<p>do grad/professional schools care at all if you’re a transfer?</p>
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<p>I guess the option of transferring was completely and totally removed from any sort of consideration once that freshman acceptance letter arrived. I mean, it’s not like they had any sort of monetary or parental advantage which just might have pushed their SAT score over the 2200 mark. How do we apply fairness to an environment which is so unbelievably unequal in terms of experience.</p>
<p>The same argument can be made for Law School admissions, Med School admissions, or just about any professional program. And were all guilty of vomiting that tired cocktail of narcissism all the place when in the company of other Berkeley students. Sure, LSAT, MCAT, SAT, GRE or whateverthe**** provide some overriding appraisal of… something. But how much are the results based on the financial availability of prep programs?</p>
<p>I mean, these grand ideas you “toy with” are logistical nightmares. Hm, **** I forgot where I was going with this. Probably that second dram of Laphroaig 12 I just finished. It was going to be really good, though. Real good.</p>
<p>I second everything Sakky has said on this thread so far.</p>
<p>Fairness matters.</p>
<p>Birthing centers–let’s do what Plato said. Damnit! I swear to GOD, I’ve got gold running through my veins.</p>
<p>A lot of regular admits do poorly as freshman. There are a couple common reasons for this. Sometimes there is a gap in what you know and what your professors assume you know. Other times it’s adjusting to independence and being away from home. Generally, when a freshman comes on this forum freaking out over a bad grade we reassure them that it’s easy to screw up your first semester.</p>
<p>Transfer students face the same thing their first semester at Berkeley, but their failures arouse far more derision from their peers. When they screw up, it just confirms everyone’s doubts. When they succeed, everyone claims they are the exceptions.</p>
<p>All disputes aside, something must be said about the arrogance of people in this thread. It’s not just embarrassing to me as a fellow Berkeley students; it’s disgusting. Someone said earlier that they lose respect for people who studied at community college. WTH! If you respected someone before you knew they went to CC, why should that change afterwards? Where someone studied doesn’t automatically negate ability/character/everything else that matters.</p>
<p>Wait, what about where my house is located. I have to walk 2 miles to campus which cuts into my time for studying–I would say students closer to campus have at least 30 minutes more per day at their disposal. Completely unfair. </p>
<p>Also, sometimes people walk by my window and talk LOUDLY and interrupt my studying. If I lived a couple houses to the left I wouldn’t have this problem. I just know some other ******* student is sitting in his non-corner house taking all that silence for granted. THAT <strong><em>ING </em></strong>*! SO UNFAIR!</p>
<p>My blinds also don’t work that well. When the sun is rising and setting it shines RIGHT on my computer screen. I am totally unable to work for like 20 minutes. Damn, my roommate should definitely take some sort of non-sunlit room evaluation before he graduates. The ■■■■■■■ hasn’t had to deal with that terrible sun ever. Completely spoiled. Well, I guess I can take solace in the fact he had to check the “shaded room” box on all his graduate school applications. Thank god for fairness.</p>
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If this is all you can come up with as a rebuttal to those arrogant transfers bashers, I’m afraid you’re further reinforcing the negative stereotype of the transfers.</p>
<p>I don’t understand you people. There are perfectly valid arguments that you COULD be making here. Declaring that everyone who doesn’t agree with you is THE reason Berkeley isn’t magic happy candy land is stupid.</p>
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<p>Specifically how my response a poor rebuttal. Please, be particular in your answer.</p>
<p>@iTransfer (if you read this): Wow, you are so cool for taking quotes out of context and exactly ignoring my point. Your skills are worth so much we can’t possibly waste them here at Berkeley.</p>
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<p>You’re supposedly arguing against the idea that transfer admits are less qualified than freshman admits. I’m not sure your post was even relevant, much less a decent rebuttal.</p>
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<p>That’s not the issue at hand. The issue is, if you’re choosing to transfer to another school, you should be willing to abide by the rules that the other students at that school have to follow, rather than receive (or even demand) special treatment.</p>
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<p>That’s an entirely different issue having to do with the general unfairness of admissions. For example, I’m sure there are some community college students who don’t have to work because they’re rich and therefore can spend all their time studying, vs. other students at the same community college who are correspondingly unable to devote all of their time to their studies. The admissions process is more likely to admit the former. </p>
<p>However, the salient issue is not regarding the admissions process, but regarding the fairness of the treatment of students once they’re at Berkeley. As I said, I have no problem with transfer students as long as they don’t receive special treatment and privileges that the freshman admits are not receiving. Many of them would love to skip the weeders that the transfer students do. </p>
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<p>And again, I would submit that much (perhaps most) of that difference has to do with the nature of the weeders, many of which are encountered only as freshmen. It is not at all uncommon for students to receive poor grades in weeders - in fact, that’s precisely what they’re designed to do. This is why many Berkeley students who were freshman-admits have noted that the grading actually becomes easier as they progress to later coursework, mostly because they’ve surmounted the weeders. </p>
<p>For example, I distinctly recall one student, after surviving several rounds of weeders and noting the accompanying number of dropouts/flunkouts, extrapolated that if such weeding were to continue for all 4 years, nobody would graduate at all. Of course that didn’t actually happen, because the weeding stops at some point - yet that is precisely around the point where the transfers are often times allowed to embark within the major. </p>
<p>It is therefore unsurprising in the least that transfer students who encounter difficulty only serve to confirm everybody’s doubts. Is is entirely understandable - even expected - for students to encounter difficulty during the weeders, but far less so for students to encounter difficulty past the weeders. Put another way, if you are allowed to skip ahead to the courses that feature easier grading and you still receive a low grade, well, that’s not exactly inspiring much confidence in your abilities.</p>
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<p>I’ve heard this countless times, and to this day, I still don’t know what that actually means, or how it conforms to the current behavior of any of the top public schools. I can’t simply demand one fine day that I want to study at Berkeley, UCLA, UMichigan, UVa, or any other top public school of my choosing simply because I’m a member of the state taxpaying public. I have to first be admitted, which many (often times most) applicants are not. Berkeley rejects the overwhelming majority (~75%) of all freshman class applicants, most of them being state residents and are therefore members of the ‘public’ that Berkeley is purportedly serving. Similarly, I can’t simply demand that, by mere virtue of being a California state resident, I should be automatically admitted to UCSF Medical School. I have to apply to the program along with all of the other applicants, and only ~5% of them will actually be offered admission. </p>
<p>The only public higher educational institutions that could rightfully be said to be truly serving the entire public are the open admissions community colleges. Berkeley, UCSF, UCLA, Michigan, UVa, and any of the other top public universities are already clearly not serving the entire public.</p>
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<p>As I explained in a previous post, most Californians already lack access to UC, even under the Master Plan. The Master Plan dictates that only a small percentage of all California students will be eligible for UC at all, which therefore means that most California parents are paying taxes to support a UC system that their children cannot access. Let’s face it - if you earned straight C’s in high school, and then attended community college and earned straight C’s once again, you’re not going to be admitted to UC, regardless of how much tax revenue your parents may have contributed. </p>
<p>Furthermore, the Master Plan dictates only that a certain level of access be provided to the UC system as a whole. It says nothing about *which particular UC campus * to which a particular student should be admitted. A community college student who meets the UC transfer eligibility guidelines may have the right to transfer to UC, but not necessarily to Berkeley. Why not shift some of them to UCR or UCMerced? I thought that the whole point of Merced was to relieve some of the population pressures felt by the more established campuses.</p>
<p>Seriously, HTF is this good news?</p>
<p>Off-topic: First time I saw “HTF” as an acronym. +1</p>
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<p>There are three fallacies in your response.
The first is structural: Where you live while in college and blinds not working are generally not regarded as unfairness because they’re something that a reasonable person can remedy, something (similar things) everyone suffers.
The second is about relevancy: Your examples are not remotely relevant to Cal admissions.
The third is logical: You’re saying that because life is full of unfairness, it follows that either everything is fair, or that nobody should call out something that’s unfair. This is the classic two wrongs make a right argument.</p>
<p>Well, sunfish and sakky, I’ve lurked here on CC for years while going through the college application process with my kids. You have the distinction of riling me enough to finally create an account. Perhaps your intent is simply to be purposefully provocative, or to showcase your debate skills. If so, awesome job.</p>
<p>I just have to say, though, that although I’ve always personally regretted not getting into UCB (sorry UCLA!), and have been encouraging my incoming freshman daughter to think seriously about Cal should she be accepted, I might have changed my mind after reading this thread. UCB always seems to those of us on the outside looking in as an amazing think tank incubator of a place that nurtures raw talent and intellect, celebrates cultural and academic diversity, and works toward creating a campus culture of excitingly varied student achievements. And specifically because of this, consistently produces a vibrant graduating class full of people who make amazing contributions to our society. It’s part of the reason why you do a double take when someone says, " I graduated from Berkeley." You just know that there is going to be something special about that kid, something more than the ones who went to HYP etc. I know that’s unabashedly corny, but I would never in my life have expected such pompous, prejudiced elitism by Berkeley students toward many whose greatest sin was simply not having the family means to pay for four full years of tuition.</p>
<p>@mommabear: good post. i actually didn’t know people held berkeley in such high regards though.</p>
<p>uclamommabear,
sakky is KNOWN throughout CC for being a pompous ass. disregard his posts as they are not representative of Cal alumni.</p>