<p>wow I'm getting free college tutoring! Thanks you guys! <em>Yeah this is Maia the subject</em>. I've always been retarded in math and science...and yes maybe I took someone else's place who potentially can be better in math. But since this is my only acceptance, I am happy and satisifed. Thanks everyone!</p>
<p>Congratulations Maia!</p>
<p>Calmom, you are correct that some of us might be speculating about the difficulty of UCSD for this student. However, you are speculating as well, especially on UCSD being potentially underwhelming. What is the point of reference here? The Russian Department of Los Angeles City College? What do we know about the level of Russian instruction and the requirements of Russian IV -or Intermediate Russian II- at this Community College?</p>
<p>The issue that draws a quasi consensus for this "crowd" is that the student was seemingly advised poorly, or preferred to overlook better advice. This is rather apparent in her multiple posts on CC or her blog.</p>
<p>The issue is not that she will struggle or not at UCSD. The issue is that her mother decided to embark on a campaign to deride her daughter's admission decisions, based on her sole admittance to UCSD, all the while enjoying the use of the term "prostitute college." No wonder her daughter gleefully adorned her blog with the equally derogatory "pompous professorial jackasses" when commenting on her success -or lack thereof. </p>
<p>There are few lessons to learn from this story that is far from providing a positive example to emulate. The student and her mother should spend more time counting their blessings than questioning the schools that reached mainstream decisions.</p>
<p>calmom:</p>
<p>unlike Berkeley and many other colleges with distribution requirements ("8 classes outside your field or major"), UCSD is more structured, with very specific GE requirements depending on your college/house. For example:</p>
<p>General Education Graduation Requirements from UCSD's Earl Warren College:</p>
<p>"Formal Skills - 2 classes from:
Calculus, symbolic logic, computer programming and statitistics."</p>
<p>So Kluge, I take it that you are saying that Maia was not in fact accepted at UCSD, since she could not possibly get in with her test scores? It's all a big mistake or someting?</p>
<p>The fact is, Maia has been admitted to UCSD and I know of at least one other UCSB reject who is in this year at UCSD. UCSD is very strong and very difficult to get into for sciences and that tends to give rise to a false impression as to level of selectivity- that simply doesn't apply to applicants coming designating majors in the humanities. Santa Barbara has a reputation as a party school, and it has managed to figure out how to combine students who want to major in chemistry with artists in their school for "creative studies" -- so they probably just get a mountain of applications from artsy kids whose strengths are skewed the same way as Maia's. </p>
<p>The reported stats are skewed because they are top heavy with applicants who are also accepted at top private colleges and at more well-regarded UC campuses. </p>
<p>I'm sorry that your son didn't get into his top choices -- but I'm curious as to what his intended major was. I think it is the people who measure all college admissions by the same yard stick that is used to measure pre-med applicants that don't understand the variables. </p>
<p>The Maia variable in this case is Russian. I happen to be extremely knowledgeable about that particular variable because of my daughter's shared interest -- I helped her build a college app strategy around a Russian "hook". There currently is only one viable high school Russian program in the state of California - which means that a student who has studied Russian definitely stands out. Many major colleges have been forced to drop their Russian programs due to declining enrollment; but many colleges historically have strong departments, and tenured faculty and resources devoted to their Russian programs. Russian is also considered a critical language by the US State Department - which probably means that there are federal funds to be had by colleges who are able to keep their programs alive. So basically its a pretty good hook to have if you target applications well. </p>
<p>My d. has also applied to 2 Ivies & U of Chicago -- all of which share the characteristic of having very strong slavic language programs with low or declining enrollment. If she gets into these schools it will be due to the Russian. (It sure as heck won't be her math scores.)</p>
<p>For the record, one needs to check the curriculum and GE requirements at the Eleanor Roosevelt College at UCSD, and especially the requirements of the "Making of the Modern World" program.</p>
<p>bluebayou, each college at UCSD has different requirements. Maia isn't headed to Earl Warren. She posted on her blog (or perhaps in CC) that she wants to go to Eleanor Roosevelt. ER has a Quantitive Reasoning requirement that could be satisfied by Philosophy 10, or lower division courses in Psychology, Sociology, or Linguistics. (In the UC's, any course numbered <em>10</em> could also be understood as having the words "easy version" or "lite" appended -- the 10 series courses are all for non-majors). </p>
<p>And I did some college-hopping within the UC system back in my day, too. One thing we independent studiers & early high school graduaters tend to do is become very well versed in understanding all the rules and requirements, as well as all the exceptions and the procedures for waivers. It isn't that we don't understand the rules - it's that we know them so well that we are able to figure out all the loopholes.</p>
<p>thanks, xiggi:</p>
<p>ERC:
Two Quantitative (math, Stats, Comp Sci) and two natural sciences required for GE.</p>
<p>"Russian is also considered a critical language by the US State Department - which probably means that there are federal funds to be had by colleges who are able to keep their programs alive. So basically its a pretty good hook to have if you target applications well."</p>
<p>LOL! Another language loophole for California students. Can we expect the cyrillic alphabet to replace the Korean and Chinese versions at the many SAT factories in California? Time might have come for Putin to bribe the Princeton Boys like the Korean conglomerate did! :)</p>
<p>Welcome Maia -- as you can see from my other posts, my daughter is also aiming for a Russian major and I am sure you will do well. I think it was better for my daughter to stay in high school 4 years, but use the extra time to go to Russia, though -- in fact, that's one reason I encouraged the Russian trip. If you do go to UCSD, be sure to try to study abroad for as long as possible.</p>
<p>(: You all did your research for me. I did not know about the GE reqs for ERC besides the MMW which sounds awesome. I'm so excited about UCSD, have taken notes on the best professors etc. The ides of March make us all crazy. I was going to apply to Berkely but I knew I would get rejected or "denied admission" by them. Congrats on your daughters' success! What made them interested in Russian? Do you speak Russian?</p>
<p>Xiggi, there is no such thing as an SAT II for Russian language and the AP exam for Russia is essentially being beta-tested this year -- whether it will stick or not is anyone's guess. But there's no loophole and no advantage whatsoever for native speakers since it there is no way to get credit for it. Studying Russian and going to Russia put my daughter at a distinct disadvantage for the SAT IIs -- she could not take a foreign language exam and she had not yet taken courses in most of the subject areas offered. So she opted for SAT II literature and US History before she actually took the history class. </p>
<p>Russian is a difficult language to study -- probably not as difficult as Chinese or Arabic, but far more difficult than Spanish or French, which are the most common high school offerings. Its nothing to make fun of -- any English-speaking kid who has spent a significant amount of time studying Russian has definitely stretched their intellect along the way to mastering the nuances of grammer. The cyrillic alphabet is easy, however -- totally phonetic. </p>
<p>My comment about Russian at UCSD comes from their course catalog - they only offer 3 levels of Russian -- when I was looking for my daughter, I looked for colleges that offered 4 or 5 levels. The problem is that a kid with previous college-level courses will probably place out of the beginner level, so a kid like Maia could find that she has run out of language courses by the time she hits junior year. Of course, that's where the study abroad option comes in. </p>
<p>How many languages have you studied? You seem to have a dismissive attitude, which leads me to suspect that you have little appreciation for the nuances of learning a language with a significantly different grammatical structure than English.</p>
<p>Hi Maia! </p>
<p>Oh, gee, wanted to say more but have to run off--D is bugging me to take her somewhere. Later!</p>
<p>CecileMLD/Maia (I don't know which you prefer here), my d. ended up taking Russian at her high school through a scheduling fluke. It was the same fluke that put her in several sophomore classes during her freshman year, however - which in turn allowed her the option of taking time away junior year. In addition to a foreign exchange, she also traveled with a group from her high school to St. Petersberg for intensive foreign language study there. I don't speak Russian but our family is of Russian/slavic heritage (many generations back) - and when my daughter was in Moscow she was able to spend time with her 2nd cousin once-removed (or something - its tricky to figure these things out, but basically there is a great-great-grandfather who is a common ancestor).</p>
<p>Which high school was this? I know only of one-two high schools in Socal that teach Russian and another in Maryland where a friend of mine takes it...
Gosh I wish I had old kin in Russia...my family is Jewish of E. European descent too, but from over 110+ years ago.</p>
<p>Maia, I'll PM you.</p>
<p>Guys, we totally don't know what this Maia chick looks like. How can we assume she would have gotten into Prostitute College? I think we'd need to see some stats or something.</p>
<p>For some reason I'm logged in here as CecileMLDubois. I don't normally check this board -- one CC addict in the house is enough -- and I think Maia has been using my computer.</p>
<p>Thanks to CalMom (and the others here) for understanding Maia's situation, which apparently has annoyed many comment posters. UCSD is a top science university, but it IS a university, not Cal Tech; they don't only want math/science majors there, so I don't think it's shocking or unreasonable they admitted Maia as a Russian/Soviet Studies major. Her AP scores and SAT IIs were good, and her SAT writing (11/12) quite good, so you can imagine she wrote a fine essay. I've heard that's the weak point of many students these days.</p>
<p>It's funny to see myself described as "naive" when normally I offend people with my cynicism (yes, we did leave the private school for public, and I do think that extra year of tuition was important to them) and have been a journalist for 30 years.</p>
<p>Anyone who wants to be ticked off at me even more can check out my column tomorrow on the same general subject at National Review Online. Of course, those who hate NRO and all it stands for will be ticked off anyway, and can get a start on their head of steam. There were also many comments about all this yesterday at my own blog: <a href="http://www.cathyseipp.net%5B/url%5D">www.cathyseipp.net</a>. </p>
<p>Oh, also look up the NRO column I did a couple of months ago, about how the last math class I took was Algebra I in jr high. Yet I did well at UCLA, which I began at age 16 many years ago (yes, requirements were weaker then) and have never felt the need for algebra since. </p>
<p>My sister and I both graduated high school at the end of 11th grade and went to UCLA. Why? Because our parents grew up in Canada, where in their days you either got a job at 16 or went to university. So even though it seems unusual to many of you here, it is not unusual to us. There are many ways of doing things in this world. </p>
<p>What my piece didn't say (because there's not room for everything) is that Maia began taking UCLA extension classes in Near Eastern HIstory and Egyptian Hieroglyphs since age 14, and that she started blogging about politics -- and insisted on creating a blog for me, which has really helped my professional writing -- at age 13.</p>
<p>She also created blogs for many of my journalist friends, including the editorial director of the L.A. Times website. (She accidentally deleted it, too, but fortunately reached her web-expert friend at home studying for finals -- this was in 9th grade -- and they put it back before he noticed.) Her interests are not those of the typical high school student, and of course there are many who get better grades and test scores. But I know that admissions depts do look for unusual students with unusual interests.</p>
<p>So I really don't think I was naive. But I did indeed choose to opt out of all the fretfulness. I can see this has offended many people here, but c'est la vie.</p>
<p>Where IS Prostitute College anyways?</p>
<p>Hi, Maia, again!--I'm curious about the graduating early--what made you decide to go for it? From the article your mom wrote, it sounds like you decided to graduate early at the end of 10th grade (thus the move to another school)? Had you already decided at that point that Russian was your passion? Was that the reason? That you knew fairly early on what you wanted to major in in college and that staying in high school another year wouldn't help you with that? That would make sense to me. Anyway, as I said, just curious. </p>
<p>Calmom--totally agree that with the state some of our high schools are in, can't blame kids for wanting to get out early--definitely I'm seeing more early grads in our community--(we're talking about the public high school, not the private ones here), and also more kids attending community college while still taking some classes at the public high school--I think it is partly due to the budget cuts. There just isn't enough offered at our local high school anymore for many kids. However, I'm not comfortable personally with the idea of any of my kids leaving home and off to college at 16! It's not all about the academics either. Just seems like it takes a lot of maturity to do it (Not a strong suit for my own kiddos).</p>
<p>Oh, Maia's mom--just saw your remarks. That explains a lot. Very different perspective. No, it is not the norm for me to think of kids moving away from home at 16. I hope none of mine want to do that! (no offense!) Anyway, sounds like an interesting kid you've got there.</p>