<p>^ thats not true at all. Every year has a small portion of the class size dedicated to transfers. The drop out number would not fully accommodate that…</p>
<p>The freshmen 6 year graduation rate is 92% according to the student profile @ UC Berkeley so they are admitting at least an 8% dropout rate. I’m not saying that all transfers are filling spots by dropouts but that was the concept behind the creation of transfers. To fill spots left by dropouts.</p>
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<p>No, that’s why I said Berkeley frosh. Sure, Berkeley *pre-*frosh can skip weeders. But once you’re actually matriculated at Berkeley, your opportunities for skipping weeders through community college (and especially AP credit) are circumscribed. Any community college credit you might want to take in lieu of weeders would either have to be completed over a summer or during a semester in which you have officially withdrawn from Berkeley, for student are barred from co-enrolling. </p>
<p>*Students wishing to enroll at UC Berkeley and at another institution simultaneously must see an L&S dean to request approval for concurrent enrollment. Approval for concurrent enrollment is granted only in exceptional circumstances (typically in relation to availability of courses or hardship).
*</p>
<p>[What</a> is Concurrent Enrollment? | College of Letters & Science](<a href=“http://ls.berkeley.edu/?q=node/567]What”>‘Oppenheimer’: UC Berkeley goes Hollywood in biopic film about father of the atom bomb | Letters & Science)</p>
<p>But, again, I would ask - why? Why am I perfectly free to take community college courses while in high school, but not as a Berkeley student? What’s the difference?</p>
<p>Oh I see, we had a miscommunication of terminology. Sure, I have agreed that everyone should be allowed the same opportunity to transfer credits for the lower division, no matter what their admit status. This is an acceptable solution to me. The “solution” of simply having everyone, including transfers, go through weeders again is of course unnecessary and I guess is what I’ve been greatly opposing any consideration of.</p>
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<p>a joke? haha you’re not even in college yet. nobody cares about rankings once you’re actually in college. getting in is one thing, doing well here is something else entirely. </p>
<p>seeing that you’re from a bay area school, unless you went to a tough one, you’re nothing special. and judging by your post record, you sound like a little prissy. i hope you enjoy being rejected by more girls.</p>
<p>i love Cal, and GO BEARS</p>
<p>now grow up and ■■■■</p>
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Although there are some contradictions here and there, I agree for the most part. I went to Cal for undergrad and am now at MIT working on my PHD. I don’t mean to sound condescending, but Berkeley’s educational system is mediocre to say the least, compared to my current institution.</p>
<p>^^^ you’re working on your phd at MIT but you were asking for help with math 54 4 months ago?</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-california-berkeley/857378-anyone-who-my-math-54-class.html#post1064019832[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-california-berkeley/857378-anyone-who-my-math-54-class.html#post1064019832</a></p>
<p>I occasionally prefer to contradict my previous posts so that people can’t use them to identify me and to increase anonymity.</p>
<p>No, you invent whatever background for yourself is most convenient at the time. Be honest.</p>
<p>Damn hella got caught and spanked…gpa400 pssh probably like gpa270.</p>
<p>^ One of the best disses I’ve read on this forum.</p>
<p>lerock123: get over yourself dude, at least these transfer students want to go to college and be a productive human being instead of some waste of space. Who knows the real reason they went to a community college could be financial, or some other unfortunate circumstance. Either way you will graduate with a degree. Have some modesty, you sound ridiculously pretentious.</p>
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<p>simple, unimaginative, and the best ownage I’ve seen in a long time…</p>
<p>I think that getting “phd from MIT” is being used as an analogy for “I am one of the top authorities in this subject” like how it is used in movies and TV, which probably isn’t the case in this situation.</p>
<p>Wow Sakky,</p>
<p>I read a lot of your posts. While the content of them tends to be fairly predictable, you always to seem phrase things in ways that gives me more perspective than I had before reading, regardless of my knowledge on the subject. You speak from first hand experience, or if you can’t, always reference/support your theoretical opinions. Therefor, I highly regard your posts.</p>
<p>That’s why I’m set back by your talk about the inequality of transfer and freshman admits. So far it’s the only subject I’ve downright disagreed with you on. All this talk about “fairness” seems logical when you probe the situation with a microscope. If you took a step back though, I think you’d see how little common sense your opinion bolsters. </p>
<p>While subjecting transfers to unneccesarily difficult classes covering topics they have already gone over in CC might reinforce the vacuum that is undergraduate academia (read: regulate their GPA’s), it also wastes their damn time. Who wants to study a subject they’ve already learned? Who wants to apply to a school that forces such redundancy on them?</p>
<p>Additionally, while I disagree with the idea of weeder classes, I can understand the intentions of the administrations that support them - Get those out early who won’t go the distance to conserve the resources of both parties. Considering the large cost of tuition for UC’s, this practice seems reasonable. Community colleges probably have the luxury of sparing their students from this gauntlet because:</p>
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<li>The average community college student is older, and subsequently is more likely to know what they are interested in.</li>
<li>The lower costs to college and students.</li>
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<p>You could argue that students who go to CC’s are prone to making mistakes (that lead them to CC), or something similar. We could go back and forth about how there are plenty of outliers of this trend, or how their previous bad decision(s) makes them more likely to succeed. In the end though, my experience tells me these two factors make sense, and justify the fortunate lack of weeder courses in CC.</p>
<p>While nonuniformly weighted GPA’s between freshman admins and transfers may be “unfair”, it’s also a practical, common sense situation. The world isn’t “fair”, nor should it be. Fair, especially in this case, conflicts with common sense. I’m open to reform suggestions, but please abandon the black-or-white reasoning of your previous posts in this thread, as it (IMO) devalues the insights you have already given this forum.</p>
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<p>Like I said, my favored option has always been to simply eliminate the weeders entirely, probably coupled with a tighter admissions regime. After all, you never really hear of harsh weeders at that other school across the Bay. </p>
<p>My second best option would be to allow freshman-admits the same opportunities to skip weeders that the transfer students are allowed. For example, if transfer students are allowed to use certain community college credits to skip certain weeders, then freshman-admits should be allowed to easily take those same community college credits to skip those same weeders. What’s fair is fair. What that also means is that the following rule should be abolished post-haste.</p>
<p>*Students wishing to enroll at UC Berkeley and at another institution simultaneously must see an L&S dean to request approval for concurrent enrollment. Approval for concurrent enrollment is granted only in exceptional circumstances (typically in relation to availability of courses or hardship). *</p>
<p>[What</a> is Concurrent Enrollment? | College of Letters & Science](<a href=“http://ls.berkeley.edu/?q=node/567]What”>‘Oppenheimer’: UC Berkeley goes Hollywood in biopic film about father of the atom bomb | Letters & Science)</p>
<p>As I’ve asked before, if I’m a freshman-admit who wants to spend his spare time enrolling in a community college, why should Berkeley restrict me from doing so? Why does Berkeley care so much about that? It’s my free time - I should be allowed to use it as I wish. </p>
<p>However, if neither of these two options are on the table, then we have to fall back to the default option, which is to simply force the transfer students to prove themselves to take the weeders. Again, what’s fair is fair: if freshman admits are forced to take those weeders, then the transfer student should be forced to do the same. </p>
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<p>Which is why I have proffered the compromise that the transfer students could be allowed to take only the final exams of those weeder exams. Again, these are topics that these transfer students are supposed to know (or otherwise, they should not have been allowed to skip those subjects), and it really shouldn’t be too hard to study for a final exam on a subject that you already know. </p>
<p>But see my following point:</p>
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<p>Frankly, I’m entirely unsympathetic to this point. If you don’t like it, fine, then don’t come to Berkeley. If you want to come to Berkeley, then you should be subject to the same rules as the other Berkeley students, i.e. the freshman-admits, are subjected to. </p>
<p>As a case in point, take Caltech, a school that confersabsolutely zero AP credits whatsoever, and where any advanced standing is conferred only through a school-specific placement exam. Nearly all Caltech students took AP coursework of some kind, yet will probably be forced to repeat at least some of that coursework at Caltech. Caltech’s attitude is simple: if you don’t like their policy, fine, don’t go to Caltech. MIT, while less stringent, also grants AP credit for only a few technical subjects, and those students who don’t like that should not go to MIT. Most incoming MIT students are essentially “forced” to take intro calculus, bio, chemistry, and/or physics again. Yet MIT and Caltech don’t seem to suffer from a lack of interested students. </p>
<p>Similarly, those Berkeley transfer admits who don’t like the new policy with regards to ‘repeating’ weeder coursework don’t have to go come to Berkeley. They are perfectly free to transfer to some other UC school that will allow them to skip weeders. </p>
<p>Keep in mind, this is Berkeley, the flagship school of the entire California public education system, and arguably the best public university in the country. I think it is entirely fair for transfer students to prove that they can meet the same standards that the regular freshman-admits are forced to endure, and if they cannot, they don’t have to come to Berkeley. </p>
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<p>Look, at the end of the day, an undeniable problem regarding fairness exists - that transfer students are allowed to skip weeders that freshman-admits are not allowed to skip. Freshman-admits should be allowed to utilize the same pathways to skip weeders that the transfer students are allowed to skip. Otherwise, transfers should not be allowed to skip those weeders. What’s fair is fair. Berkeley should not be according special treatment to the transfers, but that is what is effectively happening.</p>
<p>To reiterate, the bottom line is that transfer students want to come to Berkeley, but don’t want to be subject to the same weeders that the freshman-admits are subjected to. I agree that such behavior is entirely rational, for I wouldn’t want to be weeded either. If somebody handed me a ‘Get-out-of-weeders-free-card’, I would invoke it. But the question is, why should they be provided that card? Seems to me that, if you want to earn a Berkeley degree, you should be willing to abide by the same rules that the other Berkeley students are forced to abide by. What’s fair is fair. Otherwise, you are indeed receiving special treatment, but why do you deserve that?</p>
<p>^ I think that sums up what a lot of us feel.</p>
<p>Sakky’s post sums it up beautifully, but let me highlight some key points which may help Nukewarm appreciate why they may be important.</p>
<p>Why not just forget about being “fair” and talk about efficiency? Well, simple answer - if people do not have the option of pursuing sufficiently similar paths, then the degree from UC Berkeley loses some meaning. Now, I argued much earlier very heavily against making everyone take the weeders.</p>
<p>I am, however, perfectly fine with letting everyone have fairly equal opportunities to skip them with outside credits. I’m also fine with requiring a placement exam from transfers, which tell us they satisfied the credits.</p>
<p>A degree from Berkeley doesn’t mean anything to begin with, whether or not you were a freshman admit or transfer. A competitive resume containing internships and solid interview skills will trump that, especially if you have industry connections within your field.</p>
<p>A good resume, interview skills, and connections will trump a lot of things. For those of us who aren’t that fortunate, yes, a degree from Berkeley means quite a bit.</p>