<p>Right now we're in the admissions season wondering if we'll be accepted by our dream schools. For some, that school is Berkeley. For others, it might be UCLA. One thing that these top UCs have in common is the fairly high average admitted GPA for transfers—3.77 for Berkeley last year and 3.72 for UCLA last year.</p>
<p>These average admitted GPAs have no doubt been rising for a long time now. I don't have any concrete info about Berkeley's average admitted GPA from past years, but in UCLA's case, it wasn't always so difficult to get in. For Fall 2006, the average admitted GPA for UCLA was 3.55. 3.55! No doubt Cal's average admitted GPA at this time was a little higher, but still....</p>
<p>The average admitted GPA for transfers this year is likely to be at or slightly above 3.72 for UCLA and 3.77 for Berkeley. I say this because the trend for increasing average admitted GPAs has continued for years now. What I'd like to ask you guys today is what you think these top schools(Along with some of the other UCs I suppose) will do in the years ahead as transfer admissions get even more competitive. I can see a time, maybe in 7~10 years from now when the average admitted GPA for both of those schools will be in the 3.87-3.95 range. Crazy, right? Maybe in the future, ECs and personal statement will play a larger role for transfers as they do for freshman applicants currently.</p>
<p>I wonder what the admission rates will be like in the not-too-distant future. Maybe they'll be in the 10~15% range. Last year, it was 24.5% and 26.48% for UC Berkeley and UCLA, respectively.</p>
<p>What are your thoughts on all of this, guys?</p>
<p>I wouldn’t be surprised if the TAG GPAs get increasingly higher and the requirements becoming for stringent. I’m surprised UCSB and UCD GPA’s are only a 3.2. I know UCI raised it from 3.2 to a 3.4 for the 2013-2014 application cycle and this TAG will no longer be offered at UCSD . </p>
<p>Seems like more and more students are enrolling at CCs, which doesn’t really help but regardless, the number of people who actually transfer to a UC is pathetically low. </p>
<p>It is probably just a matter of demographics, based on the number of high school graduates each year for frosh admissions (transfer admissions would have a delayed effect relative to the number of high school graduates).</p>
<p>I don’t think average GPA will get (much) higher because 4.0 is the limit. A 3.8 GPA is like 3 Bs and 17 As; bad teachers, 1 bad test, life issue, etc. stuff happens and there isn’t much difference from a 3.92 and a 2.85 student. Transfer admission will become more like HS admission in the future. If you look at UCLA HS admission, for people who have a 3.8-4.0 GPA, which is what transfer gpa will be like soon, only 2/3rds get accepted and thus obviously ECs, course load, personal statements etc. are the factors deterring admission. </p>
<p>On a different-note. if the UCs really wanted to tighten up admission all they would have to do is make Calc 1 an admissions requirement. You’d see the admissions GPA drop by easily .5+. </p>
<p>The cost of a JC education is still relatively cheap. Especially compared to 4 year colleges. The fact we live in CA and we have great publics might be attracting more “determined” students out of HS. Possibly due to choice or necessity. Maybe the UC’s are becoming more GPA oriented. Can’t be sure. </p>
<p>@Bomerr, “On a different-note. if the UCs really wanted to tighten up admission all they would have to do is make Calc 1 an admissions requirement. You’d see the admissions GPA drop by easily .5+.”</p>
<p>Lol, what? We’re talking about increased competitiveness in transferring to the UC’s. Why would the UC’s “tighten up” with the goal of lowering GPA? It’s simply illogical and makes no sense. This isn’t the way a school would go about “tightening up” admissions. Is this a rant? </p>
<p>Making Calc 1 an admissions requirement would be an absurd way to make admissions standards tougher. There’d be no need for it and I’m sure the UCs can go about making their admissions standards tighter in more sensible ways.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus</p>
<p>I’m not sure I understand. Can you elaborate, please?</p>
<p>Currently people can get into UCLA or Cal with weak, relative to high school, course loads. A fellow student who got accepted to UCR and is waiting for the other UCs, a person who is in the same calculus class as I, didn’t even know what an acid/alkaline was. He was able to bypass ever needing to take chemistry. Is this really the kind of top-tier students the UCs are searching for?</p>
<p>When you say “increased competitiveness” what you really mean is GPA increase. The reason GPA is rising is because the admissions standards are too lax; they worked in the past to stratify people but fail today and as a result GPA rises and everyone gets clumped at the top. If admissions tightens up science or math requirements then we would see a better representation of students through their GPA. </p>
<p>@Cayton. Currently people can get into UCLA by taking College Algebra, aka Intermediate Algebra, Algebra 2. a sophomore level high school class. People can get into the top UCs as transfers without ever needing to even learn basic trigonometry. On the flip-side, most people getting into UCLA and UCB out of HS will have passed Calc AB if not BC. To add insult, if a person currently takes Calc 1 and scores a B, they would have been better off taking Algebra 2 and scoring an A for their GPA. </p>
<p>Look at Haas or UCSB Economics. Haas received too many applications so they made Calc 2 an entry requirement. UCSB had a smilier situation, and too many people were failing the pre-major, so they changed the req from Biz Calc + Stats to Calc 1 + Calc 2. </p>
<p>If the UCs upped the admissions requirement to Calc 1 we would see a massive drop in transfer GPA because students would be more well stratified. </p>
<p>But freshman applicants don’t need to take AP Calculus classes to get admitted to UCLA/Berkeley. They can take other AP classes instead, such as AP statistics and they often do; transfer students usually take statistics to satisfy their math requirement, so I don’t really see your point here. </p>
<p>Besides, calculus is useless for most people, myself included. The transferable math class that I took recently, finite math, was much more useful because I learned about statistics, sets, probability, calculating interest, compound interest, basic financial math in general, and matrix algebra, most of which are very applicable for most people for reasons I hope you find to be obvious.</p>
<p>And what is your point about Haas? Most people aren’t business majors. This discussion about making calculus 1 or 2 an admissions requirement that you started pertains to people getting admitted into all majors, but you’re using the tightening of admissions standards in business majors as evidence?</p>
<p>Get your argument together because I don’t understand what it really is. Why should UCs make calculus an admissions requirement? What is your reasoning for this?</p>
<p>Well this seems like anecdotal evidence. You dismiss the fact plenty of majors don’t require or use Calculus in the first place. It seems to me you want to level the playing field for the people who are already required to take Calc. </p>
<p>Doing something like requiring Calc would do more harm than good for the average JC student. </p>
<p>@bomerr We’re talking about the transfer process in this thread. Why are you bringing up high school applicants? And what’s with the rant on mathematics and sciences? </p>
<p>AP Stats, much like College Intro to Stats isn’t nearly as rigorous compared to AB Calc or Calc 1. If someone is competitive to those schools out of HS then they will (most) likely have taken Calc. Coincidentally Stats isn’t rigorous until you get to Calculus based Stats. </p>
<p>“Besides, calculus is useless for most people,” By that reasoning most IGETC classes / GE classes are useless too… but why do colleges make us take them? Well 2 reasons. 1st they want us to be well rounded and understanding calculus will deficiently help round you out. 2nd they are screening us, filtering away the people who are less intelligent. The latter is also why college GPA matters. Furthermore because GPA Is rising, clearly the 2nd part isn’t working.</p>
<p>It’s quite simple. More people will fail or get low grades in Calc compared to Algebra 2 or Stats. Make Calc an admissions requirement and it’ll weed out people better. The people who pass Calc will be more qualified to attend top tier school. GPA will go down and it’ll be more meaningful in admissions process. GPA is only rising because the admissions requirements are soo low. </p>
<p>I think we can safely say thank god for cc. Without it I know I would have no chance at attending anyone of the UCs I’m applying for. I’m sure this is true for many of us.</p>
<p>I don’t want to generalize about people like bomerr, but I’ve noticed that many STEM majors and business majors express frustration with the difficulty of their studies and tend to look down upon people who major in fields perceived to be easier and wish that they were forced to take high level math and science classes to satisfy general education requirements despite the limited utility and imprudence of taking those kinds of courses.</p>
<p>@bomerr</p>
<p>Who cares if statistics isn’t as rigorous as Calc? Inevitably, some classes will be easier than others and taking some classes that are easier shouldn’t penalize a student in high school or in college. And frankly, I’m not aware of any UC policy that states that high school applicants are more competitive if they take AP Calc as opposed to Stats. Let’s keep this discussion related to college transfer students, shall we?</p>
<p>And no, by my logic, you can’t conclude that most GE classes are useless. Most of the classes I’ve taken in my college career have been enormously useful, from my history, philosophy, and English classes to my science classes and yes, even my math classes. They’ve helped me understand the world better, think more critically, and have overall made me a better person. Most transfer students who care even a little about learning and education more than a means to an end would agree.</p>
<p>Calculus, although very difficult, is mostly useless to non-STEM and business majors. Furthermore, in light of the fact that there are a million other ways to toughen admissions standards, I don’t really see why calculus should be an admissions requirement. </p>
<p>Lol, yes, let’s implement Calc to weed out Art History majors!! IGETC requires a math course already along with other subjects. It’s geared to make sure students are “well rounded” as you put it. I honestly don’t see what this has to do with anything considering everyone is competing against people within their own major aside from maybe Cal. </p>
<p>Crazy STEM majors these days!!</p>
<p>@Cayton, I’ve been good! Looking forward to finishing this semester up. Haven’t heard back yet but the wait isn’t really bothering me! Lol, and the mods gave me the ban hammer for calling them nazis. How’s it going in SoCal? Btw, I toured UCLA. It’s now my #1. Hopefully we both get in! </p>
<p>Because Berkeley specifically is the top, number 1, public university in the entire world. Does it make sense that people can go their by taking easy classes such as Astronomy or Geology, College Algebra or Stats? Especially when the bulk of HS freshman applicants took harder courses such as AP Chem or Calc AB. The whole point of the admissions process is to filter people out. To place people where they belong, in large part based on rigor. Top teir folks goto UCLA and Cal, midtier to UCI, bottom to UCM. </p>
<p>“Calculus, although very difficult, is mostly useless to non-STEM and business majors” That is no different from a STEM major saying psychology or ethics classes are useless. </p>
<p>The bottom line is if GPA is going up then GPA isn’t filtering people well enough. Upping the admissions requirement to Calculus would solve that issue. Plus it’s not even be a big deal. Calc 1 is still a monkey-see, monkey-do math classes compared to Real Analysis, it’s perfect balance between a really hard math class (analysis) and an easy math class (algebra based stats) </p>
<p>Anyway, I’ve been doing fine here in Los Angeles. I’ve been trying to finish up my semester here as well and I’m just trying to take it easy.</p>
<p>I’m glad you’ve made UCLA your #1 after visiting! That school has that effect on people, lol. I think we’ll both get in! If I recall correctly, your major is anthropology. At UCLA, the anthro major is actually fairly easy to get in to and it’ll be even easier with your high GPA.</p>
<p>Someone should make the official fall 2014 UCLA transfer thread soon. Maybe you?</p>
<p>EDIT:</p>
<p>@bomerr</p>
<p>Speak for yourself. CC classes aren’t easy for everyone, contrary to popular belief, and it hasn’t been easy for me to earn the GPA that I have now(3.83 if you’re wondering). And yes, making calc 1 an admissions requirement is a huge deal, especially since it isn’t predicated on any rational thinking. </p>
<p>And frankly, your example of a STEM major saying that psychology/ethics classes are useless is flawed. I’ve taken both of those classes and I must say that they have been tremendously useful to me in regards to how I act, think, and respond to many situations in daily life. Most STEM majors who take these classes would certainly agree that they are useful. Can you <em>honestly</em> claim that most people would find calculus useful in their daily lives? I don’t think you can.</p>
<p>Yeah they permabanned me haha. They already sent me a warning on this account for my avatar but it’s staying! And yeah anthro is pretty easy to get into so hopefully it all works out. You should make the UCLA thread we’re getting close! </p>
</p>