<p>^^^^That's actually the most valid reason I've seen on this thread!</p>
<p>"The #1 one reason NOT to go to Berkeley is: THE ONE UC YOU GOT INTO WAS UCR."</p>
<p>Dude, I know this guy who got a 1-year early admission to UC Berkeley while he was in HS, which he accepted, but he decided to withdraw from Cal and enroll at UC RIVERSIDE for college. What kind of utter buffoon would do something like that??</p>
<p>UCRiverbed</p>
<p>What's a one year early admission? And nobody's saying there's anything wrong with going to UCR instead of Berkeley.</p>
<p>sakky, what you seem to ignore is that transfer admission is based on performances in WEEDERS at CC. There is no need to have them sit for a final for a class that they already passed. It's like making freshman admits who go to CC the summer before college take the final for classes they passed at CC and are UC transferable. Doesn't make any sense, does it?</p>
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Though, you're saying that they should be required to take the final exam when they haven't taken the class? Now, I think THAT'S a little unfair :/
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<p>I don't think it's unfair. Weeder classes are generally on foundation-level knowledge. For example, basic circuit analysis is a weeder class in EECS. If you successfully transfer into EECS, you probably ought to be pretty good at basic circuit analysis, at least, good enough to pass the final exam. It's not like circuit equations are different at Berkeley. At any school you go to, circuits are circuits are circuits. So if you didn't learn circuits in your CC, then why are you being allowed to enter the EECS upper division?</p>
<p>Some of you might say - yeah, but sometimes weeders make you learn things that really aren't necessary in the upper division . Yeah, but that's exactly my point . The freshman-admits are being forced to learn those things by surviving the weeders. So if the freshman admits have to learn it, then so should the transfers. What's fair is fair. </p>
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sakky, what you seem to ignore is that transfer admission is based on performances in WEEDERS at CC. There is no need to have them sit for a final for a class that they already passed. It's like making freshman admits who go to CC the summer before college take the final for classes they passed at CC and are UC transferable. Doesn't make any sense, does it?
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<p>It makes perfect sense. First off, do you really think those transfer "weeders" are really as difficult as the Berkeley weeders? I think most neutral observers would agree that Berkeley is more difficult than a community college. </p>
<p>Secondly, think about what you're saying. Let's say that you're right. Let's say that these community college students really did prove themselves in the weeders at the CC. Then they will have little problem in passing a final exam of those weeders, right? After all, it's not like these are weird obscure classes here. Math is math, no matter what school you go to. Physics is physics, chemistry is chemistry, basic circuits is basic circuits. If you truly learned your physics, then it should take you only a little brush-up to get a passing grade on a physics weeder final exam. Again, I'm not asking you to get an 'A'. I'm just asking you to pass. </p>
<p>Thirdly, think of the 'rights' of freshman- admits. A freshman admit can't simply decide to skip over weeders by taking a bunch of community college classes over the summer. For example, a Berkeley EECS freshman-admit can't just go and take a circuit analysis class at some random community college over the summer and then expect to come back to Berkeley and be given the right to skip EECS40, even if he gets an A in that community college class. So if the freshman-admits can't use community college classes to skip over weeders, why should the transfers be allowed to do so? </p>
<p>Fourthly, and probably the most important reason of all, is that transfer students used their strong community college performance to GET ADMITTED. Just like the freshman-admits used their strong high school performance to get admitted. So both people had to do something difficult in their lives just go get admitted to Berkeley. That's fair. What is unfair is that the transfer students not only get to parlay their hard work in the community colleges to get admitted to Berkeley, but they ALSO get to use it to get out of Berkeley weeder classes. That is unfair. Berkeley freshman admits have to put up with weeders. So why should the transfers not have to deal with them?</p>
<p>The bottom line is this. I believe it is unfair that transfer admits get to skip over weeders that the freshman admits have to survive. It should be no easier to get a degree as a transfer student than it is as a freshman-admit. But the way that things are set up, it is easier. That's where the problem lies. </p>
<p>So if you don't like my idea of having the transfer students take weeder final exams, then fine. That's just one possible suggestion. There are other ways to solve the problem. For example, maybe the freshman-admits should be free to get out of weeders themselves by taking community college classes over the summer. Another idea I have been toying with is that ALL students in an impacted major (especially engineering) have to take a proctored comprehensive exam before they are allowed into the upper division, and those with the highest scores in that exam will be allowed in, and the rest will be effectively 'weeded' out and forced to pursue other majors. That is - ALL students in that major, freshman admits and transfers. That way, you won't even need weeder classes. Instead, you will have a single unified "weeder exam". For example, in EECS, this unified exam would have sections on circuits, basic electromagnetism, basic computer science (i.e. recursion and data structures), linear algebra - and basically, every foundation subject for which weeders currently exist. Then that's a completely fair situation. Whoever happens to know the material the best - whether they are freshman admits or transfers - will be allowed to proceed through the major. </p>
<p>However, as it stands, the situation is unfair to freshman admits. Basically, transfer students are getting a pass on weeders that the freshman admits don't get to have. That should be fixed. Like I said, if freshman admits have to go through a tough admissions phase and a hellish weeder phase, then so should the transfers. Right now, the transfers just have to survive a tough admissions phase but then get to avoid many of the hellish weeders. That's a problem.</p>
<p>"What's a one year early admission? And nobody's saying there's anything wrong with going to UCR instead of Berkeley."</p>
<p>He was in the UC Berkeley High School Honors Program. They select a handful of high school seniors to take courses concurrently at Cal during their senior year and they are considered enrolled the University. Once they finish their senior year, they can automatically continue at Berkeley (already admitted). But the moron decided to continue at UCR.</p>
<p>UCRiverbed</p>
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Thirdly, think of the 'rights' of freshman- admits. A freshman admit can't simply decide to skip over weeders by taking a bunch of community college classes over the summer. For example, a Berkeley EECS freshman-admit can't just go and take a circuit analysis class at some random community college over the summer and then expect to come back to Berkeley and be given the right to skip EECS40, even if he gets an A in that community college class. So if the freshman-admits can't use community college classes to skip over weeders, why should the transfers be allowed to do so?
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<p>Huh? My friend claims to have done exactly that...but he's in ME. Maybe there's a difference? (I don't know much about the engineering department....)</p>
<p>It seems to me on average transfer students have been of lower quality than those Berkeley students who get in the normal way.</p>
<p>It is hard to quantify this, but I think it is safe to say that in general transfer students have a much lower threshold to overcome than Berkeley students, and it has been in my experience in classes where the professor has decided who attends (the 2 small classes I've been able to take at Berkeley) that transfer students tend to be uniformly weaker than normal students (almost all the rejects for my small classes were transfer students who did badly on professor-assignments).</p>
<p>That being said, peer quality is an important factor that most people consider when going to Berkeley, so much that USNews rankings weight it heavily. As such transfer students definitely weigh down the class but its arguable how much without hard statistics.</p>
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Huh? My friend claims to have done exactly that...but he's in ME. Maybe there's a difference? (I don't know much about the engineering department....)
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<p>Yes, I have heard of some other people do it too. But it's now performed on a case-by-case basis. I have heard of many other people try this and get turned down.</p>
<p>The point is, if it is codified in the bylaws of Berkeley that transfer students can use their credits to skip over weeders, then the freshman-admits should also have codified bylaws that allow them to do the same. None of this 'case-by-case' garbage. If all transfer students have clear rules that stipulate how their transfer credit to get out of weeders, then the freshman admits should also have clear rules that allow them to get out of weeders.</p>
<p>For example. Here is one possibility. Any EECS freshman admit that gets an A in a basic circuits class in any community college automatically gets to skip over EECS 40, no if's, and's, or but's. Make that an actual rule. Do the same for all of the other weeders that transfers get to skip. </p>
<p>The point is that I want 'weeder equity'. If freshman admits are forced to take weeders, then so should the transfers. If there is a way for transfers to get out of weeders, then there should be an equivalent way for freshman admits to also get out of weeders. What's fair is fair. You shouldn't be giving transfers special treatment.</p>
<p>I would be willing to bet that if you had to take the final for a class that you took (and passed) a year earlier, you probably wouldn't pass it again unless you went through the whole process of studying again. Honestly, I think this idea is pointless. Yes, if transfer students crammed for weeks to take the finals for weeder classes, they would most likely pass, but what would that prove? It would just be cruel and unusual punishment. Sakky, wouldn't you agree that a great deal fo the diffuculty in passing weeders is the curve? So if you're taking the final with no curve, its no longer an equal test anyway.</p>
<p>Some classes have absolute scales that more or less create a normally distributed curve. For example my teachers during math 1a/1b used more or less an absolute scale.</p>
<p>sakky, how many transfer students make it into EECS?</p>
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I would be willing to bet that if you had to take the final for a class that you took (and passed) a year earlier, you probably wouldn't pass it again unless you went through the whole process of studying again. Honestly, I think this idea is pointless. Yes, if transfer students crammed for weeks to take the finals for weeder classes, they would most likely pass, but what would that prove? It would just be cruel and unusual punishment. Sakky, wouldn't you agree that a great deal fo the diffuculty in passing weeders is the curve? So if you're taking the final with no curve, its no longer an equal test anyway.
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<p>Hey, I think that ALL WEEDERS are cruel and unusual punishment. But it comes down to a matter of fairness. If the freshman admits have to survive the weeder gauntlet, then so should the transfers. Otherwise, we should implement a policy where the freshmen can also get out of doing weeders. </p>
<p>Simply put, you can't have a policy where some people have to survive weeders, but not others. Freshman admits have to both get admitted and survive the weeders. Transfers just have to get admitted, and get to skip over many weeders. That's not equitable. It should be no easier to graduate as a transfer student than as a freshman admit. </p>
<p>I actually like the idea of having all students in the impacted majors pass a unified test. Then everything is completely fair. Whoever knows the stuff, whether they are freshman admits or transfer students, will be allowed to proceed in the major. Then you could dispense with weeders.</p>
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sakky, how many transfer students make it into EECS?
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<p>I don't know - look it up. I'm sure the figures are out there somewhere. </p>
<p>But I don't see how it's relevant to my basic point. Either both the transfer admits AND the freshman admits should BOTH be weeded. Or neither of them should be weeded. The transfer admits should not be getting special treatment.</p>
<p>There have been recent articles in the San Francisco Chronicle about colleges considering more standardized testing to help equalize the experience.</p>
<p>I doubt such standardized tests will ever gain momentum; minority groups in general do much worst on standardized tests and complain loudly that tests are racists. For example, some berkeley prof released a study about how the LSAT was racist because african americans and hispanics tended to do 10 points worst on average, and certain demographic groups such as south east asians did 5 points worst on average. Similar criticisms have been used against the SAT for favoring certain groups over others. It's also known that de-facto grade inflation occurs at certain colleges which tend to enroll uni-race student bodies.</p>
<p>Well, I'm a little more optimistic than that. Remember that California did eliminate affirmative action over the protests of many highly vocal minority groups. Whether you agree with that change in policy or not, the point is, the system isn't completely paralyzed.</p>
<p>That action alienated the hispanic vote for Republicans and turned the state into a Democratic stronghold. Considering the demographic trends of this state, it is likely California will continue to be a basketcase in terms of sane governance. So far institutional inertia and its pristine geography have kept its economy afloat but rent-seeking policies by minority groups will continue to tear the state apart.</p>
<p>At any rate, more standardized testing is always good. You can create a normal distribution that way and get rid of a lot of the cut-throat nature of berkeley through better methods of testing.</p>
<p>Well, actually, it was Proposition 187 that really alienated Hispanics by denying benefits to illegal immigrants. Proposition 209 (killing affirmative action) probably didn't help, but it was not the biggest factor. Furthermore, and more importantly, no serious initiative is on the table that would act to repeal 209. The point is, change can happen.</p>
<p>Bump! </p>
<p>I don't feel the topic was argued extensively enough.</p>
<p>hahaha.....nice CardinalFocused</p>