races in the way the HYPSM… do. The official numbers for undergrads across the full UC system are 34% Asian and another 10% International from Asian countries. The percentage non-International Asian is largely unchanged in recent years. For example, in the oldest record from 1999, the UC system was 35% Asian, slightly higher than today. However, the percentage International students has increased by a factor of 10x, up to more than 10% Asian international in that period. I expect one key factor in the increase was CA budgeting concerns and wanting to increase the number of higher sticker price students.
Many of the UC campuses are highly selective, but it’s by no means impossible for kids to get in to the UC system, particularly if you are not hung up on needing to go to the most selective of the UC campuses. For example, one of the colleges you listed was UCI. They have a 37% admit rate, average UC GPA of 4.1/5.0, and average ACT of 29. Those are high, but not what most on this forum would call “impossible.” There are also less selective UC campuses than UCI and an admission for top 9% rank program.
@AboutTheSame, but there are only a few “desirable” campuses and CA has a lot of kids. Why not say that if they are frustrated with the CA system, well, it was their decision to live in CA?
NYS is also a populous (and high-tax) state as well and doesn’t even have one public at the level of Cal/UCLA/UCSD. Would CA folks prefer the NYS system instead?
Arguably FL doesn’t either (and they’re another populous state). Certainly not at the level of Cal/UCLA.
As for OOS students, if you don’t want them, then you should advocate for raising UC tuitions or more taxes to spend on the UCs as the OOS students are subsidizing in-state students. But we also hear complaints that UC costs are too high. You can’t have it both ways.
There are too many well-qualified students in CA, way more than seats available at UCs. Already, “holistic” admission approach has undercut the over-reliance on GPA and test scores. What OP is stating is what Native Indians must have felt against European whites moving into their lands. OP, you going to complain next why NBA has only one or two Asians also? I have an Asian nephew who went to a CC and then transferred to UCLA, so you can do the same. FYI, I paid a lot of taxes to CA govt and US govt. If anyone deserves to have his kid get into our flagship state, it should be me. But the fact is no one deserves anything in this life. Your liberal friends in CA should get together with my Asian friends in CA who have kids with near perfect GPAs and test scores (who actually have strong ECs also) whose kids got denied from UCLA/Berkeley. What do you call parents who send their kids to expensive sports camps and summer programs?
My Asian kid is a proof that a student doesn’t have to go all in to build a perfect GPA and test score but instead focus on ECs and write good enough essays and still get into all UCs and Stanford. If anything, I purposely steered my kid away from building a perfect GPA and test scores.
All I know is UCI, UCSD etc are becoming next UCLA and Berkeley. Just tough, tough environment to get into number 1 UC for everyone.
Again, there are enough seats available at the UC’s for the in-state residents who apply and meet qualifications for guaranteed admission. As far as I know, there is only one year in its history that the UC system has turned away qualified applicants, and that was before the opening of the Merced campus-- which was created precisely because of the need to serve a growing number of students.
The problem is with the attitude of the applicants who somehow think they are entitled to a particular campus or program.
Agree, @calmom. It seems that many 30+ ACT CA kids feel that they are entitled to Cal/UCLA/UCSD (or at least a UC in the upper half).
“The problem is with the attitude of the applicants who somehow think they are entitled to a particular campus or program.” I think that’s a bit of an unfair criticism of kids who aspire to the top. There is no question of “entitlement”; that’s not what we’ve been talking about it. There is frustration. D was good enough for Harvard and Dartmouth, but not Berkeley? Despite a 4.0 GPA from an independent school that is rated in the top 10 nationally every year and a 2300 GPA and a passion for a particular EC with national achievement?
And, @PurpleTitan, I get shafted both ways, so please do not try to lecture me about not being able to have it both ways. As a state employee, I get screwed every time there is a budget crunch, because it’s convenient for the Legislature and the governor to cut my salary. Shoot, I’d just like to have something bend in my favor once in my life. B-)
There would probably be much less rancor if the UCs switched to a TX-style admission system, though, since CA is much bigger (and better educated) than TX and UT-Austin is much more massive than any UC, CA probably could guarantee Cal to only the top 1%, UCLA to the top 2%, and UCSD to the top 3%.
My kids are fourth generation Californians, and not a single person has attended a UC yet for undergrad, so I suppose we have paid a lot of taxes with no UC payback. 
My older kid jokingly blames me for her lack of UC success. She had almost 100% Asian-American friends in high school. She says I didn’t do the following:
- Paid test prep and other academic activities every single summer (she worked)
- Multiple SAT takings with rewards for good scores and punishments for bad
- Paid tutors for any class slipping in to B range.
- Punishment for B’s (withholding meals, taking away phones, cars, taking away all non-academic social activity) until grades get up
- Monetary rewards for good grades
- Piano or violin from age 3 or 4
- Chinese school every Saturday with extra academic help as well as language lessons
- Aggressive pursuit of acceleration in math particularly
- Aggressive pursuit by parents and kids to get every B moved up by any means needed (extra credit, requesting regrades, complaining higher up the chain)
- Aggressive GPA manipulation by reducing all unweighted classes to a minimum and pursuing easier community college classes if a particular high school teacher was known to be hard
- Requiring them to participate in an academic extracurricular
- No sports unless you have shown promise to be a superstar, by high school this is known.
She says not all friends had all of things but most had more than half on this list.
She says her high school life would have been much less enjoyable had I done these things, but that she would have had more success in college apps
And here’s where more traditionally “American” parents are resenting that for their “Average excellent but not world class” student they have to make a choice. Do they want to play this game by the new rules, or do they follow the path I have taken (I’m still letting D20 go backpacking with Girl Scouts in a couple of weeks, even though she has some B’s, her friend has been forced to drop the trip, I’m letting her play a sport she loves, even though she won’t get a college scholarship out of it because she’s not a superstar) and accept their kids will not go to a “top UC”?
Vicki what a terrible mother you are! Girl scouting? Really? ;). Good for you. I would imagine many Asian parents turn their backs on that list of craziness too. It sounds pretty terrible for both parents and kids!
Sorry, paid test prep and multiple SAT takings are not the exclusive craziness of Asian parents. There are parents of every racial and ethnic background who do everything that VickisoCal posts about all over the country.
So guess what- their kid is going to MIT and yours is going to CMU. Is this some tragic loss for our society?
I find it hard to muster up the requisite sympathy for the Californians. There are kids growing up in about 15 states whose flagship universities are about at the caliber of the much maligned CSU’s. There are kids growing up in a bunch of states where the community college system is primarily designed for kids getting a terminal AA degree- not for getting into a well respected four year university. There are kids whose parents ALSO pay tons in taxes who can’t afford their state flagship who end up at a MUCH lower directional state than most of the California CSU’s. Where you can get decent training if you want to be an elementary school teacher or a CPA but not much more than that.
So I find it hard to see the California system as especially broken.
I sympathize with state employees who get shafted both ways (and there are some members of my family who are now getting THRICE shafted- since they’re getting shoved into a less desirable retirement plan than the one they paid into for all those years. But – these same people have been paying virtually nothing for their health car for decades (care to price out your current policy on an exchange or at a corporation?) Some of these people can’t be fired (care to compare that to your neighbor who has been downsized four times since 2002? As I tell my brother all the time- there is no slavery in America. If you can’t stand being a state employee for a minute longer there is a nifty solution- take your skills to the private sector and get a corporate job.
That’s reality. I’m not sure why California is so unique here.
It is a 10-campus system designed with the goal of the campuses being academic equivalents. So I see no value in the state indulging prestige and ranking-obsessed parents and students – on the contrary, the system benefits from diverting more high stat applicants to the other campuses so as to strengthen both their student bodies and the general perception of them.
Much of the reputation of the so-called “top” campuses comes from the quality of their graduate education – not undergrad. My daughter was accepted to UC Berkeley as a prospective linguistics major but told me at the time that she would have turned down the Berkeley spot in favor of UCSB or UCSC, just based on what she knew about the quality of the undergrad experience.