Did your friend have a high test score?
Every time you increase capacity you diminish quality…
This could also be determined by the financial ability of a parent to pay for a good ACT or SAT prep course or a students determination, not a bad thing, to get a higher score. Don’t statistics show that if you take the ACT or SAT 3 or 4 times you can increase your score by 15%. A 15% increase would have put my daughter a 36. She only took it once. In hindsight, I believe she should have taken only 6 AP instead of 10 because it is my understanding that the UC schools do not give you credit for over a certain amount of AP classes at a scale of 5. Probably should have taken an easier senior year and focused on taking the ACT more. But again, I think a lot of kids are fooled by the student profiles the UC schools show. They think that if they are at the high end they will get in. I realize they use a “Holistic Approach” but most of the admissions advisors seem to be under 30 so I wonder if they have enough life experiences to be able to pick good candidates. As far as how she did relative to other kids in here school. That may have worked against her but in a way you might not expect. She goes to a high preforming school with a graduating class of about 650 to 700. She was ranked 30th. One of my friends kids was number 5 out of 100. So percentage wise she was at the about the same place. However, my friends child was accepted to UCLA. While my daughter was not accepted most of what many would consider the tier below that. Also, my daughter goes to a very diverse school, which is about 50% minority. So I have wondered if that had a factor. Maybe they figured that a child that was a minority that had a GPA and test scores close to my daughter deserved it more than my daughter from her school. I have always been proud of the fact that our community is so deverse and I have always been the first to ask if there were any any kids that couldn’t afford a field trip and throw down an extra $20. This whole process has me rethinking my whole thought process about things. I know this will sound bad and I appologize in advance. Within walking distance to our home is another highschool that has very few minorities. Also, more affluent than our city. I could have very easily petitioned for my daughter to go there. She could have actually walked to school. Both are considered top preforming schools. They had more kids accepted to the UC schools in 2017. In fact, twice as many at UCLA. I can’t help but wonder if she would had a better shot there considering who she would have been compared to. My daughter did get accepted to a school that I think she will be happy at and excel at. This is more about putting the word out about what is going on and hopefully creating change. I appologize if I have offended anyone. If I could make one recommendation to California children it would be to also apply to a number of out of state schools.
Same as my daughter. Was in some special program that I think had smaller classes. Tracked into a remedial math class that he flunked. He is actually a year older than my daughter so a freshman.
It’s a policy so you could do it. The right question is, “would it work?” The astonishingly easy answer to this is no. Why? OOS students (in particular those w/$$$$) don’t want to be in the central valley any more than some kid from Orange or Marin county does. If you don’t like my assertion, I’d suggest looking at the OOS application rates for the various campuses.
A quick question from someone OOS. . .I can totally understand someone not wanting to go to Riverside or Merced as the locations are just atrocious. Why is Santa Cruz included in the same pool? I’ve never seen the campus but that area’s gorgeous, close to SV and the academics look solid.
Probably because most of those looking for out-of-state public schools are looking for prestige, low cost or both. So they are probably not too interested in the #7 prestige public school in California at a relatively high price with no FA and very little merit scholarships. The flagship of some other state may seem more prestigious, even if it is not as selective as UCSC.
Many OOS students are looking for specifically strong programs such as Sciences, Engineering, Computer Science, Business, etc. I don’t think UCSC is strong at those; I think they are stronger in liberal arts. There are many excellent liberal arts schools in the northeast, superior to UCSC. Also, I have driven thru it and didn’t personally like the set up…seemed like a bunch of bus stops in the woods and you’d ride bus from dorm to class to class. Area is beautiful, but campus setup seemed a bit strange, unless I didn’t see the good part.
@Parent90278 Only 0.136% of ACT test takers gets a top score of 36. I don’t think anyone can assume if they just took it a couple more times, they could get a 36, since that “perfect” score is rare.
So maybe she could have increased it to 34 or 35. Still better than 32 and might have made a difference.
We were a little turned off by Santa Cruz. Issues were no affiliated medical school or hospital. Although I have now heard they do have an affiliation with a hospital. Went to a Science Department presentation and felt that research opportunities were limited and you might be competing with Berkely. I thought downtown Santa Cruz looked like fun. I thought the same thing about the campus.
Santa Cruz is in the middle of a forest. The land was donated with a stipulation that only a certain portion could be developed. I think part of the issue is there inability to expand. Plus for science majors there is no affiliated medical school or hospital. It’s probably a good school for certain majors. Lastly I got the feeling you are competing with Berkely students for things like internships.
Actually, UCSC has a very good Engineering School. It has become super competitive to even get accepted into their Engineering Scjool.The simple fact that it is the closest UC to Silicon Valley and does not compete with UCB for internships. There are many excellent schools near UCSC( Stanford, Santa Clara University and San Jose State University) and all of these schools are near Silicon Valley.
The one point that has not been brought up is the fact that 1999 and 2000 were huge birth years. Lots of students both instate as well as out of state with really excellent g.p.a.'s were either waitlisted or denied a spot at UC for fall 2018. UC has become very competitive. Your daughter’s ACT score of 32 is ok, but would not get her into some of the more competitive schools. Theses schools look for students who do projects that that benefit others in their communities. They are looking for leaders and people who want to change/ challenge others.
To that point, my kid’s HS which usually has a graduating class of around 500, this year has a class of 650. Yes it is a high Asian population and yes everyone wanted a Golden Dragon Y2K kid (like us).
I mentioned the stats in the other thread, but our kid’s HS had 130+ who accepted into one of the top 6 UCs and another 30-40 or so who accepted into a school that I would consider to be as good if not better than one of the top 6. So that’s 25% of kids who probably got into at least one top UC or equivalent, so I think the system is working just fine. And since we have a lot of students with the Berkeley-or-bust mentality, it wouldn’t surprise me if at least another 20-30 wind up at a top UC in 2 years after being in CCC.
The $40K+ a year OOS tuition bill does a solid job of discouraging domestic OOS students from enrolling in the UC’s. It’s international students (67% who are from China) that are willing to pay that cost, who fill most of the non-resident undergraduate slots.
Overall UC undergraduate: 82.8% in-state, 5.7% Domestic OOS, 11.5% nonresident international.
The only exceptions are Berkeley, UCLA, where the breakdown is closer to 50/50 between domestic OOS and international students. Otherwise you’ll see ratios of 3 to 1 or higher of international students to domestic OOS students.
https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/fall-enrollment-glance
Fun fact, the University of Michigan, has more domestic OOS undergraduate students (13,441) than the all of the UC schools combined (12,318, of which 7,500+ are at Berkeley or UCLA).
While I agree with what you wrote, I was more interested in the in-state students who routinely don’t consider it adequate.
Note that the dragon zodiac year birth dates will result in the dragon zodiac year kids (born 2000/02/05 to 2001/01/23) being split across two school years (cutoff date is 09/01 in California and several other states).
In places where many parents deliberately tried to have kids in the dragon zodiac year, their kids will face greater competition in situations where they will compete largely within their age cohort (e.g. admission to selective high schools and colleges).
Considering that there are such a limited number of out of state spots at the university, you would have to be considerably MORE qualified than your average in-state applicant to gain admission to the school. That is why many people on CC always caution against applying from OOS because it is so competitive. Personally I think that out of state students are a good thing as they add to campus diversity and the college experience.
Not necessarily. The numbers vary by campus, and even at the more selective (OOS) schools, the GPA/Test scores are similar.
https://admissions.berkeley.edu/student-profile
OOS acceptance rates are much higher at most UC schools. However, the yield for OOS and international students is also much lower and yield is a key driver of acceptance rates. The lower the yield, the higher the acceptance rate.
Funny. I wish the top SUNY schools had more out-of-state students. The interest in and attendance of a college by students from throughout the country adds to its national prestige. SUNY Binghamton has many of the best and brightest of New York State’s students— but it ranks low on US News and Forbes and does not enjoy the national reputation for excellence of a Berkeley, UCLA, Ann Arbor, UVA, or William and Mary.
And, when son was applying to Bing, we considered it a negative that there was not more geographic diversity. Part of the college learning experience is meeting people from all over the country and world.