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>Essenar, my view about community college classes is based on only 8 or so classes. 4 of which I had great professors who had to teach at an easier level so that a good portion of the class could understand.</p>

<p>The other 4 classes, the professors have not really been a factor. The classes were so incredibly easy that they could finish the 1.5 hour lectures in the first five minutes of class, and it would be understandable. As in they cover material so slowly and at such a low level it is painful.</p>

<p>It may be the case that I didn’t get to take too many courses with stellar professors, but I would take a professor who is doing intriguing research and is not worrying about his students, over one who is forced to teach to the lowest common denominator.</p>

<p>I have no doubt that Berkeley has a plethora of easy classes, I will just choose not to take them. The ones that I took at Community College (Math, Chem, Biology, Statistics, Economics) were so that I could start at a more advanced level when I got to college.</p>

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<p>Ok I haven’t really read many of the posts here but it is not fair at all that so many community college transfers are accepted here. I actually live right next to the community college that is ranked #1 for sending the most kids to UCs. A lot of people from my high school who don’t get into Cal, UCLA, or UCSD, just go to community college because they know it is so easy to get a 4.0 at there and transfer into Berkeley. I took a class in that college over summer actually and didn’t try at all, ended up with an A+ like something way over 100%. My mom actually takes random classes there for fun and always gets As and thinks I exaggerate the difficulty of school now. </p>

<p>I know there are some people who do deserve the second chance or who could not afford it the first time, but most of the people who get in through that route are just playing the system and are nowhere near as smart/motivated as those who are in Berkeley should be.</p>

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<p>So you live next to DVC?</p>

<p>Go take Chem 120 over the summer. I dare you! LOL.</p>

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<p>I have heard of such classes Essenar. There are community college professors who graduated with excellent credentials and are incredibly smart and make their classes really hard. They also put more effort into teaching since they do not have so much of research duties. But is this “super difficult, intense teaching” thing widespread, not really. I know transfers who literally blow the freshmen admits I’ve met out of the ballparks, but I also know transfers who very likely got in only because they cruised with a 4.0 through easy classes side by side with a less talented student body. </p>

<p>I think you have a right to be offended, whether misguided or not – nobody can stop you. But you should consider whether it’s in line with what you believe in to get offended. Posters such as myself having close transfer friends know both your side of the story (about strong teachers at CCs) and the other side (that on average, CC competition is simply not going to be as great as the larger pool).</p>

<p>My philosophy is that there are both grossly subpar freshman admits and transfer admits, and there are many improvements to be made in admissions for both cases.</p>

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<p>I would prefer classes to be structured like in community college. Small class sizes, tests aren’t scantron, no curves, lots of discussion with the professor and classmates during class time and OH, ect.</p>

<p>…but that would require decreased admission from both traditional and transfer applicants (any volunteers?) :smiley: </p>

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<p>If i lived next to dvc I’d probably take that to raise my GPA. And I believe that flutter is in Chem 3B with me this semester.</p>

<p>I mean no offense by this, but if you think that picking up those concepts is difficult, why do you think that students who go to one of the most grade deflated schools would have trouble with them?</p>

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<p>Yeah, I’m in Chem 3B and there is no way I would be afraid of any class offered in any community college at this point. And no it’s not DVC, is that ranked #1 in sending people to UCs now? What happened to De Anza?</p>

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<p>My brother goes to a CC and although its not the best it is pretty average. Their bio is sooooo easy. All they do for lab is play with string and put hydrogen peroxide in potatoes and than take fill in the blank quizzes. IDK about you, but for a transfer to get my respect they should take Bio 1A/L.</p>

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<p>As for chemistry, didn’t we all have to take the same timed national standardized tests? Please forgive me if I am wrong, perhaps Berkeley chemistry students are excluded from them. Anyway I always performed in the top 2% nationwide on the tests. I took General chemistry and organic chemistry. </p>

<p>To me, this means that I learned the necessary concepts, applications, and problem solving skills of undergraduate chemistry. Does the bitterness stem from the grading scale? Does the cc grading of personal performance over Berkeley’s seeming emphasis on relative performance give the 4 years fodder to call cc transfers subpar? Clearly, if we scored well enough on a national standardized test given to all chemistry students we aren’t as “grossly subpar” as suggested by the OP. In my school, a fail on the national test was a fail in the class. Is it our fault if we had more personal contact with the professor, were in a class small enough to form study groups, and weren’t graded based on the performance of others?</p>

<p>In the end, once we get to Berkeley or wherever we are going to transfer, our GPAs will be reset and then we will be just more random students among you.</p>

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<p>Erm… what? There are no such tests. There just… aren’t.</p>

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<p>I believe that (s)he is talking about the ACS exam. Their exams aren’t known for being difficult but getting into the top 2% nationwide is an accomplishment…congrats.</p>

<p>and congrats on your admission too</p>

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<p>California CCs adhere to the same standards that the UCs and CSUs do since all three systems are governed by the body at the state level. I attended Sacramento City College myself, and to say that a CC that offers Calc I, Calc II, Calc III, and Linear Algebra is sub-par is a tad egotistical. </p>

<p>UCB has its reasons for admitting every student that they admit, and while it may not sit well with the OP -or anyone else for that matter- those same standards that applied to the admission of these ‘sub-par’ CC transfers also applied to the admitted freshmen. The sooner you accept that and get over yourself, the better off you will be. </p>

<p>Students attend CCs first for a variety of reasons, so you cannot lump them all into the same group. Yes, some did not do so well in high school and want to use a CC to show that they have what it takes to be a good college student. Some simply attend CCs as a matter of finances, while others are still undecided about what university to attend, but want to get their college careers started, so they attend a CC first while they figure out where to transfer. The list can go on.</p>

<p>Then there is the fact that NO college admits students based simply on academic record, SAT/ACT scores, or class ranking. Yes, these are taken into consideration, at some schools more than others, but all college admissions officers look at the entire application. Perhaps some transfer students are sub-par academically, but yet they are stellar in other areas and the college feels that it is in these areas that this student will contribute to the overall experience on campus. NO college, UCB not withstanding, admits students that they feel will be out-of-place on campus or in the class room.</p>

<p>Besides, don’t worry, these sub-par transfer students are not going to bring down the prestige of a UCB diploma. Employers are not going to notice these sub-par students, “Ah, I see you attended UCB, very impressive…oh wait, I hear that they admit sub-par transfer students from community college. Sorry kid, but I can’t hire you because you diploma is not worth squat.” Yeah, right. You will have the rest of your life to show-off your UCB paper and rest well at night knowing that you are better then these sub-par transfer students. </p>

<p>What’s next? That they actually drink Sierra Nevada at their parties instead of Natty Lite! Oh the humanity! I can see it now, next well have freshmen complain that MIT, Harvard, and Princeton, gasp, admit kids from a lower-economic status. </p>

<p>Sigh.</p>

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<p>[UC</a> Berkeley – College of Chemistry – New Freshman](<a href=“http://chemistry.berkeley.edu/students/organic_chem_cc.php]UC”>http://chemistry.berkeley.edu/students/organic_chem_cc.php)</p>

<p>This is an ACS sponsored 70-question multiple choice test used by some CC’s instructors as part of the course final.</p>

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<p>Not to mention that MIT, one of the world’s best school for engineering, actually admits students with 2.X GPAs and lower than average SAT/ACT scores. Go ahead, ask them.</p>

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<p>^too bad you’re only comparing yourself to other CC transfer applicants and not current UC Berkeley students, which was the point we were making - that the lower division Biology/Chemistry classes in Berkeley are much much harder than the ones at CCs and that you end up having to study and learn much more here than at CCs. You really cannot argue against this point without having taken Bio 1A/1AL and Organic Chemistry here - you cannot even imagine how intense these classes are. Just saying your community college offers classes with the same titles does NOT mean that you end up learning the same amount. You can all be as condescending as you want, but that is just a fact and nothing you can say is going to make us believe that that is fair.</p>

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<p>I agree with flutterfly, title=/=difficulty. Most CC transfers are not as well prepared as the students that entered berkeley as freshmen.</p>

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<p>90% in CC = 4.0</p>

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<p>It may be fundamentally the wrong argument to make that transfers admitted are subpar due to their process not taking into account that the stats they obtain may be “easily obtained.” Rather it might just be the general issue that Cal seems not to consider true academic accomplishment in context of one’s background so much as it does factors that it determines beforehand. Like having a high GPA — it can mean very little depending on where the GPA came from. </p>

<p>I just heard of some very sharp transfer getting rejected, while less qualified ones with higher GPAs made it. The sharp transfer had really tough coursework, but a lower GPA. Cal’s admissions process seems very simplistic, and lets one in quite easily if one does what is necessary, but the criteria are not at all necessarily the best measure of qualification.</p>

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<p>^^ a standardized test would fix that. Not only do high schoolers have to take the SAT, a minimum of 2 SAT II, and x number of AP exams, but they have to perform better than everyone on each…just to be competitive for admission. If implemented in transfer admission, I think they would get a better rep.</p>

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<p>uh… the SAT is more a measure of wealth than anything. I took one of those fancy (expensive) classes and went from an 1800 to a 2210. Princeton Review guarantees like 300 points or something. It’s about test taking ability, not knowledge.</p>

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<p>Take a step back and look at the idea behind this whole thread. Everybody has a right to have their own opinion. But, if your ideas differ from another person’s, it doesn’t mean your need to force your ideas onto them, which usually offends them. For example, consider the issues of abortion or same sex marriage. There is no way to prove that one idea is right or wrong. This is why it is morally acceptable to keep ideas like these to yourself.</p>