<p>I've taken tours and have communicated on the phone and via email with administration and staff at UCLA, UCI, CSUN, and CSUF. Every time I communicated with someone at a UCLA or UCI they were knowledgeable and really tried their best to help. Now...almost every time I've talked with someone at a CSU they were short and rude, especially the student workers. Given these experiences I'm terrified to end up at a CSU.</p>
<p>Anyone else experience something similar?</p>
<p>CSUs have far fewer staff and resources, particularly in their admissions departments, than the UCs have. This allows the UCs to take a holistic position on admissions which includes personal interaction with each applicant and treating each applicant as an individual to be evaluated on a range of dimensions. CSUs on the other hand can not give applicants individual attention. At CSUs, no human will read your application, a computer will evaluate your statistics and automatically generate an acceptance or rejection letter. The admissions process at CSUs is highly automated and is based solely on the statistics for each applicant. CSU admissions staff may be unhelpful simply because they do not see it as part of their job to interact with individual applicants. They probably view their jobs as keeping the automated admissions process running smoothly and might see dealing with inquiries from individual applicants as a distraction that hinders them in their jobs.</p>
<p>^yeaahhh das true.
but um, sjsu is comprised of a bunch of know-nothing idiots. who are also rude. im so glad i only applied to UCs/USC this time around.</p>
<p>also smcguy…whats your story? didnt you apply to the UCs last year? haha just wondering, because i started lurking this forum last feb/march and i thought you had applied/gotten accepted somewhere because your username seems familiar…</p>
<p>SJSU is notorious for having one of the worst bureaucracies to deal with in the CSU system. It’s a decent university education wise but not worth the frustration imo.</p>
<p>@redoplease I got into UCSD, UCI, and CSUN. Rejected from UCLA and UCB. I decided to change my major from Poli Sci to Anthro and give it another try. I’m hoping for UCLA Anthro, but if I don’t get in I’ll probably commute to UCI for PSB. I was really considering CSUN for Communication, but my encounters with the staff there have been very discouraging.</p>
<p>SMCguy, I feel your pain but don’t let that discourage you. Gov staff can be curt but its not a personal thing and just the nature of the beast. Realize, that CSUN is a HUGE institution and actual gov trained staff people are overworked and underpaid and do like 3-5 peoples jobs so are typically too busy. The majority of the gatekeepers these days aren’t even gov trained staff and just lesser paid cogs in the machine. They are the ones with poli sci and anthro bachelor degrees who need to pay back their student loans…j/k…but not really. </p>
<p>If you truly love Anthro then shoot for that at UCLA. Have you taken many Anthro classes yet within SMC’s Earth Science Dept? What Comm classes have you taken at SMC? CSUN’s Comm program is quite good actually and personally think it is more practical for you as a person and the work world over Poli Sci and Anthro.</p>
<p>Clearly, we are justified in generalizing the behavior of a few to the behavior of the many from experience.</p>
<p>Yes the mind does that but logically leads to about a dozen informal and neurotic fallacies. Such errors occur all the time in the individualization and learning process due to the economy of thought and unconscious impulses but aren’t healthy for the individual still.</p>
<p>goingmeta - well after i called them +10 times and talked to a different idiot every. single. time. and had to finally DRIVE there only to speak to a pair of idiots that still STILL didnt know what was going on, i feel like HELL YEAH their whole administration is full of goddamn idiots. </p>
<p>smcguy - damn, it takes guts to stay for another year and try again! i hope you get into ucla :]</p>
<p>All contact with Cal Poly SLO before, during and after the admissions process was beyond impressive. Every single phone contact was either directly able to answer the question or routed me to someone who could. In most cases there was only a minimal - if any - phone tree to navigate. Email questions were usually answered the same day - within hours. In one instance I was routed to the office of the secretary to the dean of the business school - who answered the phone and my question!</p>
<p>On the other hand, there were several privates where attempted contact was frustrating. As for SJSU… to this day I am not sure there is a live person anywhere near a phone of email system. At one point, any and all phone calls rang for about 10 times and then simply returned to dial tone. Point being - it is institution dependent.</p>
<p>One of the main reasons I decided against applying to the CSU’s is because I heard that they have been hit a lot harder as far as the financial situation goes. I was mainly concerned with not being able to get classes, but I guess the administration situation would suck also.</p>
<p>Ye Cal Poly is an exception. They like to personally get to know their students to see if they are a right fit. That is why they have limited info on their sites. That is also why they don’t do TAG agreements or just look at your GPA. What also makes SLO different from the other CSU’s is they won’t put up with sneaky students who want to enter into the college only to transfer majors. In fact they are hip to that nonsense and won’t even waste their time with such students. One tactic used is to make those majors people try to do that in as minors since you can’t qualify for a bachelors degree with a minor. </p>
<p>Trying to call anyone part of Santa Clara County is a utter waste of time. People haven’t picked up the phone, even if they are right there, for 20 years and doubt any are going to start now. Their phone systems are setup to keep shuffling you around the system to nowhere beneficial until you give up haha. </p>
<p>I like to assist others where I can even though don’t know why i bother with some of the attitude I get, which is to be expected, especially with frosh. You people aren’t going to get the proper info you need from the workers you are talking about. The majority are the 4 year students who are trained to do some paperwork and pushing a button. You just need to know how to guide them in a passive way to obey and serve you without ruffling their feathers. Then do it again and direct them to doublecheck so you won’t run into glitches down the line. The government is enormous and since people aren’t perfect there will never be a perfect system. Best way is to passively submit to the state apparatus and be as patient and as nice as you can. If they mess up and are derelict in their duty and try to shift the burden onto you then use focused irrational behavior backed by procedure shifting the burden back.</p>