sakky--What is your relationship with UC Berkeley?

Colleges & Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
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<p>"Transfer students do very well at Berkeley, graduating with similar grade point averages and at similar rates as students who started Cal as freshmen."</p>

<p><a href="http://students.berkeley.edu/admissions/transfer.asp%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://students.berkeley.edu/admissions/transfer.asp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>If it were:
Transfer students do very well at Berkeley, graduating with similar grade point averages in their upper division classes and at similar rates as students who started Cal as freshmen and proceeded into upper division classes. </p>

<p>This implies that the only significant difference between a transfer student and a regular admit Cal student is the first 2 years of their education, but that that does not seem to affect their performance over the next two years.</p>

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<p>So what is the problem?</p>

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<p>Yeah, and...? I don't really get this post. Did you change your mind about the whole thing?</p>

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<p>Yeah except it doesnt say that. It says whats in the quotes. Not whats below, thats what it should say if they want to actually compare statistics with any kind of credibility.</p>

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<p>That's only true if you are looking for a problem that doesn't exist. Life is hard when you do things like that. You end up like one of those characters in "Waiting for Godot".</p>

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<p>Well, considering that transfer gpa's start over when they get to Cal, I don't know how else you could read that statement. The gpa that transfers graduate with are soley based on grades earned at Cal, not those earned at ccc.</p>

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<p>Great but a Cal students exiting GPA is everything since the first day of class freshman year. Thats not comparing the same thing. And BTW Waiting for Godot is so irrelevant its not even funny. Dont pull out an existentialist play to try and characterize me.</p>

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<p>Sakky,</p>

<p>I don't understand the reasoning behind quotes such as </p>

<p>"Actually, conor, I don't think I am obligated to take the word of Cal at all. Why? Because it is Cal itself who decides whether to publish the study or not. Hence, if there really is something to hide, then we both know that Cal has a vested interest in not publishing the study."</p>

<p>What does Cal have to hide? If what you accuse is true, then Cal, by not admitting that transfers aren't up to snuff, is only hurting itself when it sends inferior transfer graduates into the workforce? Possibly, you're referring to the fact that Cal as a state school is obligated to take community college transfers. However, Cal is merely one institution within the University of California system and can easily argue that if it finds that the rigor of its academic experience is too great for all but the best cc transfers, then they should go elsewhere to lesser UC's or the California State system.</p>

<p>Cal might be the flagship campus of the U of CA, but it's in its own self-interest to ensure that it maintains the highest academic standards possible; not cater to the fact that it must accept CC transfers. If this were a smaller state where the flagship state campus is the ONLY state campus this argument would make sense, however in California there are so many other public options.</p>

<p>Cal has nothing to hide and would only hurt itself by doing so. Therefore, I do not see how you can argue this position.</p>

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<p>I agree, megastud. Cal is fairly clear with its goals, and transparency seems to be taken seriously. I sincerely doubt Cal could hide a terrible gap of quality between transfers and four-year students even if there actually was one. Let's be honest, there are about a million people out there with a vested interest in exposing issues with admissions to college (mostly people with an issue with AA), and I'd think by now transfers would have come up. They haven't.</p>

<p>I understand why people might think that transfers are lazy or stupid or whatnot. I've met some stupid people at community college. However, there is a reason why Cal and UCLA and other flagship schools like transfers: we're not lazy. We're the opposite. My grades are higher than all of the four-year students I know. I hit the ground running and I've never looked back. </p>

<p>Think about it this way. If I had enough discipline to survive a lax and oftentimes destructive environment like community college, why couldn't I survive in the much stricter and nurturing environment of the university? </p>

<p>And while I'm not opposed completely to the notion of tests to make sure CC students are up to snuff, I don't know if I agree that all CC classes are below standard. Many of the classes I took at my CC have still been amongst the most challenging in my college career.</p>

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<p>sakky, you make a lot of sense, but again, why would berkeley do this? what do they have to gain by admitting weaker students? </p>

<p>the way you're describing it, it's as if they're running a conspiracy to admit weaker students, and that no1 is allowed to find out about this...</p>

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<p>"Let's be honest, there are about a million people out there with a vested interest in exposing issues with admissions to college."</p>

<p>Indeed. UC Regent John Moores conducted an investigation that found that a significant number of Berkeley freshmen admits (~400 if memory serves) had an SAT score of under 1000. Clearly, if there was something to hide, it would be exposed by now... assuming people would want to hide it in the first place, which still has not been addressed.</p>

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<p>actually davidn08, they have quite a bit to gain, they are able to meet the requirements of it being a public school, and thus have to accept a wider variety of people, and second, when the weaker students drop out, then they meet the tranfer requirements required of them as well =P</p>

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<p><a href="http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/23_admissions.shtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/23_admissions.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>I have had a similar discussion with Sakky in the past and although I did not read everything that has been said on this thread, I remember in our previous conversation that he never actually said that transfer students were on average inferior. Unless he has changed his mind since then, he merely questions, for whatever reason, the academic strengths of transfers. From what I’ve read, sakky’s opposition is doing quite well in the argument and so I have no intentions of joining in and arguing for days and days. I just want to add, and please excuse me if it has already been said before, that transfers must endure a “weeding” out process of their own. In order to transfer into UCLA and Berkeley, especially in the competitive majors, a CC student must get as close to a 4.0 as possible. You should also not get less than an A in your major prep courses at CC. Freshmen admits don’t have to get nearly as high gpa’s just to get into their junior year. This is a weeding out process in and of itself. In summary, transfers must get do pretty darn good grades in their classes and more importantly in their major prep classes. As a former transfer student myself who has been quite successful academically, I can attest to the difficulty of getting into schools like UCLA and Berkeley. It was hard as hell getting accepted to those schools. See, there are articulation agreements between the UCs and CCs. CCs take these agreements VERY seriously. They do not want to lose the transferability of their coursework. As any transfer student will tell you, the transferable coursework at a community college contains the most difficult courses at a community college. After all, cosmetology and remedial reading are not transferable classes. Also, the students in these classes tend to be the smarter students as well. It is only the absolute brightest of these students that can get into UCLA or Berkeley. Many of these students go to Cal States or other less difficult schools. (Please don’t think I am dissing Cal States). So it is only a small percentage of students that even have the ability to even get into UCLA or Cal.</p>

<p>All I am saying is that the transfer process is a strenuous weeding out process in itself. I have had conversations with transfer students who think they are smarter than freshmen admits because of this process. I have also heard over and over again that transfer students tend to be better than their freshmen admit counterparts. Is this true? I have no idea. In actuality I don’t even care. I wish they WOULD publish the data that sakky asks for. I think sakky’s question of transfer inferiority would be answered in a way that is favorable to us transfers.</p>

<p>BTW, my major had to take the same weeders as the fresmend admits once we got to UCLA.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
What does Cal have to hide? If what you accuse is true, then Cal, by not admitting that transfers aren't up to snuff, is only hurting itself when it sends inferior transfer graduates into the workforce? Possibly, you're referring to the fact that Cal as a state school is obligated to take community college transfers. However, Cal is merely one institution within the University of California system and can easily argue that if it finds that the rigor of its academic experience is too great for all but the best cc transfers, then they should go elsewhere to lesser UC's or the California State system.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Nice try, themegastud, but come on, man. I can see from your posts that you're a sharp guy so you know the rules of the game. Berkeley may SAY that its goal is to offer the best education possible - and in certain cases (especially its graduate schools) it actually does just that. However, as has been stated several times in this thread and in other places, Berkeley is also intimately involved with the politics of California. At the end of the day, Berkeley is subservient to the politics of the day. And the current political reality of California is that Berkeley must take some students who are weaker. If they did not, then we all know what would happen. Berkeley would be accused of being elitist and of not fulfilling its mandate to the state of California, and there would be political demonstrations in Sproul claming that Bekreley is not offering access, and all that. I find it interesting that when Berkeley rejects boatloads of students for its PhD program in EECS or chemical engineering or whatever discipline, nobody ever protests on Sproul or gets on TV cameras and complains about Berkeley's restriction of access to its doctoral programs, or some politician in Sacramento introduces a bill that would require Berkeley to admit more students into its PhD programs. It's only with the undergraduate program that the problem exists. </p>

<p>Basically, I think we can all agree that the undergraduate program at Berkeley is intimately wrapped with state politics in a way that no other program at Berkeley is. Admission to the Berkeley undergraduate program is a politically charged issue, whereas admission to, say, the Berkeley EECS PhD program is not. </p>

<p>With that background in place, I think we can all see why Berkeley does what it does. I see several people have asked what Berkeley may have to gain by playing games with the transfer students. And my answer is simple - by doing that, Berkeley gains political cover. Basically, Berkeley avoids political problems by admitting transfer students, some of whom might not be good. If Berkeley did not admit such transfer students, then Berkeley may be forced to undergo a political battle that it probably wishes to avoid. I suspect that the administration would rather avoid that battle and admit weaker students, even if it hurts the academic reputation of Berkeley. </p>

<p>And that is precisely why Berkeley would want to hide the problem too. If Berkeley is making a political compromise, then it would want to hide that fact, just like any organization that is making a political compromise for any reason would want to hide that fact. Look guys, everybody here on CC and everybody in the world has done things in their lives not because they really want to, but simply for political reasons. </p>

<p>And finally, to UCLAri and to shyboy13, I never said that I absolutely KNOW that transfer students are worse. I don't know. I am saying that I have my suspicions. Not only do I have my suspicions, but so do a lot of people at Berkeley, including yllwjep. Hence, I am proposing ways to, if nothing else, allay the suspicions. For example, you guys say that transfer students are not lazy, that they been through their own weed-out process, and whatnot. Fine, if that is true, then they should have absolutely no difficulty in getting passing scores of the final exams of the Berkeley weeder courses that they skip. What is so terrible about that? If you truly are not lazy and you really do know the stuff well, then that will be a piece of cake. I am also not opposed to even giving the students actual academic credit for taking such exams - say, 1 engineering unit for each of those final exams that you take and pass. Or maybe I'll give you the option of taking the exam on a graded basis, so if you do well enough to get an 'A', then that means that you have a bonafide Berkeley A on your transcript. How about that? </p>

<p>The point is that this is a solvable and workable process. We can dither about the details but my point is that I don't think it's unreasonable in the least to have transfer students show that they are good enough to pass the weeders. If they really are as good as you say they are, then they'll pass with flying colors, and that will truly legitimize the transfer students in the eyes of the entire Berkeley community. But if they're not - if a significant proportion flunk the weeders - then I think we can all agree that we have a serious problem on our hands.</p>

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<p>I can see what you mean, but I think it's a waste of time in non-impacted majors. Just my two cents.</p>

<p>Remember that the testing also has to be worth the resources, as well.</p>

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<p>Yeah, but honestly, how many resources does it really take? Again, we're talking about using exams that already exist. I'm not asking for anybody to write any new exams. I am talking about using the same final exam that is being used in the existing weeder course. And since that weeder course has to grade the exams of the regular students in that course anyway, they will just have to grade some more exams. Which means that I have to pay the graders/TA's for a few more hours of work - but come on, the hourly wage of graders/TA's is cheap. What's the cost of a couple more hours? </p>

<p>In reality, I think this idea might actually SAVE money, especially when combined with my idea of giving out a bit of academic credit for transfer students to take these "makeup" weeder exams. After all, with that academic credit, these transfer students are a little bit closer to graduate, which means they may end up taking fewer total Berkeley classes then they would otherwise. And if they take fewer courses, then that means that Berkeley has to spend less money for seats to run those courses. Hence, when you do the overall top-down accounting of the whole affair, you may well find that Berkeley actually saves money by doing things this way.</p>

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<p>I suggest this:</p>

<p>Students that transfer in with a minimum GPA in their major and/or overall GPA are exempt. Let's face it, someone with a 4.0 from a CC is pretty well prepared. Someone at an iffy GPA range (3.2-3.4ish) makes more sense.</p>

<p>And what if someone transfers from another 4-year like say Cornell? Should they have to follow the same rule? There's a lot to think about here.</p>

<p>Oh, and with all the unit caps at UCs, superfluous units may actually harm these transfers.</p>

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<p>I see no problem with doing the apples to apples comparison that sakky suggests. I feel strongly that the data would show that transfers are just as strong. If the data showed anything to the contrary, then I would admit that perhaps something must be done to correct the problem. As it stands now, I dont think there is a problem so I must disagree with sakky's proposal. Even sakky would admit that there would be no reason for all the extra testing and stuff if the data suggested no transfer inferiority.</p>

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<p>Like I said, we can dither about the details, but at least we're now all sitting down at the negotiation table. That's a far cry from other people who don't want to negotiate at all. </p>

<p>However, I would point out that somebody with a 4.0 in a CC is not assured to be prepared. I know one guy who was a Berkeley engineering freshman admit and basically flunked out. Berkeley advised this person to go to a CC and learn the basics. So this person did, and got straight A's in math, physics, etc. - basically, all the lower-division engineering coursework. Heck, this person was laughing at how easy it was at his CC. So Berkeley let this person back in, whereupon, he promptly flunked out again. When you ask this person what happened, all this person can talk about is just how different a CC is compared to Berkeley - the grading and workload is like night and day. To paraphrase that person - he said he would barely even show up to his CC classes, and all he would have to do is just study for a few hours before each exam and get an A+ . At Berkeley, he would study for hours every single day, and still end up doing poorly. </p>

<p>The point is, I have seen that merely having top grades at a CC does not necessarily mean you are well prepared. You might be, you might not be.</p>