Hopefully helpful advice to California parents

Parents Forum
1

<p>I thought that I would share some lessons learned because I wish that I had known these things while helping my child plan her high school to college ‘route’. Please note that this information is soley based on personal experience ( family, friends, classmates…small sample size!). </p>

<li><p>In a college advising meeting, we were told that it is better to apply for a to the University of California system with a specific major, rather than apply undeclared. It seems that undeclared may have been a better way to apply.</p></li>
<li><p>We were also advised to take as many honors and AP classes as we could.
As it turns out, people who took only a few of these, had a relatively easy courseload, and thereby kept a high GPA, seemed to fare better than those who took all the honors and AP classes and had a bit lower GPA. The UC application only gives credit ( extra weight) for 8 semesters ( 4 classes) of honors/AP. Students definitely got into CAL, UCLA, and UCSD with high GPAs and an easier courseload. You do not need to take ALL the honors and AP classes. </p></li>
<li><p>SAT scores do not make up for the lower GPA. You are better off having a great GPA ( even taking the easy route), and having just-ok SAT scores, than having strong SATs, a killer course load and a just-good GPA.</p></li>
<li><p>Having a difficult family situation and lower income, etc, makes all the difference.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>On the bright side, having taken a really hard courseload all 4 yrs of high school, my daughter is extremely well prepared for college and is having incredible success in her first year.</p>

<p>It was just disappointing for me, as a parent, to feel that I had misadvised her ( based on the advising I received) to take all honors and AP classes. Her SAT scores were, in some cases, much higher than some of her friends, but
her GPA was just ‘good’. She worked much harder that her friends due to the intensity of her classes, but it didn’t really pay off at admission time. </p>

<p>There were lots of examples, but here are three specific ones:</p>

<li><p>Friends ( several): Accepted to CAL w/ lower SAT scores, equivalent ECs, GPAs somewhat higher helped out by much easier courseload /less honors/APs.
2 of them also had difficult family situations which they shared in essays.</p></li>
<li><p>One of her closest friends : same gpa, slightly lower SATs, same ECs. Sort of difficult family situation. Accepted to UCLA. ( applied undelcared)</p></li>
<li><p>Close Relative : Bit higher GPA ( mostly easy classes, only a few honors), MUCH lower SATs, talked about a difficult family situation. Accepted to UCSD.
( applied undeclared).</p></li>
</ol>

<p>I hope this will be of help to someone. It’s hard to see someone work so hard and be ‘rejected’ when a little different planning might’ve helped them get ‘accepted’.</p>

2

<p>I think the U of CA made it clear that they were no longer enchanted with the SAT and your experience is apparently an example of that. Unfortunately, without another screening tool, they make themselves vulnerable to the rampant grade inflation that goes on, at least in many public high schools. </p>

<p>Hopefully, your D had some out-of-state back-up options. Since it generally takes five years to get through most of the UC's these days, that out-of-state tuition balances out if you can get through in four years somewhere else. The student can often claim residency by junior year and at least the last year is an in-state tuition year.</p>

<p>Nothing is easy...</p>

3

<p>Well, fortunately, the UC she is attendng ended up to be a place where she is thriving and very happy, and from a learning pespective and an environmnetal perspective the classes she took in HS were great. I just wanted to give a heads-up so parents could perhaps help their kids plan a little more 'balanced' courseload and come out ahead.
Other than the 8 semester points for honors/AP, they don't appear to look at intensity of courseload at all. Yet at advising, we were made to think they did and that admissions would value those with the most challenging courseload. Turns out, not the case.</p>

4

<p>anothercollegemom, </p>

<p>This is interesting information. Thank you for posting it. </p>

<p>It probably isn't useable by the kids who intend to apply to both UC's and top privates (which DO look for the most rigorous courses), but for kids who wish to attend a UC as their top choice it is good to know. </p>

<p>Particularly the 4 AP thing, as some kids really grasp at straws to take every AP-- even when the particular class is not that exciting to them or the particular teacher is sub par.</p>

5

<p>As awful as this is going to sound, I feel a little guilty for having an intact, stable, no big dramas, no issue family life for my Ds, no crisis, everybody is healthy and together, but my Ds have given of their time to others ALOT, but with this system, it may not matter</p>

<p>I am a liberal, but this irks me a tad, there I said it outloud</p>

6

<p>My son has a lower GPA than his SAT (some of his worst grades were in AP classes). </p>

<p>I have no doubt he would have benefitted from the "extra points", if only I did NOT having a college degree, and our family was NOT intact, and as an extra bonus, if I could be low-income, to have been accepted at more than one UC campus.</p>

7

<p>anothercollegemom:</p>

<p>sorry, but I strongly disagree with post #2 as a standalone. But, yes, #4 trumps a lot of the others under Comprehensive (aka 'compassionate') Review.</p>

<p>Unless a student has a hook, (low income, first generation to go to college, and/or difficult family situation, strength of schedule and essays really matter. In essence, honors/AP are essentially required for admission to Cal or UCLA, and to a certain extent, San Diego. Moreover, looking at thier admission stats proves the point.... top 4% elc kids are accepted at 60+% rate into Cal and UCLA, in contrast to the 20% overall rate; elc is based solely on UC gpa, boosted by honors/AP courses. Also, kids in last year's UCLA's matriculating class had an AVERAGE of 19 honors/AP/IB courses, or just under 5 per year for four years. Since most schools do not offer honors foreign language, that means that nearly EVERY matriculating student had at least 4 academic honors/AP/IB courses each and every year. But, since your #4 point is indeed relevant....and, since many inner city schools don't even offer 19 honors courses, the AVERAGE number of honors/AP/IB courses for an unhooked, suburban kids has to be much higher than 19....</p>

<p>RE: declaring majors...it matters not one bit if a student is applying to the College of Letters and Sciences ("L&S") at UC. Colleges know that many kids change their major 2-3 times, so L&S only looks at the intended major to see if it matches the application profile, i.e., a kid with Mathematics as an intended major better have a decent math score on the SAT. Other than that, they really don't care. But, declaring a major when applying to specialized, impacted colleges, such as the College of Engineering, is critical, since those apps are reveiwed against the other apps for admission to that specific college program.</p>

8

<p>It seems clear that taking on academic challenges/risk is the death knell to gaining admission to the most popular UC’s. It bothered me for awhile that she could have partied her way through high school easily hitting all the appropriate hopes to attain UC “superstar” status. If an admissions officer bothered to look at what she has accomplished (do they even LOOK at the courses these kids take?), and she didn’t “fit in” to their student profile, especially in light of who they DO accept…well I think the message is clear that it isn’t the right place for her. Are the UC's really cultivating the "best and the brightest"? What is their message?</p>

9

<p>a further point: for purposes of elc, all honors bonus points are counted in the gpa calculation; thus, the elc gpa is UNCAPPED. Clearly, those students who load up on honors/AP/IB courses have and do well in their local HS, have a significant admissions advantage over thier colleagues (60% vs. 20%).</p>

10

<p>I can't speak to the other campuses but for UCLA and Cal, the lack of Honors/AP classes will be deterimental in an overall statistical basis, particularly if the applicant does not have any of the "hardship" or "life experience" factors. </p>

<p>This is not to say that any given individual can not get admitted to the top UC's without Honors/AP classes (assuming their high school offers them), but the odds are lower.</p>

<p>Your best chances are if you have the Honors/AP classes AND high GPA AND high test scores.</p>

11

<p>
[quote]
Your best chances are if you have the Honors/AP classes AND high GPA AND high test scores.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>...AND "hardship" or "life experience" factors. </p>

<p>But then, if you have all those, the UCs aren't necessarily your only or "best" option, either.</p>

12

<p>
[quote]
Are the UC's really cultivating the "best and the brightest"? What is their message?

[/quote]
No, they're not. And in interviews they've been quite clear about what their goals were for the "comprehensive review" system.

[quote]
Former UCLA admissions director Rae Lee Siporin says the new system also was intended to make the student body as reflective as possible of the state's population. She says UCLA determined that simply using poverty as an index of disadvantage would reduce diversity, because it wouldn't help middle-class blacks and Hispanics and it would "pull in" lots of low-income Asians.</p>

<p>Latino legislative leader Marco Antonio Firebaugh, a force behind adoption of the new system, agrees: "We found that using poverty yields a lot of poor white kids and poor Asian kids," he says. The formulas UCLA and other campuses chose instead give hefty boosts to the students -- predominantly Hispanic and African-American -- who attend low-performing high schools targeted by university outreach programs. </p>

<p>At Mr. Park's University High in Irvine, where the student body is 50% non-Hispanic white and 41% Asian-American, UCLA acceptances plunged to 69 students this year (2002 -- editor) from 89 last year, and Berkeley admissions fell to 47 from 63. Principal Diana Schmelzer thinks she knows why: "Our students come from stable homes and their parents are teachers, doctors and lawyers. It feels as though the kid who works very hard and comes from an upper-middle-class family is in fact the disadvantaged student" under the new admissions criteria. </p>

<p>(see <a href="http://www.astro.ucla.edu/%7Emalkan/golden.html)%5B/url%5D%5B/quote%5D"&gt;http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~malkan/golden.html)

[/quote]
</a></p>

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<p>Wow! Lots of interesting info. Thanks for the responses! Just to reiterate, this was only based on my limited experience. My point was that kids with a balanced course load ( some honors /AP) and higher GPA, fared better than someone with a truckload of honors and AP and a lower GPA. Of course there were kids that had the truckload and the high GPA...but he went to Harvard ( ha ha....funny, but true!)</p>

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<p>I know--it made it difficult to do essay #3 for the UC application.</p>

15

<p>avwh:
Same situation, I can totally relate. Hopefully, as in my child's case, your child will at least have the benefit of an easy adjustment to the college workload due to his high school rigors!</p>

<p>It was a little painful this year to have a family member get into UCSD
( and maybe even CAL ...haven't head yet) with a much easier courseload and a much lower SAT. She has the lower income (via a complicated technicality since her parents recently divorced), parents w/out college, family disruption. But the funny reality is that she is a prom queen who lives in a much bigger, nicer house , drives a new car, wears expensive clothes. We live in shack, my kid drives a 20 yr old Toyota, and buys clothes at the thriftstore...so if the admissions folks really came for a visit they'd have a much different idea of who needed the 'help'.</p>

<p>To all:
Also feel like I want to say that my intent is not to disparage the UC system in any way. I think we, in California, are really blessed with all the knowledge and opportunity available thorugh this system. All systems have their peculiarities and the admissions folks don't have crystal balls.
I just want to share my experience because I think might be helpful.</p>

16

<p>I disagree with most posts on this thread. It sounds to me like sour grapes thread that really comes down to the fact that the UC system favors kids with higher GPAs. It isn't about the number of honors/APs -- the UC system does allow some weighting, and a kid who takes more APs can potentially have a higher GPA than kids without the APs -- what brings down the GPA is when a kid gets a C in a weighted class. </p>

<p>The comprehensive review process provides an avenue for kids with less than stellar stats to explain the reasons -- it doesn't undermine or negate the chances of kids with strong stats.</p>

<p>My son was admitted to UC Berkeley - he had A's in all his academic subjects in 10th & 11th grade, including the APs, and he had strong test scores. </p>

<p>My daughter is ELC at her school, and she has been admitted to UCSB & UCSC. Her test scores are weaker. We haven't heard from Berkeley yet, but if she does get in, then I believe it will be because of the major she designated -- it is an under-enrolled major, and she has a very strong grounding of coursework and experience to support it. </p>

<p>I can understand that in hindsight, any parent who urged their child to take AP classes and saw the child struggle and lose ground with the GPA may have regrets. But every college advisor I have ever talked to, when asked whether it is better to take an AP class and get a B or to get an A in a regular course, always answers that it is better to get an A in the AP class. In other words, students who are capable of taking on the extra challenge and do well should do so -- a student who does not have that capacity will not benefit.</p>

17

<p>Hi Calmom,
It wasn't intended at all to be such, even though I can clearly see your point. And you are absolutely correct about what an advisor would say.</p>

<p>I just wanted to share my limited experience ,though, because I do regret having encouraged what I thought was a neccessary courseload.
As I said, several friends are attending CAL, UCLA, UCSD and most took significantly more balanced courseloads ( some AP/honors some not).</p>

<p>It would have been great if all As were received with all honors and AP classes and those are certainly the stellar students, but the courseload was too challenging for all As in our case. A better balance might have helped. The balanced program certainly seemed to have been a better plan for the kids we knew who were accepted.</p>

18

<p>
[quote]
1. In a college advising meeting, we were told that it is better to apply for a to the University of California system with a specific major, rather than apply undeclared. It seems that undeclared may have been a better way to apply.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Sorry, but this is simply incorrect (on both points). It doesn't matter which major your apply with, since declared major isn't a factor in admissions. (at least with UCLA - I'd assume there is a similar policy at most if not all other UCs) My guess is that major isn't even on the form they send the adcom members.</p>

19

<p>There was a kid from my school in north Atlanta that got deferred early at the University of Georgia that got into UCLA OOS. He doesnt have that high of a GPA, not many honors and AP's, and a mediocre SAT score(low 1300's). </p>

<p>He does have a bunch of EC's, but nothing too spectacular. The lesson here is: im not sure what the hell UCLA is thinking. If he got in from my school, im convinced that 25% of my graduating class of 490 kids could have gotten in.</p>

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<p>Hi Icarus:
Honestly, that is what we were told at an advising session at our HS.
And it definitely didn't seem correct, and it seemed in the end that the opposite may have been true...but I certainly meant 'seemed' and 'may'. I stress, this just anecdotal info!</p>

<p>I've heard so many people say that they were likely not admitted because they applied in a highly impacted major. But maybe they are mistaken.</p>