<p>Can anyone comment on how the UC’s financial situation is affecting the quality of education? Are class sizes bigger? Are professors leaving? Are OOS’s making up the money and everything is status quo?</p>
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<p>Of course, it is not impossible. Take a look at the (massive) transfer admissions at Cal. The pipeline JUCO/CC to Cal is a well-greased one. In addition, it is far from impossible to gain straight admittance at a UC school. Here are the numbers:</p>
<p>Admissions to the UC universitywide system (unduplicated counts)
California 65.8%
Out-of-State 53.9%
International 61.3%
Total 63.5%</p>
<p>Yes, that means 2 out of 3 applicants are admitted! And that does not include the CSU or JC system. That is the University of California system.</p>
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<p>Status quo is no longer in the realm of possibilities. The impact of the government Porculus Plan merely delayed the inevitable descent, especially at the undergraduate level. In the future, someone will write a bestseller on how one of the very best education system was torpedoed by its own “leadership” by piling up poor decisions upon poor decisions. The “chosen” social engineering only resulted in lesser support by students, alumni, and politicians. Take a look at the level of donation! The bottom line is that people who DO have choices and the possibility to look in a different direction are (and should) and will do it with a vengeance in the future. An increase in OOS and internationals will simply exacerbate the problems. </p>
<p>My suggestion for the title? The unsinkable TitanUC.</p>
<p>There were professors who left last year following the announcement of a tuition hike, cutting teaching assistants and I believe benefits. I hear from students and a friend who teaches at a UC that the classes are larger. </p>
<p>Changing your major can mean an additional year. One young man I know is on his 6th year at UCSD as a couple classes are only offered every other year.</p>
<p>Xiggi: What is JUCO?</p>
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<p>Late change of major can add semesters or quarters anywhere, depending on prerequisite sequences for the new major. The once per year (or less often) course offerings are even more common at small schools, including the LACs that people here like so much. UCs have their problems, but these are not ones unique to them.</p>
<p>Junior Colleges</p>
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<p>…because he chooses to be on his 6th year. </p>
<p>Note, that one rarely finds 6-year students at private colleges. One, the financial aid dries up after four years, so anyone with need HAS to get out (and better pick a major wisely). Two, privates are cost-prohibitive to hang around that long, even for wealthy parents. And three, private advising is usually a lot better, so correct choices are made sooner. Finally, (4) because the publics enable it.</p>
<p>Just think about how many more Frosh that UC could admit if they got rid of the long-timers.</p>
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<p>My impression is that the biggest impact has been increasing enrollment without a concomitant increase in faculty hiring. Superstar faculty are sometimes courted by wealthier institutions, but it’s still hard to beat the great pay and benefits that go with a tenured faculty position in the UC. Class size at this level is (or should be) irrelevant if you have already decided that an education at a large research institution is a priority. Accessibility of faculty for research projects/office visits has not been impacted since so few undergraduates avail themselves of these opportunities.</p>
<p>UC, unlike some private schools, is very generous with AP credit. I would be surprised if a significant number of high achieving kids have trouble finishing in 4 years. All of the 5 year, 6 year & up cases that I am familiar with involved a stupid mistake on the student’s part in selecting the correct courses for his/her major. True, they don’t get the hand holding that some private schools offer, but all the information for graduation requirements is readily available. Switching majors is also quite common, and often adds to the time required to graduate.</p>
<p>Some of the campuses with high acceptance rates have abysmal graduation rates, which begs the question of whether UC is admitting too many kids who are not ready for college. According the data, 27% of kids admitted to UC in 2011 did not meet the minimum requirements for literacy (Subject A requirement). So sure, perhaps our kids didn’t get in to their top choice among campuses, but the evidence is not there to say they have been ‘shut out’ if they meet the rather modest eligibility requirements. As pointed out by Bluebayou, it appears that UC ‘overbuilt’ when they added the Merced campus. The only way to keep seats filled with qualified students is to open the floodgates to OOS at the top and wait for the trickle down.</p>
<p>[Entry</a> Level Writing Requirement](<a href=“http://www.ucop.edu/cgi-bin/elwr/county_detail.pl?countyid=019&year=2011&sort=sch]Entry”>http://www.ucop.edu/cgi-bin/elwr/county_detail.pl?countyid=019&year=2011&sort=sch)</p>
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<p>What they could do is say that excess semesters/quarters/units-attempted require paying the out-of-state surcharge even for in-state students, in addition to existing “get out” policies.</p>
<p>Re: 27% of UC freshmen not meeting the Entry Level Writing Requirement</p>
<p>Unfortunately, not meeting basic standards in English composition and math is a serious problem at all but the most selective schools (and even Harvard offers a slow-pace freshman calculus course (Math Ma-Mb) that covers a semester of calculus over a year). Of course, this has a lot to do with the quality of K-12 education in the US.</p>
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I wonder what percentage of this number are non-native English speakers or even minimal English speakers. When wandering around a UC campus one hears a lot of chatter by student groups in their native non-English languages.</p>
<p>My D is at a UC and will be able to graduate after next fall quarter (3 1/3 years). When she started her freshman year, she was already almost a sophomore due to the AP units she was granted. She met the Entry Level Writing requirement through her SAT scores and/or AP English score, not sure which one they took. It surprises me, too, that 27% don’t meet the requirement; I’m guessing that would vary by campus. The minimum SAT to get into Berkeley or UCLA would pretty much take care of that requirement for most freshman (30 on the ACT, 680 on the SAT Writing section, 3 on the AP English).</p>
<p>I can’t help but wonder about the quality of the product, i,e, the grads, of colleges that award generous AP credit and graduate in less than 4 years. High school teaching quality can be hit or miss, and in some schools the AP tests are actually graded by other high school students. In effect, Cal"s diploma can be awarded on the basis of high school work graded by high schoolers. I know a minimum AP score is required for credit but I am skeptical about whether the knowledge acquired by that method is equivalent to a UCB course.</p>
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<p>Such students would likely have skipped introductory level courses with the AP credit… if they graduate in fewer than 8 semesters or 12 quarters, they must have been reasonably successful in the more advanced courses in their majors.</p>
<p>Indeed, when I was in school, the students i knew who did graduate, or could have graduated, in fewer than 8 semesters were all very good students (engineering student who got a lot of A+ grades, math majors who took graduate level math courses at undergraduates). Four year graduation rate was much lower then, as was grade inflation.</p>
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<p>xiggi,</p>
<p>I’ve been pondering this information and don’t understand how it squares with published admissions rates. These are admissions rates I took from collegeboard:</p>
<p>UCB 22%
UCLA 26%
UCSD 38%
UCSB 46%
UCD 46%
UCI 47%</p>
<p>UCSC 68%
UCR 69%
UCM 80% (small student body, approx 5K)</p>
<p>Math is not my strong point; how can this equal an admission rate of 2 out of 3 applicants?</p>
<p>cross admits, bay. Many of the same applicants apply to multiple UCs. Some/many of Cal & UCLA’s rejectees are admitted to a lower tier campus.</p>
<p>“Unduplicated Counts” are shown on the bottom of the second page of the link that bovertine posted in the initial post.</p>
<p>Bay, the key words are … unduplicated counts.</p>
<p>There might be about 430,000 applications to the UC, but there are only 126,455 applicants. From the 126,455 applicants, more than 80,000 were admitted. Take out Merced, and the number of admission is still well above 70,000.</p>
<p>One could come up with multiple and divergent interpretations, but the numbers seem to indicate that the average applicant submits three to four applications (probably along the line of reach and likely) but that the schools are doing a good job at slotting the admissions. </p>
<p>The bottom line is that the changes of admissions at UCLA and Cal are about 25 percent (not counting the transfers at Cal) but that the chances of admission to one of the UC schools are much higher. </p>
<p>Fwiw, it would be nice to see a similar analysis provided by the famous Ivy League plus Stanford and MIT. It would be instructive to compare the impact of unduplicated applications at the UC versus the other ten schools. We now know that the changes for ONE applicant to be admitted at the UC system has ranged from 68 to 63 percent. We, however, do not know what such a comparable number would be at the most selective schools that form the Ivy League and the other two prestigious schools.</p>
<p>PS The real key is more cross applications than cross admits. There about total 165,000 admissions. Were there more cross admits, each school would have a higher admit rate.</p>
<p>Ok, thank you for clearing that up.</p>
<p>and fwiw, the chances of eligibles being admitted to a UC is even higher. </p>
<p>Merced accepts every eligible applicant who is breathing. The fact that Merced’s acceptance rate is not 99% infers that some students applied who were not eligible at the time of admission and did not become eligible during senior year. Such a student may have dropped a VAPA course, for example, or failed to pass a required course such as Alg II. Or perhaps their UC-gpa was lower than they thought. Thus, they became auto-rejects by the computer since they no longer met the minimum requirements for eligibility to UC.</p>