It’s interesting to read about the origins of athletic recruiting at college campuses. (My DS2 was an NCAA Div 1 athletic recruit.) Here’s a summary: SOMEONE needs to fall in the bottom third of students academically, and if ONLY the very tippy top students are admitted to a school, those getting the worst grades there and used to perfect grades will get discouraged and drop out, or change majors. The athletic recruits have “something else to live for,” so they don’t drop out, so they are a scapegoat of sorts. As a result, the other, more academic, students are not humiliated–and they stay in their major and in college. It’s all about peer comparison. (Great book to read on this topic: David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcom Gladwell, with a chapter about college admissions.)
OK I will say something about some UCs that aren’t Cal or UCLA, but not a vent actually. My DD applied to 7 UCs: accepted to 3 (UCSC, UCD, UCSB), rejected from 2 (UCI, UCB), waitlisted at 2 (UCSD, UCLA). Not terribly impacted majors (ie, not CS or engineering).
Here’s the funny thing–those UC results were EXACTLY right for my DD. I can see her fitting in at UCSC, UCD, or UCSB (she SIR’d to the latter, on Sun). I could NOT see her fitting in at UCI or Cal. I’ve never been to UCI in my life and never has she. . .and a “suitcase school?” Where everyone goes home on the weekends? No thanks.
And I was honestly RELIEVED when she was rejected from Cal. She and I are both very familiar with Berkeley and nothing about Cal or Berkeley would be a good fit for her. She wanted the prestige, but I know in my bones Cal was wise to reject her. Not a good fit.
And as far as UCSD and UCLA, where she was waitlisted–yes. I could see her possibly fitting in at UCSD, probably fitting in at UCLA. And she accepted the waitlist at UCLA, but not at UCSD. See? Just as I thought “maybe,” UC agreed: maybe.
Maybe this is all hindsight, but I think the universe or the “UC gods” did steer her exactly to the three options that would be the best fit for her. The independent readers of her PIQs could just tell.
I do have a lot of vents about UC decisions though. OOS and international should be held to 10%, as TX does. There’s no reason for UCLA to be 25% OOS and international. Ridiculous. And I don’t like that 4 of the 13 criteria used are completely outside of the students’ control. And the dropping of the SAT and other standardized measures of achievement was a gigantic mistake (I know–not UC’s fault exactly).
Not really. For 2020, the share of UCB’s annual operating budget that came from the State of CA was 14%. See: Budget 101 | Office of the Chief Financial Officer
Full list:
Tuition and fees: 34%
State funding: 14%
Federal contacts and grants: 14%
Educational activities and auxiliaries: 13%
Other contracts anf grants: 10%
Private gifts: 10%
Other: 4%
Investment income: 1%
Massive defunding by the state in the past decades has led to the UCs going after more out-of-state and international tuition money, and also going after more federal research grant money. These trends have been counterproductive to the mission of undergraduate education for state residents (and in general, undergraduate teaching is a much lower priority for UCs than research production and training of graduate students—the UCs aren’t highly ranked because of the quality of this lesser mission).
Huh? Name another public system which has better ranked schools.
To clarify: They are highly ranked. It’s not because of the quality of their undergraduate education.
So Cals top 5 ranking in any # of undergrad majors is not due to quality of education? Again tell me a higher ranked public system than the UCs or a system with better quality of undergrad education.
Maybe be a bit more skeptical of those rankings? If you dig a little deeper, you’ll find they are based in large part on the research output of the professors —you know: the ones who aren’t actually teaching the classes. That task is left to adjuncts and (miserably underpaid) TAs.
Undergraduate education is a low priority for UCs, and probably more so than for other R1 publics for a variety of systemic reasons.
This shouldn’t really be news to anyone. The students are certainly well aware of it. Just read the comments about UC Davis here for example: Reddit - Dive into anything
The UC Application is formatted differently than the other schools your son’s classmate got into. Given his profile, he 1000% considered the UCs as an afterthought.
Sounds a bit un-meritocratic though, doesn’t it?
Of your 3 recommendations here, there’s one that I think makes sense: SAT Scores (on a test-optional basis)
LORs are not a reliable thing to count on because every school and teacher handles them in different ways which makes the entire category spotty (teachers who aren’t great at articulating their points, etc.).
AP scores as a metric for evaluation sounds great, but can be a death-knell for students who attend schools that do not host AP exams. I could not take a ton of AP Exams despite having 13 AP courses under my arsenal. A lot of this was due to being abroad during AP season and having to spend $190-230 in fees per exam + travelling 200mi just to take the tests. Just to take 3 exams, we spent upwards of $1000. Even in CA, it is a HASSLE to find a school willing to let you test if your school doesn’t run the exam + while there is a price for each AP exam, CB doesn’t restrict schools from price-gouging (hence the $200 exam fees when taking abroad, which can go even higher than $250 depending on the school) because there is no centralized registration system like the SAT where everyone pays a set fee based on their region.
Also, predicted scores are such an awful system that brings upon a lot of stress to students. I know this from my IB friends who actually have to deal with that and folks applying to schools in the UK/Canada that have conditional admissions based on those predicted scores.
Because it probably is. If you have to ask this question, you’re likely the one with privilege.
Except the meaningful number of students whose high schools don’t have a meaningful DE opportunity with a local college. Not a win-win for them.
Hey @sushiritto long time no see 
Right back at you…
My daughter passed UM to attend UCB 4 years ago
My son now passed UM (CoE for CS) to attend Purdue
So we are equal hahaha
Different strokes for different folks
I didn’t know that state’s funding only accounts for 14% of the UCB budget. No wonder it has been counterproductive to education of state residents.
Yes, it is well known that high ranking of UCB is due to research output of their faculties and not due to undergraduate teaching. As you said, teaching is left to miserably paid adjuncts and TAs.
DE is highly valued because state makes them take those credits. I can tell you DE classes in our high school are vastly inferior to AP in terms of rigor.
Classes at CC are better, and for many subjects it’s really great to have small classes and teacher attention. However CC math and physics courses do not prepare you to step into upper level in those subjects and succeed. I can’t tell you how many horror stories I have heard from local kids attempting upper division math at Cal and UCLA after our CC.
The highly rejective boarding schools (thing Andover, Exeter, etc) offer courses at a college/university sophomore level, and sometimes beyond.
Wouldn’t it just be 10th and 11th?
And the flip is that 40% of the students did NOT have a 4.0.
Another problem with the AP exams is that they are conducted on the same day across the country, regardless of the differences in start dates for the school year. Kids who attend schools that start in early August have a full month longer to learn and review the material. The day before my son’s first AP exam he was still completing concept cards for the last unit while kids at his previous high school had been reviewing for a month. It’s a flawed system IMO.
I have actual student experiences to draw from, and 100% of lectures for my engineering student has been taught by professors. Yes the GSIs are underpaid and the schools certainly waste money on stupid sports programs but I definitely don’t buy the “quality of education” bit.
Yup. And, further, the notorious “coach’s salary” though entirely gross as a headline is a literal drop in the bucket in the overall budget. I get the outrage, but in the grand scheme of things it’s not “the problem” but rather a reflection of the problem.