My UC Davis alum had one course taught by a post doc and, other than that, all lecture courses were taught by professors. Grad students ran discussion sections and labs. Sometimes the grad students were better at explaining concepts than the professor.
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Thatâs great, but you are referencing anecdotes from one student in one program. I referenced experiences from multiple current and former UC students on discussion boards, and I have had personal discussions with multiple UC professors.
Iâd advise more curiosity about what does and doesnât drive the rankings.
Not sure how many of those comments are from students. The screenshot that started the conversation was taken from a readerâs response to an article in Davis Vanguard. The quote isnât from the article but from an upset reader responding to another readerâs comment.
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An example is not the entirety of the argument. If you really think an online forum where people go to vent is a representative sample then there is no point in continuing the discussion ad infinitum.
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Thatâs a story heard frequently. I donât think it makes the grad students looks as good as it makes the professors look bad.
âCoupled with the waves of excitement, anticipation and hope of a new school year, UC Berkeleyâs infamous large-size courses await new and returning students.â
Giant classes and the professors resort to trying to get the students to teach each other: âboth emphasize the effectiveness of peer instruction, a teaching methodology that focuses on peer-to-peer learning.â
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This is good to know. I suspected AP classes were more rigorous than DE. But from what Iâve seen with the admissions results this year, it seems (anecdotally) UC gives a slight edge to those with DE (instead of AP/IB).
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Part of the issue with OOS applicants who have taken very rigorous courses above AP-level at their HS, is that unlike in-state applicants or OOS applicants who took less rigorous AP-equivalent courses, the UC doesnât recognize those courses in their weighted GPAâs. For OOS, only AP, IB and DE are recognized, no matter how advanced the course is and despite the HS counting it in their weighted GPAs. So you can get kids who as you note are 6 years ahead of level in math who have lower UC uncapped weighted GPAs than kids who topped out in AP Calc AB. Whereas the Ivys you noted are more likely to credit them for that.
That doesnât matter though because OOS applicants are evaluated against other OOS applicants and therefore all will have the same criteria applied.
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It is possible that UCB is doing a better job teaching EECS undergraduates. After all, this is their most coveted major which always ranks in top 5 of USNEWS ranking.
They also know who they are selecting in this major. A large percentage of parents of these students are very wealthy and well connected with key employers in Silicon Valley and tech industry in general. Certainly, the department takes care to keep them happy.
I am pretty sure that math faculty at both UCB and UCLA are hired almost exclusively for their research, many of whom are not too keen on teaching certain classes and certain type of students. I donât blame the faculty or department - they hire one of the best and keep their research top notch.
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The reader who made the screen-shottedcomment went to UCD undergrad and UCB for their PhD and is in frequent contact with UC faculty for their consulting work. Comments from current and former students in the Reddit thread unanimously support the contention of the (lack of) of prioritization of undergraduate educations among the competing priorities and missions of UCs.
This statement on CC in a spin-off thread from this one summarizes things well:
âSure they are large publics with all that entails: large classes with a hundred to hundreds of students, upper-division classes of 75-100 for popular majors like Econ, little personal attention, counseling generally whoever is at the window when you show up in line, understaffed units like career counseling, often not enough university housing for all 4 years, and so on. Probably not that different from your in-state U system.
But as a CA taxpayer I can assure you we love OOS students! OOS students are always full-pay and the $125K or more each one contributes in OOS fees helps keep UC afloat.â
Some students will do well with the large classes, overcrowded conditions, anonymity, minimal handholding and difficulty in accessing support services and others will not. But I donât think it helps anyone to pretend that this isnât the reality of the undergraduate experience of the majority of students.
And again, I would suggest more curiosity and skepticism about how rankings are really derived.
I believe what they are describing is a number of private schools have stopped offering AP classes and collaborated with other private schools to create a curriculum that they believe is stronger than the APs. So, they are still being compared to OOS students that have taken AP classes. (This is how it was described to me when looking at private schools in the DC area.)
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I think there are number of things going on. First of all AP scores arenât being factored into admission decision as far as I was told. UCLA and UCB being the exception to this. So in many schools (mine is a good example) given the grade inflation itâs very normal to get an A in AP class and still fail an exam. CC courses my kid has taken often have exam averages in the 70s.
Also I think the reason so many outstanding kids are being left out of UCs have to do with geographic location of students. UCs are taking kids from all high schools and some areas (Bay Area and Los Angeles) just have massive concentration of overachievers. So a kid who might not make it to UCB or UCLA out of Gunn High School would have made it out of my local high school.
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D21 attends Cal Poly SLO. Big CA public school. Small class sizes, with lectures and labs taught by professors.
SLO does have LAâs (learning assistants), which D21 will be one for the Fall quarter. However, LAâs are just peer mentors.
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I see. Itâs the same problem in state. My sonâs private school also moved away from APs and itâs creating a problem for kids at UCs. They are placing really well into privates though.
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Not really, because there is no consistency for OOS schools. Many OOS schools have robust DE programs with local colleges or community colleges and students might take Calc 1, 2 and 3 and get DE credit for each that would translate to the UC uncapped righted GPA. But then another school might offer classes at the HS that are more advanced (Linear Alegria, organic Chemistry, etc.) and those would not be part of a weighted GPA. When you look at UCLAâs admit stats, the average admits GPA, or even the bottom 25% quartile, suggests a very high number of AP/DE credits for OOS applicants, while some schools offer more rigorous course loads and would get no GPA credit for it. Within CA, all this is normalized by the A-G course mapping, but OOS if you would technically be better off taking less rigorous courses at a local JC if your school offers it (many donât) than taking harder classes at the school.
Agree! Even worse, lots of these same very high performing students, from same high performing high schools, are applying to the most competitive majors (e.g. CS.)
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The difference is many in-state schools who donât offer APs offer alternative courses that count as âhonorsâ based on the UC A-G course list and can still count those courses in the UC weighted uncapped GPA that UCB and UCLA use. Whereas an out of state student could be taking âHonorsâ (or advanced, accelerated, etc.) Linear Algebra, Organic Chemistry, etc., and it would still count as an unweighted course only for UC GPA.
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Yet here you are in different online forum on a thread where âventâ is literally in the title.
If you naively think broad rankings of undergraduate programsâthat are in actuality based in large part on professor research output metrics and have nothing to do with the undergraduate experience and teaching qualityâare relevant, then there is no point in continuing the discussion ad infinitum.
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If you actually cared to read my posts, this isnât gotcha you think it is. On this thread, Iâve consistently said the UC admissions process while it has some issues is FAR better than the process followed elsewhere, including at the Ivys. Similarly, I am saying while the student experience can be improved, there is no question that the âqualityâ of teaching and the academic opportunities are pretty very good at all of the UCs, and that there is no better public college system in the US or abroad that can match the UCs. If anything Iâve only been consistent on both issues.
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At Cal Poly and the other CSU schools the instructors generally indeed have a PhD. However many are adjunct faculty or lecturers and not professors in the department. Less true in smaller departments like engineering where enrollment is restricted to majors, more true in subjects like math or physics that many students with all kinds of majors take. See https://math.calpoly.edu/MathematicsDirectory or https://physics.calpoly.edu/PhysicsDirectory and look at how many are listed as lecturers.
Adjunct faculty may come and go, it can be a hard life. Probably better to be at CSU than be one of those cobbling together a living by teaching at multiple CCâs and driving between schools.
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