<p>For continuing students, decisions seem alright to me. Haas isn’t that difficult to get into, based on my observations most qualified students do get in, however decisions can be quite arbitrary and you can have a fantastic student rejected for no apparent reason. </p>
<p>For transfer students from cc to Haas, I think it’s ridiculous that most transfers that I know of are complete idiots with bad work ethic. Sounds bad, but most transfers IMO are not up to par with the most competitive and best students at Haas, even though they must have been top at their CC to transfer over. I think it says a lot when you avoid joining group projects with transfer students…</p>
<p>Hey, I’m a recently admitted Haas transfer student.</p>
<p>I get that some people at Berkeley might be upset that a community college kid is taking their spot. However, I have joined the Future Business Leaders of America Club at UCSD and dominated Haas kids at business case studies and presentations. To merely assume that continuing Berkeley students are more deserving is nonsense. To get into CAL as a freshman one must have a high SAT score which translates to taking classes since 8th grade. I have seen the people in Haas and I can assure you that they are not the future business leaders of anything. Simply getting into Haas doesn’t mean anything, its what you do with it. I for one am not even going to be attending. It was a great honor however, getting in. I just think its funny that some ignorant Berkeley kids with egos think they are deserving of something. If your good enough you get in, if your not, you don’t. Competition, get used to it.</p>
<p>At SD I believe they have a business major called something like management science, how is recruiting for business positions, like finance and consulting at SD?</p>
<p>The issue is not about competition per se. I have no problem with competition. </p>
<p>The issue is regarding unfair competition, and specifically that transfer applicants are allowed to take a different sequence of pre-application prereqs than do continuing students. For example, Berkeley students who want to switch into Haas all have to put up with the cutthroat competition in BA10. But a community college transfer applicant from Chabot in nearby Hayward can just take Chabot’s Business 12, which is certainly easier. Granted, the transfer applicants have to present a higher GPA in order to be admitted to Haas. But certainly there will be some Berkeley students who didn’t do well in BA10 who would have done perfectly fine had they taken Business 12 at Chabot. </p>
<p>A far more fair way to run Haas admissions would be to not use grades at all. Instead, all applicants - whether continuing students or transfers - would take a comprehensive test run by Haas that covers the entire gamut of prereqs, i.e. intro to business, statistics, economics, and calculus. If you know the material, regardless of how you learned it or where you went to school, then will do well on the test. It won’t matter what your grades are. Combine that test score with your essays and your resumes into an aggregate score to determine admissions. Another method would be for transfer applicants to be ‘conditionally’ admitted to Haas, but only under the proviso that they take and earn a passing score on the final exams of the Haas prereqs such as BA10, Econ 1 or 2, etc. Again, the justification would be that if that transfer student really does understand basic economics or business, then he will have little trouble earning a decent score on those final exams. {Again, I’m not asking them to get A’s. I’m just asking them to pass. If you can’t even pass, then you probably shouldn’t be admitted to Haas.} Those transfers who can’t pass those prereqs may still be allowed to come to Berkeley, but only to some backup major.</p>
<p>Agreed. There should be some test given to transfers before fully admitting them to Haas, if they don’t cut it then they’ll be in put in L&S as undeclared or something. Getting a pass in a business course seems way too lenient, maybe have them get at least a B in a few business classes in the first semester…</p>
<p>I agree only to a certain extent. Sure community college is easier, no doubt. But the degree of competition to get into Haas as a transfer is staggering as well. I go to El Camino College, probably one of the top 10 Community Colleges in CA. I am the only student from my college to get admitted to Haas. So when you talk about unfair competition? I know of at least 2 more people that should have been deserving to get in. And I am speaking as someone who has competed against the Haas School of Business at a couple of state awards. </p>
<p>Having said that, it is sad that some students chose berkeley as freshman only to find that they don’t get into HAAS their junior year, but that’s life. An econ undergraduate degree with an MBA is just as, if not more powerful than a bachelors in business followed by an MBA. Options are unlimited.</p>
<p>Oh I have no problem taking a test, because of my experiences in the state comp, I outperform the Haas representatives. And the way I see it, even if Haas sends its “worst” students, which I am sure they don’t. I should get into the program if I outscore them on a scantron business test as well as a business case study. If you guys have some bad experiences with transfers then that sucks, but do not generalize or underestimate the difficulty of transferring there either. At least you know what you need to do to get into the program and have a safety blanket. I applied to Haas, berkeley offers no alternative major, so if I had gotten rejected i can’t go to Berkeley at all!! You all still have the luxury of going to a top notch economics program. </p>
<p>From my experience people that complain about these things have had bad experiences before. This should not, however, lead to over generalizations of transfer students. No mattter what they pump into your brains when your there, none of you are better than me just because you’ve been at Berkeley longer.</p>
<p>This rings true for biological sciences as well.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Uh, not quite. As sakky pointed out before, nobody can count on getting into Haas or Econ even though the selection criteria are posted on the Haas website. And the choice of an alternative major for continuing students isn’t a luxury, it’s part of being admitted to Berkeley. For freshman admissions, Berkeley admits by colleges and sometimes majors (ex. BioE, EECS, etc.). Freshman applicants don’t get to choose alternative colleges or majors to apply to, so if they are rejected, then they don’t get into Berkeley at all, just like transfer applicants. It would be unfair for transfer applicants to get alternative majors when freshman applicants don’t have this option either.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Calm down there. No need to get all butthurt and defensive. This isn’t about you as an individual, this is about the general transfer student. You’ve met dismal Haas students and we’ve met many terrible transfer students. Our experiences are as valid as yours.</p>
<p>I said it before, and I’ll say it again: economics is also impacted. Hence, you run the risk of going to Berkeley as a freshmen, not getting into Haas, then applying to Econ and not getting that either. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Nobody is arguing that somebody is automatically better than anybody else purely by how long they’ve been at Berkeley. And, frankly, I think unfairness can run both ways: I suspect there may be some Berkeley continuing students who are admitted to Haas over some transfers who are more deserving. </p>
<p>That is why I return to the proposal of a Haas-run standardized test. The advantage would be that it would be eminently fair. Everybody would be scored according to the same precepts. No longer would you have to worry about different grading schemes used by different profs. You either score well on the exam or you don’t.</p>
<p>I would agree to the standardized test, I have no issue with it. Someone else posted that transfers should have to maintain B’s in core classes, I also agree with that. Someone who can’t get at least B’s in their major prep should consider a different major.</p>
<p>One of the reasons for the community college is to make things more equitable. Frankly, the socioeconomic class of Berkeley freshman is different than transfers (median family income for incoming 09-10 freshman is $88,800 compared to median family CA income of $54,000; I do not have numbers on transfer students). Sorry, but transfer students may not have had the money for those SAT classes or the resources when they were younger. </p>
<p>I understand that not all freshman had these resources but it is reasonable to assume that freshman admits had more resources growing up then transfers. As a result, transfers may not have had same SAT scores or GPA that freshman had. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, transfers excelled their two years at CC. Hopefully, many of these transfers are coming from less privileged backgrounds and the transfer system is giving them an opportunity that they would not have otherwise had. You all need to get off your high horse and gain some perspective.</p>
<p>it is a lot easier to get a high GPA as a transfer than as a Cal students. I have a close friend who easily maintained a 4.0 under an Engineering curriculum only to get below a 3.0 in his first year as a transfer to Cal. Part of the problem is that for many CC kids, after they busted their ass and got into Berkeley, the get relaxed and don’t try as hard. Thus, it is not fair to the sophomore Berkeley students that a large pool of transfers are admitted who did not have as rigorous of a courseload, and who may not do as well.</p>
<p>But that hardly solves the problem - indeed, it’s a case of the cure being just as bad as the disease. Berkeley transfers are typical of neither their transferee school nor of California in general. They may come from rich families that emphasize education, they may have the wealth to allow them to study full-time without having to work, they may be able to hire private tutors to help boost their grades. </p>
<p>I can personally think of some Berkeley transfers of which all three were true. Heck, one of them was a self-described ne’er-do-well while in high school, even flunking out for a period of time. But the fact that he came from a family of millionaires meant that he was able to quickly re-establish himself in community college and transfer to Berkeley. A Horatio Alger story it certainly was not. Heck, the guy was driving a better car as a teenager than my parents could afford even to this day. </p>
<p>If the problem to be solved is that some people are poorer than others, then Berkeley should tweak its admissions policies - both transfer and freshman - to address it as a matter of social engineering. That at least would be the intellectually honest choice. To fold social policy within the transfer process is as deceitful as much as it is ineffective for many of the successful transfer students are themselves rich. </p>
<p>It is also probably unfair - and that’s precisely the topic at hand here. It is at least strongly perceived that admission as a transfer is easier than admission as a freshman. Which is why I return to the notion of a standardized test that is run by Haas. That would be eminently aboveboard, for it then wouldn’t matter whether you’re a transfer or a freshman admit. You either score well or you don’t.</p>
<p>there used to be a time, back when the UC had a real budget that after the high school seniors got rejected, the UC would have the option to send them a guaranteed transfer program.</p>