Does anyone else feel like majority of transfer students here are grossly subpar??

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
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<p>@ vintij: Nobody is silencing him or you. We’re only stating that these “feelings” (when outwardly displayed) are oppressive and persecutory. If the OP wants to state his opinion, that is, of course, fine. However, there’s no reason to belittle others in their efforts to achieve an education as a transfer, or discredit the transfers’ aptitude and academic capabilities. The OP’s feelings that were displayed do seem to reflect a sense of superiority over transfers. </p>

<p>Btw I’m not sure if you read my post correctly. I mentioned the OP and those that maintain the stereotype that transfers are inadequate. You honed in on only the semantics and pragmatics of the OP’s statement/question, as opposed to my claims against the bias and persecutory statements that have been exhibited throughout this thread.</p>

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<p>Why is it oppressive and persecutory? It’s not as if anyone is saying “Every single transfer student is inferior, therefore we should give them the last Telebears appointments and spit at them as we walk by”.</p>

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<p>@ amarkov: Let’s not be ridiculous and invent examples of physical persecution here. I’m just saying that it is oppressive to others when viewing oneself as superior to another, and then proceeding to establish one’s superiority by belittling the qualifications of an equally legitimate incoming transfer class. I never said that you guys are generalizing to the entire transfer population. Others have said that - not me. I don’t think those that maintain the bias against transfers feel that all transfers are inferior. Obviously you guys are smart enough to know better. However, many of the statements made throughout this thread are inappropriate and are examples of intolerance and ignorance. I’m not saying yours are; I’m merely remarking on the lack of compassion and understanding throughout this thread.</p>

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<p>@emilsinclair9 </p>

<p>Duh, that’s because this thread was created by an ignorant person.</p>

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<p>And why not? You and most other model Berkeley students have pretty much done everything but that in this thread. You may as well spit on us, it’d at least let us know how you really feel, and not give us a false sense of social acceptance when you smile and return our greetings. </p>

<p>As the saying goes, “If it quacks like a duck and looks like a duck…” </p>

<p>It’s a far too convenient back-door policy that you get to slander and oppress transfer students, the transfer system and anyone that didn’t walk through high school under perfect academic achievement and then coincidentally say “but I’m not saying all transfer students are like that.”</p>

<p>How too, would you feel if someone made an equally derogatory thread, calling Berkeley’s students aesthetically sub-par, physically underwhelming, nose in the air snobs but adding at the end, “But not all Berkeley students are like that, just statistically speaking most of them are!” With no statistics to back up such a claim?</p>

<p>In fact, almost everyone here has concluded that transfer students are sub-par, and agreed to the claims, when not one of you has fabricated any evidence to support that claim other than generalizations and hearsay. </p>

<p>But I guess, nothing you say would hold any weight if you said, “Some transfer students are sub-par, except the ones who aren’t, the ones who participate in Transfer Alliance Program, the ones who participate in their campus’ honors program, the ones who actually take ‘weeder classes’ on our or other UC campuses through Cross Enrollment, the engineering majors, the science majors and the ones that got a high GPA because they actually work hard. Other than those guys, a lot of transfer students are just lazy! They major in Philosophy and then change major to something harder once they get here!”</p>

<p>Don’t try to sneak out the back door Amarkov. You agreed with a lot of biased, unsupported generalizations.</p>

<p>In our “stupid, ignorant, sub-par” rhetorical analysis classes, we learned rather quickly how to point out false statistics and unsupported claims. In fact, a lot of our “stupid, ignorant, sub-par” English teachers failed students for making such unsupported claims without proper citation. What was your “super hard” weeder class English professor teaching you to do?</p>

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<p>Omg you guys are getting owned by Essenar. Just quit, OVERKILL. I like reading this thread.</p>

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<p>I am on a horse.</p>

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<p>I very much mean to sound harsh here. If you listen to someone say “transfer students are in general subpar” and conclude that they mean “I, personally, am no more than dirt”, that is your fault. Nobody is under any obligation to refrain from stating what they think just because you take offense to things that aren’t insults.</p>

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<p>If you tell me Berkeley students are ugly, that’s a generalization. It would make no sense to conclude that since I am a Berkeley student, and you think Berkeley students are ugly, you must think I am ugly. Absolutely none.</p>

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<p>It would though. In fact, it would hold exactly the same weight and lead to exactly the same conclusion; transfer standards should be tightened so that we get more of the truly good transfer students.</p>

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<p>Interesting. Do you have any evidence for your claim that every single person who criticizes the quality of transfer students wishes to oppress them?</p>

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<p>I think Essener is a tad bitter that he got rejected by Cal.</p>

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<p>On the contrary, I’m not bitter at all. I’m very happy for the friends I made on UC Transfers sub forum who got accepted to Berkeley. I knew it was a crap shoot for me, because UCB’s engineering department has some of the most rigorous lower division requirements for transfer. However, the school I got accepted to, is actually ranked higher than Berkeley for my major, so it was my #1 pick anyway. Berkeley was more of a, “Hey if I get in I can brag about it” shot in the dark. </p>

<p>In fact, I’m rather enthralled I didn’t get accepted, from fear that I might walk into such a hostile environment. You know, ironically, I thought it was the Ivy League schools who were supposed to be the “upper class snobs”. I guess Berkeley isn’t the liberal, social accepting, understanding environment the pamphlets have suggested. Better write my email to admissions and let them know the image their students are portraying. </p>

<p>The truth is, most of you complaining about transfers, really don’t understand the problems with the system as much as you pretend to. Guess it comes with the territory of going to the #1 ranked public school in the country. </p>

<p>Complaining about the standards of transfer admittance on College Confidential or to the faces of transfer students themselves is like complaining about illegal immigration in Mexico. Your logic was flawed before you even attempted to make an argument. </p>

<p>The admissions office is only about a 10 minute walk away from where most of you are sitting right now. If it really bothers you, go talk about it to someone who actually cares.</p>

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<p>I’m going to stop you right there, because that makes no sense on so many levels.</p>

<p>First off, people can and DO complain about illegal immigration in Mexico. Because you know what? When you’re a Mexican politician, and twelve million people who should be your constituents were willing to illegally cross your northern border to get out of the country, that’s kinda troubling to you.</p>

<p>Second, your analogy doesn’t hold. People who live in Mexico cannot simultaneously be illegal immigrants to the US. What you’re looking for is that this is like complaining about illegal immigration to illegal immigrants, which again happens all the time.</p>

<p>And third, your last sentence does not follow. Let’s assume that, despite the fact your argument makes no sense, it is inherently an insult to tell transfer students that transfer students tend to be inferior. Why does that mean it’s not true?</p>

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<p>People accepted to Haas as transfer students generally have GPAs that they would never have gotten if they had taken Cal’s prereqs for Haas (Stat 21, Econ 1, UGBA 10) if they had been applying as a Cal student. It does seem like (for Haas at least), the bar is lower for transfers.</p>

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<p>Essenar, I would assume that the College Confidential subset of UCB, is not very representative.</p>

<p>All that I know about transfer students at Berkeley, is that the only one I’ve met in EECS has a 3.97 (one A-) and was incredibly intelligent and cool, and my parent who attended Berkeley who was not in COE said that a lot of transfers weren’t as intellectual as the rest of the student body.</p>

<p>What I can infer is that like all admissions processes some people seem like they don’t belong, but others do quite well.</p>

<p>I think that at least for the COE the people who get in are probably very deserving of there places, whereas the other majors most of the people are very deserving and there are a few people who didn’t have to work as hard as other people but still ended up there.</p>

<p>I really don’t care that transfer admittance is easier than freshman admittance (which doesn’t seem to be overly difficult), because it doesn’t matter to me that Berkeley has only top people (like a lot of private schools) only that I am in classes with intellectual people who will try very hard to learn the material and will want to work together to succeed. It really doesn’t matter how they got admitted as long as they really want to succeed (at least don’t want to hinder other people).</p>

<p>The only thing that bothers me is that Community College courses are so much easier than regular courses. Definitely not an issue with transfer students, but they ought to bump up the difficulty of courses at least 5 fold.</p>

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<p>Virtually what purpose would a US citizen have, complaining about the United States accepting illegal immigrants, in Mexico? Did you seriously argue that? How many people here, give two craps what Britain’s sales tax is? The point is, you’re trying to bring sand to the beach.</p>

<p>@ Catalysis : So you’ve taken the equivalents of Stat 21, Econ 1 and UGBA 10 at every single community college in the state and you know for a fact that an A in those classes is the equivalent to a C at Cal? Wow, you’re quite an impressive student, being able to repeatedly take those classes at thousands of different schools in the span of your lifetime. </p>

<p>Amarkov, all that fat and no meat. Where’s the meat, kid? Where’s the facts, the statistics, the proof? Telling me what other students say doesn’t make it a fact. Millions of people across this country believe in imaginary things and try to pass policy because of it. The burden of proof isn’t on the transfer students, we already earned our pass. You’re the one pointing fingers. And “this one transfer student in my class keeps asking stupid questions” is about as much evidence as my belief that ghosts exist because when I have the window open, my door some times randomly closes. (I study physics, so please don’t attempt to patronize me just because my obvious sarcasm blows right over your head.)</p>

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<p>I’m not arguing that the people who think transfer students are inferior are correct. Like Ramblinman, I really don’t care. I’m arguing that you have no right to be personally offended when people argue that they are.</p>

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<p>I’m not so sure I agree with you there. The vast majority of people at community colleges are not going to transfer to a prestigious 4-year university; why should class difficulty be increased for the benefit of those very few people?</p>

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<p>Ramblingman, I respect your points, but I must address to you that your view is a minority in this thread. </p>

<p>By the laws of probability, a sample of 1000 responses is accurate measured against a demographic of 1,000,000 people up to 97%. So when one or two people out of about 100, actually give the benefit of the doubt to transfer students, it’s safe to assume that a lot of students don’t. </p>

<p>@ Your claim about community college classes- You do realize that at community college classes, the students are interacting with faculty whose primary objective is education and teaching concepts, whereas your professors at Berkeley are researchers first, and educators second? You really don’t see the correlation between a person who’s motivated primarily by the success of his students, and a person who’s motivated by the advancement of his research? </p>

<p>In my Calculus class, I have the fortune of having a professor who graduated with a Master’s in Pure Mathematics from Stanford, and another Master’s in Applied Mathematics from UCSD. He exhausts every plausible effort to address his students’ concerns on a one to one basis and ensure that we understand the concepts to the point of applying them to a wide scale of applications. Do I have an A in the class? Yes. Is it an easy class? I think I can’t answer that question. I just have an amazing professor. </p>

<p>Now, had I taken this class at UCSD, I would be in a room filled with 150 people, I would have a lecture shot at me in 50 minutes, the professor would bolt out of the room after lecture and at a discussion, I would be taught the rigorous methods by a person who’s the same age as me, only teaching me because it’s required for him to get his PhD. </p>

<p>You really fail to see a correlation between the grades?</p>

<p>Now I concede that some of the classes I’ve taken at a community college, were “easy”, but my ex girlfriend is a Berkeley student, and she’s given me just as many examples from your “prestigious” campus.</p>

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<p>So Amarkov, what you’re saying is, that you should be able to tell people whether or not they have the right to be offended? Huh. </p>

<p>You’ve made my argument a lot easier than I expected it to be. I’m done here. I’m moving along. I’m sure you’ll all cheer my departure. </p>

<p>Just know that, as far as most of College Confidential’s transfer user base is concerned, Berkeley freshmen admits think they can dictate whether other people have the right to feel something or not.</p>

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<p>Yes. I can tell you that you don’t have the right to feel offended because someone said transfer students tend to be subpar, for precisely the same reason that you don’t have the right to be offended because someone said the school you go to sells ugly hats. Where and why people got the idea that you should be able to shut anyone up by saying “oh my god you just OFFENDED ME!” I do not understand.</p>

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<p>Well that is where I am going to say that you are right, but I still think they should be more difficult.</p>

<p>Taking Statistics and Economics at a community made me feel like I was going to die of boredom. They have to give extra credit to people with D’s when people with A’s end up only missing 0.009% of the points without extra credit. I’ve taken probably 8 courses at Community colleges as an advanced education student, and not one of them was too challenging that I had to study night and day (usually 30 minutes before class would suffice).</p>

<p>I really couldn’t relate to people who weren’t doing well in those classes, I offered them help studying, and they still didn’t do that well.</p>

<p>So, I guess I would like there to at least have the option for there to be significantly more difficult courses, if you want them to transfer. </p>

<p>Then it is logical to say that would defeat the point of them being used to transfer to Universities that supply the difficult courses.</p>

<p>I guess my belief on this subject is not completely logical in the sense, that I would like to be able to take every math and science course at an extremely high level at any institution that I attend, and that won’t be realized until I attend UC Berkeley.</p>

<p>Sorry, I wrote this at several different points in time and am extremely tired so my thoughts may not follow a straightforward pattern.</p>