<p>Kluge,
I tried to respect our differences & ease out of an impasse by suggesting that (1) we have conflicting data (which we do), and that (2) that data as interpreted may be subject to approval or disapproval, as this is a discussion board meant for the exchange of information AND opinion -- some of it in conflict with each other. You seem very angry that you cannot force me to agree with you.</p>
<p>I especially do not appreciate your relegating my information to the category of "opinion" versus your supposed (superior) "facts." I have another child coming & therefore care about the UC stats, too, every bit as much as you. However, I am willing to admit when & where my treasured alma mater has gone (in my opinion, based on <em>facts</em>) astray from its purpose. I have a number of sources for my facts, both those published & those not published. I also have confidential information from my D's h.s. that I am not at liberty to share regarding the accomplished 3.2-3.8 students with impressive e.c.'s & strong test scores who were not admitted to UCB or UCLA within the last 5 years. These are published but for school families only, & we are on our honor not to distribute them, so I don't. I also have worked in UC administration.</p>
<p>I do not observe the current UC admissions practices to be fair or representative of the goals for which it stands. At least publicly, UC has not stated that its primary goal is one of social welfare or educational remediation -- & both of them at the expense of rewarding educational achievement if & when they deem that necessary or desirable. If UC believed it had the optimum academic pool, I assure that they would not have instituted the ELC program.</p>
<p>I will continue to state my observations & my experience despite the heavy tone in your reply. I believe your statements are being broadcast inaccurately over the internet just as strongly as you apparently believe mine to be. Other readers will surely form their own judgments, & I respect their right & ability to do so.</p>
<p>well, i don't think it is fair that epiphany gets the last word. This thread is just too darn interesting (and the tone is the most enjoyable part;-). I'm just wondering for both epiphany and kluge that if your alma mater was UCB or UCLA why such an over-reliance on "quotes"? It diminishes what you are trying to state, and lessens the impact. </p>
<p>fyi. my S is at UCB with a weighted-GPA < 4.0. I choose to think that the comprehensive review process enabled the adcom's to see what a great kid he is, and definitely he got the luck of the draw.</p>
<p>"I also have confidential information from my D's h.s. that I am not at liberty to share regarding the accomplished 3.2-3.8 students with impressive e.c.'s & strong test scores who were not admitted to UCB or UCLA within the last 5 years."</p>
<p>That I don't doubt in the least. And the reason is simple: "accomplished 3.2-3.8 students" don't get into UC Berkeley and UCLA because over 95% of the admits to each of those schools have a GPA <strong>over 3.8</strong>. While the students you refer to may be really bright kids, Berkeley and UCLA are extremely selective, particularly regarding grades. A 3.2 student who isn't a superstar in some non-academic field just isn't going to have a chance, regardless of his or her qualities (remember, only a handful - fewer than 1% - of the admitted students at Berkeley and UCLA have GPA's below 3.3. And the athletes are included in those numbers.) A 3.8 student might get in if everything else lines up - great test scores, EC's, etc. But even there the odds are against it - just on the basis of grades. It's got nothing to do with "compassion", "social welfare" or "educational remediation". The accomplished students you refer to aren't being squeezed out of UCLA by a bunch of undeserving minorities - they just aren't quite up to the level of the even <strong>more</strong> accomplished students (from all backgrounds) who are being admitted.</p>
<p>As to my "tone", I believe in respecting opposing viewpoints, but I have little patience for those who make up "facts" to support their opinions. My opinion on this subject is vulnerable to disagreement from all sides - but I will cite you the source of the facts I base it on, and not claim to have some "secret" information which conflicts with the readily accessible public data on the topic. You may be right in your opinion that UC admissions policies are not "fair". But your factual claims - starting with the "C students admitted to UC" assertion - are just plain not true. If you think UC should not ascribe any weight to poverty, first generation college in family, etc., that's fine. It's a legitimately debatable point. But there are no "C students" admited to UC. And the number of students in every GPA range admitted to UCLA and Berkeley is public data. Berkeley admissions in 2002 in particular were put under a microscope - the Moores report is over 200 pages long. This is a case where facts are neither "superior" nor "inferior". They're either "facts" or they're not. And I'm sorry, but a number of the "facts" you have stated are --- not.</p>
<p>Avoidingwork (me too) sorry - cross-posted (I wasn't avoiding work well enough.) I'm a Berkeley graduate, from back in the day when high test scores would get you in automatically even with so-so grades. I doubt I could have gotten in under current standards. My oldest son might have gotten into Berkeley back in my day, but in the modern era his choice was UC Riverside or San Diego State. Intellectual giant that he is, he eschewed the opportunity to attend UC to go to SDSU because "There's a lot more hot chicks there." At least I can't question his judgment on that one...</p>
<p>Loves it. May be enjoying the "social" part just a little too much. In my avowedly unexpert Daddish way I've got to second his assessment of the pulchritude of the young ladies at the school. It was a long time ago, but I'm pretty sure there weren't that many, that beautiful girls in Berkeley back in my day. Ah, well... Academically he's comfortable there, although like most freshmen there were some adjustments he had to make - and will make in the future. I don't know how rigorous the study is because I'm not there. Freshmen are all doing required breadth courses so there's not much opportunity to really dig into an academic field right away - and you've got to love a school where you can get an "A" in surfing...</p>
<p>SDSU has benefitted from the same squeezing out phenomenon which is what I suspect underlies epiphany's beef - those bright 3.2 - 3.7 GPA students can't get into the UC campus of their choice anymore. As a result, the more attractive CSU's are able to become more selective in admissions. Cal Poly SLO is the most obvious example, with admissions which are now more restrictive than several UC's. SDSU seems to be next in line, except with a business bent instead of engineering, which is Cal Poly's strength. SDSU is now more selective than UCR; I don't know how it stacks up against the rest of the UC's. SDSU has a lot going for it - it's in the warm part of San Diego, away from the coastal fog, and there's a lot going on "on campus" even though it's in a pretty big city. With all the classic "college" attributes - football team, etc - it's got a lot going for it. There are a lot of out of state student in my son's dorm - if you could go to San Diego instead of Midwest U - well, what would you choose? No surfing classes back home! There's still that "sink or swim" aspect at SDSU that public schools have more than privates - you have to figure out how to survive in the system if you want to make it through. Not a bad "educational" aspect, though.</p>
<p>Rave all you want. I stand by my facts, & although you have effectively called me a liar, I am not. I stand both by the published and the unpublished facts, which support the multiplicity & non-uniformity of academic standards currently at play at the University of California. Despite your arrogant tone, your information is incomplete. There are a number of inequities in the system. And by the way, one of them is the 2.8 GPA which, no, is not dispensed with this year. It is dispensed with in 2007, unless that information has been updated to the 2004 admission year retroactively, which I doubt. Friends of my D were appalled to learn that the GPAs were ever at 2.8, since their 3.7's & 3.8's were apparently not good enough for U.C. (Just one of UC's many dirty little secrets.)</p>
<p>I know you like to believe that you have all the information in the universe, including, apparently, clairvoyant knowledge of those rejected & why they were supposedly justifiably rejected, but the information in your preceding post merely reveals your ignorance as to who gets rejected & what those standards of accomplishment are. I am not bound to reveal private information to you just because you demand it or will marginalize me unless I divulge promised confidentialities. You would have no idea as to the level of accomplishment of all those who have been passed over for political, social, or other misguided reasons. But you seem to have convinced yourself, & are now on a campaign to convince others, that UC can do no wrong. You will fit all the facts into that self-fulfilling argument.</p>
<p>Oh, and since you claim to worship "facts," so much, here's a fact for you from beyond the pond:</p>
<p>Avoidingwork, I and many of my relatives are UCBerkeley grads. My mother graduated from there at the age of 19, in 1938. She was brilliant. She was also mortified at the lowering of standards at UC over the years -- both for admission & for matriculation.
I reviewed my posts and did not discover an over-reliance on quotes.</p>
<p>Thanks for the link, avoidingwork!
I was aware of this document. However, I do take issue with the assumption that was is published is always achieved. (Policies are not necessarily practices; they are always subject to reality-checks.) I agree with those on CC (& with those who wrote the UC doc) that comprehensive review is the way to go, including, I might add, recognition of non-academic achievement that can, & probably will, play into a student's collegiate contributions.</p>
<p>I merely believe the following, based on real-life admission realities of the last several decades, including <em>since</em> the '01 publication of the above doc:
(1) I do not believe that the last sentence on page 19 (I believe it is) is a reality which has been reinstated in actuality at UC.
(2) I take some issue with the non-weighting aspects of comp. review. I certainly agree that a pre-assigned quantitative weight is inappropriate, & works against the concept of comp. review. However, I think that academics have to be viewed at least qualitatively as more significant than other factors, in order to achieve the stated objective on page 19. (In other words, there's some internal inconsistency in this doc., in my view.)
(3) The political pressures on UC, which are to a great extent a reflection of the politics within the State of CA as a whole, have succeeded in bending the spines of the UC administration, affecting policies & practices within the University, including (not limited to) admissions. The problem is, that CA is first of all a hugely populous state, & second of all, extremely diverse & with dozens of powerful interest groups. It is not possible to please every segment of CA, yet UC has been signing on to the people-pleasing business for quite some time. This has led to enormous problems when it comes to consistency in undergrad admissions procedures, above & beyond what is published.
(4) The Ivies do it better. They are definitely imperfect, too. Possibly, though, due to less political pressure because they're Privates, they seem more successful in recruiting diversity & excellence simultaneously, & more importantly (i.m.o) within the same student.
(5) No college has a thoroughly transparent admissions procedure -- no private college, no public college, including U.C. If anyone believes that what is printed represents the sum total of what is practiced, I have <em>several</em> bridges for sale. Some authors (ex-admissions officers) have contributed to some veil-lifting; there are 3 or 4 exposes on this among the Privates. The stories they relate are so nauseating that they make one want to open one's own 4-yr institution for the uncriminally sane.</p>
<p>I want to address separately an issue which has not been brought up yet, about post-admission performance, because my position shows me to be a defender of diversity (& comp. review) in the appropriate context.</p>
<p>epiphany, I disagree with no. 4 on your list. I include poor people when talking about diversity and poor people are barely represented at the Ivys. Also, 50% of students come from private schools at the Ivys and this is not even close to being representive of the population as a whole. When I walk on the Berkeley campus, it feels like being part of the world. There are people there from so many different backgrounds. That, in itself, has to be a great learning experience for a student.
The average weighted gpa for accepted students at Berkeley is what, around 4.24? That's pretty high. The school can't be taking too many low gpa students. The ones they do take with lower gpas hopefully have had life experiences that add to the educational experience of the other students.</p>
<p>There was a fascinating study done only 2 or 3 years ago, I believe, by U.C. I think I bookmarked it somewhere & I'd like to pull it up if I find it this week. But essentially it tracks & compares performance of privileged UC undergrads versus non-privileged, & concludes that the underprivileged (especially those from immigrant families) far outperformed the privileged. The top students from wealthy families, who did work hard in h.s., nevertheless devolved once enrolled at UC, whereas those without wealth who struggled for acceptance into college continued to struggle with the same energy after admission.</p>
<p>The 4.0+ h.s. folks became 2.0 UC students, & not because the curriculum was enormously more challenging than what they had achieved in h.s. with their multiple APs & college courses & what-have-you. Rather, they became poster children for the Slacker Industry & the Minimalist Society, barely studying for exams & underperforming big time.</p>
<p>Yes, I do know that some of this happens in the Ivies, too, with elite types transforming themselves into full-time party animals once admitted. But given the much heavier transfer activity into UC vs. into Ivies, I think this reality is an opportunity for UC to enforce universally some standards post-admission, such as they already do for students admitted on athletic scholarship. I think that if the lazy, smug types want to sink into 2.0 land, they need to make room in junior year for the thousands of deserving transfers who have probably accomplished in 2 yrs. after h.s. what their own high schools may not have given them the opportunity to show previously.</p>
<p>If the underpriviledged are out performing the priviledged, than why do you care if the underpriviledged get a boost? When the UCs are choosing a class, they are not giving out trophies to those that did the best in high school, they are trying to figure out who will do the best in college, and add to the overall environment at the school. The UCs are also looking for those that will succeed after college.
The 4.0+ hs students become 2.0 students.... You are losing me. Most students at the UCs were 4.0+ hs students. What are you saying? Are you saying the 4.0+ priviledged hs students end up with 2.0 gpas? How many students are we talking about?</p>
<p>epiphany, I may have totally misunderstood your point, and if so, I apologize. If you're trying to say that UC relies too much on grades and test scores, and should weigh things like EC's more heavily, you may have a point.</p>
<p>But comments like: "I just feel for the many I know who have been rejected over students with far less achievement & who have yet to prove in their lives that they are capable of more than 2.0-2.5 high school (non-Honor/non-AP) GPAs" and "If you are an Anglo Caucasian or non-first-generation Asian with a solid academic record of between 3.2 and 3.8 uw GPA + respectable e.c.'s & strong [test scores], one of your biggest challenges in life will be admission to one of the 3 big UCs" make it sound like you think that bright non-minority students are being kept out of UCLA, Berkeley, and UCSD because their seats are being taken by less qualified minorities. And that's just not true. The problem is that 3.2 - 3.8 GPA just isn't competitive at those schools. Last year's stats for Berkeley show 6,455 students admitted with GPA's over 4.0, and less than 700 admitted with GPA's below 4.0:</p>
<p>Those bright 3.2 - 3.8 students (my son included) aren't being squeezed out by less-deserving minorities, they're being squeezed out by kids with even higher qualifications. Yes, 26 kids got in with GPAs below 3.0. And maybe I'm guilty of sterotyping for thinking those 26 are mostly scholarship athletes (in 2002 there was one kid admitted with a sub 3.0 GPA and 1600 on his or her SATs. Go figure.) But those 26 students are not what keeps tens of thousands of applicants with 3.2 to 3.8 GPA's from being admitted, it's the 13,000 applicants with GPA's over 4.0. </p>
<p>If you have facts which show something different, I'm all ears. But so far, you haven't shown me any.</p>
<p>"2.0-2.5 high school (non-Honor/non-AP) GPAs."</p>
<p>He's talking about unweighted GPAs. I have several friends who have weighted GPAs in the >3.5, but their UW is <3.0. So it's entirely possible for students to have a low unweighted GPA to get into a UC. It also works the other way around; I have some friends from who have stellar GPAs in the 4.4 range, but test scores that are way below average for berkeley...<1200sat, <600satii, passed no AP exam, and yet they get in. The system is pretty weird...</p>
<p>Another point I'd like to bring up concerning the "low class" is tax evasion/fraud. You don't know how many students I know in my senior class right now that evade because their family operates a business, and so not only do they get recognition as being "underpriveliged", but they also get practically a free ride into whatever college they want to attend through financial aid. On top of that, they spend the money that their family should have paid for income taxes on personal items. So the middle class does indeed get screwed.</p>
<p>dstark,
<<"you are losing me",>> etc.
It's been an extremely busy weekend. Just read your questions regarding the 4.0's morphing into 2.0's. When family crises subside here, I'll try to find the link I promised to retrieve. But yes, I'm being quite literal,& it was a real study, & really published. To me, it is equally scandalous to admit academically underqualified students of any race, <em>and</em> to enroll for 4 yrs. students who take a deliberate dive & use UC as their "holiday." Given the pressures on junior transfer admission from those who did not make the cut for freshman yr. (possibly because their own schools did not provide the opportunities that the 4.0+s had -- & you can bet on that), I say make that junior year a competitive pool year. Why should 4.0-capable students be partying for 4 yrs at taxpayer expense? The "A's" and "B's" earned by those at the 2-yrs should be stacked up against the "C's" being earned by the enrolled spoiled brats, & the dead wood removed. If UC is honestly & sincerely looking to be a school of opportunity, equality, egalitarianism, fairness, etc., they would see this as one of the many non-equitable & contradictory situations that could be addressed by administration. Naturally there should be an appeals process for this. For those who are serious & not loafers, the transition to college can be a frightening thing, & emotional crises are not uncommon -- whether caused by romantic break-ups, an onset or awareness of student depression or a reactionary eating disorder, or not infrequently learning of the suicide of a student acquaintance/friend. Grades can take a dive then, & those cases should be appealed & leniency provided. But believe me, those situations were not discovered in the study alluded to. I'll follow up later.</p>
<p>I'm a UC alum, & I'm disgusted with the way that the whole University-wide system has become a self-conscious, apologetic exercise in "inclusion" in a way that actually mirrors a caste system, ironically. I don't know about the "middle class," but it is clear that the group most being <em>ex</em>cluded from UC is the high-middle group of majority ethnicity.</p>
<p>I'm sorry, but just where did you get the idea that "inclusion" policies were keeping "high-middle" white kids out of UC? The grade and test scores of UC admittees are public information (see link above), and there's absolutely no objective evidence of anything other than overwhelmingly merit-based admissions at any of the UC campuses. Berkeley and UCLA can't accept all of the 4.0 + GPA applicants - or all of the applicants who score over 700 on their SAT1 Math exam, for that matter - because there are more applicants with those "stats" than there are spots available. Less than 5% of the admittees to either campus (of any ethnicity) have GPAs below 3.7. I suspect that if you subtracted out all of your scholarship athletes you wouldn't find many students "included" who were anything but the objective cream of the crop academically. (UC San Diego, which is slightly less selective that Berkeley or UCLA, actually admits a lower percentage of student below 3.3 GPA than the other two - 0.4% instead of almost 0.9% of the total admittees - but then, UCSD is Division II in NCAA sports.)</p>
<p>I'm tired of hearing propaganda repeated as truth. </p>
<p>I keep responding to these claims because I've become disgusted with the way that politically-fueled falsehoods get repeated over and over until people accept them uncritically as being true.</p>
<p>From another thread - here's a link to "scattergrams" from one high school's applicants to various Universities, including the UC campuses. I don't see any "caste system" at work here, either, unless it's a caste system based on academic merit...</p>