In the specific example the student will actually be hurt due to a pass grade because that AP honor point will not count towards their weighted GPA. So it’s not as simple as you make it to be - the higher unweighted gpa will be offset by the lower weighted gpa. Also when AB104 came out, the UCs specifically provided guidance to take classes for letter grades.
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I agree. I think parents sometimes forget these kids are not only competing with the rest of CA, but also with the kids in their high school and one child with a grade in that subject and one with a pass/no pass raises questions, particularly when the UCs give you an opportunity to explain any unusual/out of pattern grades at the bottom of the page.
Just entering pass/no pass does not give the AO’s enough information.
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Primarily because of funding. They can’t increase in state students without an increase in state funding. That is happening now, as I understand. But no it can not happen overnight because they UCs would go bankrupt. Well, maybe not actually bankrupt, but they need to pay their bills, too, and OOS/international tuition helps them do that. When the state steps in to fill the gap, they’ll be able to increase the number of in state students - which they are already in the process of doing. More in state students are anticipated to be accepted this year, compared to last year. I think they have actually set targets for the next few years.
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What examples? Again, people are making all kinds of assumptions about kids who aren’t their own without knowing half as much about them as they think.
And even if there were the case - and I am totally confident that it is not - why do you think the UCs would do this? Just to spite high achieving students? This speculation makes no sense and is very unfair to other applicants.
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Another gem by Rick Clark. Again not specific for the UC’s but all the messages are universal.
If you are denied from a selective college, my hope is you won’t question your academic ability or lose sleep trying to figure out what was “wrong” with you or what you “could or should have done differently.” IPs mean admission decisions do not translate to “We don’t think you are smart” or “You could not be successful here.”
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I don’t want to derail this thread. If people want to do a deeper dive into UC funding, maybe we can start a new thread. I’ll share this here because you mention funding. People often feel that the bulk of UC funding comes from tuition and taxes.
Look at page 17 of this 2023-24 UC Budget. Regarding income sources, 36% is from the medical centers while 22% is from Core Funds (State funds, general funds, tuition).
The UC medical centers took a huge hit during the pandemic. This Daily Bruin article from 2020 references the scope of financial loss experienced just at UCLA. And that was in year one of the pandemic.
On page 37 of the above budget report, it states
The resumption of State support for undergraduate enrollment growth has been a positive development. Nevertheless, actual California resident enrollment growth has far outpaced the levels supported in recent Budget Acts. Undergraduate enrollment growth beyond the levels supported by State funds creates an ongoing challenge to campuses as they strive to maintain the quality of a UC education.
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Yes we have heard this exact same thing. Makes the playing field unfair when some schools do this and others do not. I think this is becoming more common unfortunately.
I am not sure Ms. Sun’s argument is true. Based on my observation in my school, the students who changed grade admitted better than those who didn’t. I don’t know how UC AOs actually view those GPAs, because back in the days of grade changing, there were debates among parents on this issue too. But two years later, they have their answers. Maybe UC nowadays received so many applications, they opt to only machine calculate GPA and make the cut. And only use AOs to read the PIQ/ECs.
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I also think our perspective on what constitutes “high grades” has become a bit skewed. We have become accustomed to seeing a 3.8 as uncompetitive. That’s kind of nuts, too.
But I think that absolutely speaks to just how competitive admissions has become - and I guess if you see a 3.8 as a subpar GPA (and it is now on the low side for many UCs!), then I guess it would be a problem when you see someone with a 3.8 get in over someone with a 4.0.
(Although a lower GPA could be the result of a school that grade deflates vs inflates or some stellar high commitment EC that took time away from class prep or a critical illness that led to time in the hospital or a job that was needed to help parents pay the bills or a thousand other possibilities). But here I think it is our thinking that is flawed, and not necessarily the resulting admissions decisions.
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I wish there was a ranking system. My kid would have preferred Davis for the surrounding area, the vibe, the distance from home (LA), the focus on the environment, the nearby bee garden, all the random little things. So far it was their only UC rejection. I know there are kids who got into Davis and would trade places for my kid’s spot at one of the other schools! When our in-state kids have to apply to 5-7 UCs, they are taking each other’s spots. It’s silly.
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I don’t understand why (especially in this thread) people only mention UCLA and Berkeley as if these Universities are only worthy when they talk about UC.
Being said that, if you compare UC and other State’s public universities, simply UCs are too rich, too powerful. If you talk about the research fund expenditures, simply other States can not compete. UCSD is the the richest among other UCs in research. In 2022 they spent $1.4 billion. UCLA is right behind with $1.35 billion. UC is the top patent University. In 2022 alone, UC got close to 700 patents, and the second and below are low 400’s.
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I sometimes wonder, without evidence to support the wonder, if there’s some recognition of the mill that young students are fed into with the hopes of coming out in 11th grade as finely processed competitive college candidates. And if there might be some attempt to mitigate the absolute grind these kids are subjected to, by really committing to a truly holistic admissions approach that doesn’t make an acceptance a given just because one was made to check all the boxes in a perfunctory manner. I suppose I hope that’s the case because I’ve read too many posts by kids on these boards despairing over the opportunity costs of having spent their school years grinding only to be deeply disappointed by the results given the expectations they were given.
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True—but that’s for sure an applicable question for all highly selective college admissions and not UCs. I feel like my kids were able to strike a balance and that hopefully worked in their favor, not to their detriment when it came to admissions. But I do think students are under the impression that they have to check all the boxes in a certain way, and that isn’t always working for them in the end. And they might have done just as well without approaching it in that way. Tough to tell.
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See the posts up thread where parents disparaged their children’s peers who seemingly got accepted without checking certain boxes.
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Yes…for sure my comment was somewhat in response to comments of that nature.
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I read some student’s vent earlier. This student grinded hard work and sacrificed so much to pursue her dream school. Now she was rejected, she resented for missing enjoying her high school life.
I get it, and it’s totally understandable the feelings of hopelessness and resentment.
We live in a culture that believes that if you work hard you will achieve whatever you set your mind to do.
Sometimes, like with this student and many other students too, it doesn’t work out.
After the knock out punch of rejection/waitlists (it’s like being knock out in heavy weight boxing) and hardly getting up from laying down on the floor (the knock out was from a heavy weight boxer) the student will start to see things with a different perspective.
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I’m not sure I completely understand, but are you saying that UCs, through their holistic admissions model, take into account the fact that some of their applicants are processed in the figurative “college applicant mill” in order to unauthentically(?) build a superior profile to make them attractive for college admissions.
If so, I strongly feel like that is actually the case. Looking at some of the most academically/extracurricularly competitive school regions within CA, such as the Santa Clara/Alameda County (Silicon Valley) and Orange County, you’ll find that the acceptance rate for every UC is hardly higher at their specific high school than the overall acceptance rate for the UC in general.
This indicates that the UCs do, in fact, take into account the region that their applicants are hailing from as a factor when making decisions. Undoubtedly, the average applicant at a Silicon Valley or Orange County high school generally has a better profile than applicants from other regions, yet they are almost penalized for that, as they are essentially receiving the same acceptance rate anyways.
Ultimately, this is not really the most optimal method. At these competitive high schools, kids will only be driven to accomplish even more, in light of the idea that the fact their home and overall motivation will literally be used against them, since they are essentially expected to do even more.
There’s no point in “mitigating the absolute grind” since the UCs’ current method of doing so will exacerbate the problem (as it essentially is doing so right now). Applicants’ accomplishments should be celebrated, no matter the underlying factors.
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This is the purpose of the ELC designation, to give context. My kid goes to a grade deflating school. He has a 3.75 uw gpa, but he is ELC. I know there are grade inflating schools where 20% of the class has a 4.0 uw gpa, so kids with 4.0s are not ELC.
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