<p>I’m from Illinois. Not every kid in illinois who wants to go to college can get into UIUC, the flagship, but there are a lot of directional universities and also we have tuition reciprocation with nearby state schools, including other state’s flagship Universities.</p>
<p>^^ There are a lot of other state schools in California in both the UC and the CSU systems that are easier to be admitted to than UCLA/UCSD/UCB so I’m not sure I agree with the assessment that California state schools are too hard to get into, and let’s not forget the CC system for those who might need a bit more prep to get into the UC/CSU system. If people think they have a ‘right’ to get into the most selective schools regardless of qualifications and the applicant competition then that’s another topic but they should understand the practicalities involved and realize that forcing those colleges to be less selective would likely make them in the end less desirable and no longer deliver what they wanted in the first place for making such a fuss of being admitted.</p>
<p>As far as I know, the UC system can still accept all the qualified applicants who apply (although it might not be at the specific UC campus of their choice). I don’t know if the same is true for the CSU system but I assume it is. Maybe another poster knows.</p>
<p>The above was just a tangent and doesn’t refer to the OP’s S who was able to be admitted to UCSD which is getting more and more selective. I’m pulling for the OP’s S to get into UCSD and I think he still has a chance. If he didn’t he would have alsready received a firm decision but this situation seems to be ‘soft’ meaning they sometimes decide one way and sometimes the other based on whatever other criteria they’re looking at which might include criteria having nothing to do with the S - number of students who accept the admission offer, waitlists, etc.</p>
<p>^^ Others –> Community College to become more prepped (with some percentage, probably a significant part of that 67%, who’ll never go to college regardless) ??</p>
<p>The percentages don’t mean much without putting some conext around it -
CSU’s requirements (from <a href=“Cal State Apply | CSU”>Cal State Apply | CSU) -
The minimum eligibility index is 2900 (with SAT) or 694 (with ACT) for California residents. The index is calculated by the following: (GPA*800) + SAT scores for Reading+Math</p>
<p>This means someone with a 2.3 GPA would need a 1060 out of 1600 on the SAT. This apparently is how they translate into reality the target of the top 33%. Those aren’t terribly high stats and an argument can easily be made that a HS student with stats lower than those desiring to head to college should attend a CC first to improve their capabilities before heading to a 4 year school. Doing otherwise just forces the 4 year school into the role typically performed at the CC level with remedial classes (which has been an issue at some 4 year schools - too many remedial classes needed).</p>
<p>No, it means that the top 33% of graduating seniors who are CA residents are <em>guaranteed</em> admission to one of the Cal State campuses. (There are 23 of them - some way more desirable and popular than others. Same with the 10 UC campuses.) But that doesn’t mean that they are precluded from accepting those ranked lower to fill up their freshman class if they so choose, but those students have no guarantee.</p>
<p>For those who cannot afford or do not get admitted to UCs or Cal States, the state has also provided a huge network of 110 community colleges that also serve as secondary feeder schools to the UCs and Cal States and provide an an enormous amount of vocational training for those who do not want or need a 4-year college degree.</p>
<p>So with the state of CA providing 33 universities and 110 community colleges to educate its residents, it would be hard to argue that California is short-changing them in opportunities for higher education. The current budget crunch indeed has the state schools under pressure right now. But even with that, does any other state even come close to this level of effort?</p>
<p>We were told by the admissions office that taking a CC Physics course in the summer will not help him for two reasons 1) it will not be completed in time for the transcript to arrive by July 15 2) It will not be repeating the "exact same " course so it’s not going to fix the D. We thought we found an online AP Physics class but it is from Laurel Springs and their AP Physics class hasn’t been recognized by the UC as of yet. All the admission folks who can make decisions are at a conference in SF this week so we are stuck in neutral.
As far as his abilities go I think he just got too busy at the end of the year and didn’t realize the test was going to be hard. His fellow classmates who had an option to take the test took one look at it and passed because it was so difficult.</p>
<p>I think some of the UCS will take a passing grade on the AP exam. So, if he got a 3 or higher on the AP exam, he might be OK.</p>
<p>He could also write a letter explaining why he received the grade. He could enroll in the Stanford online EPGY course. They offer AP Physics. It is recognized by the UCS. It is meant to be a 3 month course. He would have to enroll immediately and spend a ton of time on it, bu if he was dedicated, he could complete it by July 15. You could ask them if they would accept it in lieu of being able to complete the exact class that he previously took. </p>
<p>courer-- please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not even criticizing california. I’m just saying I think the system there is under a great deal of pressure. For whatever reason. I don’t even know the exact reason. I think this puts a tremendous amount of extra pressure on the kids. 12.5% at the top UCs doesn’t strike me as all that high a number, personally. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t doing the best that they can with the pressure they have in terms of population and money. I just feel for the kids who are stuck in this situation. nuff said.</p>
<p>poetgrl: i think the tone u’re sensing in replies is exasperation. it seems that everybody and their grandmama has an opinion on the ‘state’ of california’s higher education system. as a california native and resident, i definitely have my criticisms with respect to equal access to the UC system. but i agree mostly with coureur and ucladad. the 3-tier system we have here affords our high school grads with feasible pathways to a quality, post-high school education (at what is–even now–a fairly affordable price tag). of course, every system has room for improvement. i just don’t consider my child (or any other child who desires to go to a california school) “stuck” .</p>
<p>Poetgirl, top 12.5% to the UC’s is the way it was set up in California from the start. The “Master Plan” referred to in the snippet of text you quoted is the plan that was adopted in 1960. But you might be confused because it is not based on ranking by individual schools – that is, they don’t look at the student’s class rank. Rather, they have set a statewide standard using an academic index based on GPA and test scores. So they mean, the top 12.5% of all high school graduates state wide, based on their grades and test scores.</p>
<p>There is now a recommendation out to expand that eligibility tier to top 15%:
[UC</a>, Cal State should make more students eligible for admission, study says | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times](<a href=“Archive blogs”>Archive blogs)</p>
<p>Again – Calif. has a tiered system, with 23 CSU’s in addition to 10 UC campuses, and community colleges to serve the students who cannot qualify for CSU admission. The disqualifying factor for most college bound students is very often not grades, but failure to have completed the required courses for admission – because actually the bar is set at a fairly moderate level for GPA and test scores. So it makes sense for students who don’t meet the basic criteria for admission to catch up at the community college level.</p>
<p>I certainly support the idea that anyone who wants a college education should be able to get one… but I also wanted a quality education for myself and my kids. And you can’t set the admission bar too low without sacrificing some of that – as it is, the UC’s and CSU’s have to offer some courses that are essentially remedial to help kids with weak writing or math skills. </p>
<p>The real task for California between now and 2025 ought to be improving the quality of the education at the elementary and high school level – so that a better educational foundation is laid. I thing our state would be very fortunate if the top 40% of all high school grads were truly ready for 4-year colleges… but quite honestly, I don’t think that’s the current situation. Partly that is because of issues that make public education particularly difficult in our state – the large immigrant population, high levels of poverty and low funding – but I don’t think we are there yet. I mean, California has a high school graduation rate of 68% – so you have almost a third of high schoolers who don’t make it to graduation at all, much less qualify for admission at any 4-year college. With those stats, the reality is that the top third - those who qualify for admission to the CSU’s, are actually the top half of students awarded a diploma (since the bottom third dropped out).</p>
<p>I home school and use a variety of accredited courses. Keystone High School has an AP physics course, and you can enroll any time throughout the year. Maybe you can just take the second semester? </p>
<p>I also recommend getting a good tutor in addition to pursuing a replacement course with the following story-- </p>
<p>My d. was in a similar situation, we found out her tutors were helping her too much in her Calculus and allowing her to use her graphing calculator. This particular course weighted most of your grade on the comprehensive tests (no calculator allowed) My husband was trying to cram enough calculus into her the last few weeks so she could pass the final, and the course. She was headed to a Service Academy, and had to leave at the end of June.
She barely ended up with a C, and she barely graduated! </p>
<p>That said- she did very well in college (took more calculus) did a lot better the second time. She really learned a valuable lesson about not applying yourself to the problem sets. These home schooling courses are wonderful prep for college- if you’re not ready to do a comprehensive 2 hour tests like these in HS, perhaps you’re not ready for them in college. (it only gets harder)</p>
<p>Her roomate in college ended up in a similar boat- she was getting a lot of help for her homework (too much) and then struggled on the tests. My d. had kind of learned the hard way not to skate through the home work and was not surprised when she saw what happened to her roomate. You really have to force yourself to do a lot of practice problems so you can do them in a test situation.</p>
<p>SDmom56
We do live in California and we will make a personal appearance-well my son will. We’ve called admissions several times and gotten a different person each time. They have given us similar non answers-your application will be reviewed by committee and then ??? Or if you had withdrawn or taken an incomplete you’d be fine but a D? Well, we’ll let you know after July 15. Which leads us to more problems-do we continue on with his housing deposit? It’s $650 by 6/30 so that’s another phone call to make-housing on Monday! Monitor your kids grades folks- I did- but we NEVER thought he’d BOMB the final…UGH…</p>
<p>My niece is in the exact same situation and can’t get a straight answer from anyone in admissions. We do not know what to do about housing and no one seems to have deal with this before. Please let me know if you get any answers.</p>
<p>My son is a rising senior in college. He does not go to a UC, but did end up with a D as his final grade in physics. He got a letter from his intended college sometime in July telling him he needed to write an explanation of his grade. We immediately went to the Guidance Office of the high school. The guidance counselor and the principal reviewed his grades and recalculated his letter grade based on the higher number in the letter range. It raised his grade to a C-. They then sent a new final transcript to the college with a letter. They also called the college. My son still had to write an explanation letter, and didn’t find out for about 3 nervewracking weeks that he was not rescinded.
Maybe the guidance office in your high school can help. They may be able to speak with someone who actually has answers for you.
My son is now held up as an example to the senior class - what senioritis can do to you!
Hope you get it all straightened out.</p>
<p>As far as I was aware about rescission, it has to do with the numerical shift in GPA from the time the student was admitted to the time of graduation. So if your son was admitted with a 3.0 (just throwing numbers around) and dropped to a 2.7, I am not sure if that is grounds for rescission. I was not aware that a single bad grade (unless it is a failing grade, in which case it would go into the GPA calculation as a 0.0 and that would do the work for us) could merit rescission. You may be freaking out over nothing. Has the admissions office contacted you/warned you about rescission?</p>
<p>We contacted them and were told that all admits who didnot meet their admission criteria (ie no D of F grades, cumulative 3.0 +) would be sent to committee and since UCSD always offers admission to more than they should admit, they would only keep his admission if they had space. The admissions office doubts they will have space.</p>
<p>UCSD definitely cares if you get a D or F on your transcript, no matter what your cumulative GPA is. The committee will give you a second look–not necessarily rescind, but will definitely look again. I would send a letter of explanation (call if you can actually talk to someone who actually has power), cross your fingers, hope for the best, and make a back up plan in case the worst case scenario comes about. </p>
<p>But not much you can do until the decision makers come back into town.</p>
<p>I don’t see what is the purpose of a letter of explanation. In 99% of cases of cases it must be either a) I was really really lazy, or b) I am not quite intelligent enough to handle this material. Or do you have to write something like “I confess I was lazy, I learned a valuable lesson from it, now I know that laziness (possibly) has consequences (depending on whether this letter works or not), I have learned to be a better person and my new life goal is to help combat senioritis across the world”?</p>
<p>My daughter got into Berkeley and was told she had to have a B average her final semester. We know if two stories where kids got Ds their final semester. Their acceptances were put on hold and the kids went to summer school and retook the classes and entered in fall. The bummer is they had trouble getting freshman housing because they were so late.</p>