<p>The UC system should close a few UC campuses if it were purely concerned with academics.</p>
<p>Riverside, Merced, and Santa Cruz are arguably worse than Cal Poly SLO. That’s a third of the UC campuses!</p>
<p>However, the purpose of the UC system isn’t to crank out difficult to get into schools like Berkeley or UCLA but provide an education to above average Californians. This is basically part of my above argument. Even if Berkeley could become more selective, should it?</p>
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<p>The entire Berkeley undergraduate population is indeed huge. But that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about the engineering population, a number that is far smaller and more manageable. The CoE’s ‘immigration’ process is also highly restrictive, in contrast to Stanford where any student can switch majors to engineering at any time, even if their grades are subpar. Many Berkeley students would like to switch to engineering for the CoE won’t take them. </p>
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<p>You’ve just implicitly contradicted yourself. True, it is the purpose of the UC system to provide access to education for above-average Californians according to the Master Plan. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that it is Berkeley’s job to do so. That’s what the lower UC’s such as Merced are for - to catch the overflow. Heck, I seem to recall that that was the original point for founding Merced in the first place. If Berkeley becomes more selective, than the now-denied students can go to one of the other UC’s. </p>
<p>I’ll put it to you this way. Berkeley’s PhD programs are invariably some of the most prominent and most selective PhD programs in the world. Yet nobody argues that the purpose of Berkeley’s PhD programs are simply to serve above-average Californians, despite those programs technically being part of the UC system. Similarly, UCSF runs one of the most selective med schools in the country, despite technically being part of the UC system. It’s arguably harder to be admitted to UCSF Med School than into Stanford Medical School. </p>
<p>Hence, I see no clear reason why Berkeley’s engineering program couldn’t similarly heighten its selectivity. Other programs within the UC system do so, so why not the CoE?</p>
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<p>Sentiment, let me make it clear – I HARDLY advocate turning to a Stanford-style admissions model. I dislike both ours and theirs for very different reasons. </p>
<p>Let me highlight sakky’s key comment here, which I agree with:</p>
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<p>I think it is complete foolishness to argue against this. Engineering is a hard major, and some people are just not adequately prepared for it. Clearly Berkeley as a public school still maintains a much higher selectivity standard for this major (or rather, the college in general), with particular selectivity going to very sought after engineering majors like EECS. There is a reason for this. And what I’m saying is it needs to be taken even more seriously than it is, if there are students who are blatantly subpar. </p>
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<p>Further, I simply don’t understand how you people are arbitrarily drawing some line as to how selective things can get. Fairly smart Californians do get rejected from UC Berkeley and LA. All I’m saying is to make the standards high enough that we don’t admit people blatantly underqualified for a major. </p>
<p>I think it’s a little more acceptable to be admitting students to Berkeley and being a little lax about it if they are trying for a college like L&S which gives you a lot of majors, both easy and difficult. Berkeley can educate the “masses of above average Californians,” but to say it has to be lax about letting them into majors students really struggle with is unimaginably ridiculous.</p>
<p>Let me make it clear though – when I advocate stringent measures for admission, I do not mean it in the sense of the average private school selective model, which employs some pretty hilarious measures. I’m talking of favoring clean and simple awards and academic performance in context of one’s school, plus checking for demonstrated proficiency at math and relevant science to qualify for engineering. </p>
<p>It would certainly defeat the point of being the flagship CA school to run a system that is overly selective and tough to decode. I don’t think it should be inhumanly difficult to get into Berkeley at all, just that when it comes to things like engineering (and math and physics even, though these are probably easier majors to be admitted into), you have to check for proficiency properly. They’re obviously doing a decent job, but not a stellar job.</p>
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<p>I am sure there are a lot of students in California capable of handling Berkeley engineering, nay even thriving in it, just perhaps not as many as the school likes to admit.</p>
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<p>Depends on what you mean by “above average.” The California Master Plan dictates that UC serve the top one-eighth (12.5%) of the State’s HS graduates. But, from a political matter, it currently serves close to 14%. Heck, it would serve even more if anyone would show up to Merced, which accepts anyone with a B average and a heartbeat.</p>
<p>LOL @ the OP’s post that Cal is selective towards SAT scores</p>
<p>It seems Cal enginnering admission is more predictable than L&S’s. Students with excellent math and science credentials usually get in even with just run-of-the-mill ECs.
Perhaps they should allow alternative majors in the application to encourage more students to apply to engineering.</p>
<p>well guys, lets get back on topic. </p>
<p>Hypothetical, if a guy had a choice between Berkeley, Cal Poly SLO, and UC Davis. Where would this person have a well rounded college experience as well a the higher GPA? The Reason im asking this is because when i was looking at Cal Poly i had the concern that i will be at a disadvantage for medical school because i didnt see much research oppurtunites also i felt Cal Poly didnt have a good emphasis on the Premed. Can anyone chime in if Cal Poly or UC Davis is better for Premed than Berkeley because of more research, internships, shadowing, etc. oppurtunities and the Higher GPA.</p>
<p>For gpa and overall college experience: Santa Barbara. While everyone is out drinkin’ in IV, you could be in the library. The only downside is the soccer is the big D1 sport.</p>
<p>bluebayou: you are right about UCSB but bad thing is that i live about 20 min from UCSB and if i go there ill have to live at home which i will not do. any other suggestion</p>
<p>Don’t sell yourself short, go to Cal.</p>
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It’s hard to give you a personalized answer. On average, I imagine that students who got into Berkeley but chose Davis do better than other Davis students, but I can imagine exceptions. If competition and more motivated peers spur you to work more, then maybe you’d end up doing better at Berkeley instead of feeling less challenged at Davis and regretting your decision. On the other hand, if you end up doing poorly at Berkeley, you might regret not choosing Davis (however, I’m inclined to think that your Davis GPA would not be radically different).</p>
<p>I think that you need to focus on something other than med school. It’s good to have aspirations, but don’t put all your eggs into one basket that some arbitrary admissions committee (made up of humans!) can drop at a whim. You don’t know how you’re going to perform at Berkeley, and the very top med schools will be looking to see grades in the 97 to 99th percentile. At best, one might be able to tell you which decile or quartile you’ll fall in, but whether you’ll be in the top 3% of your class is simply too hard to tell.</p>
<p>All I am saying is that you should continue to dream about med school, but don’t make it everything. Pick a school whose atmosphere suits you and pick a major that you enjoy and would be happy to hold a degree in.</p>
<p>So, im guessing Cal Poly is not as good as UC Davis, UCI, UCSB, UCSD, UCLA, UCB because as a CSU it dosent offer the number of oppurtunities in research, voluntering, etc. as they do?</p>
<p>BTW, the reason why i like Berkeley is that it is on the Semester system (Only UC except for UCM) and that at my high school we run a quarter system just like the UC’s and i really dont like the fast pace.</p>
<p>Sigh. Is this seriously still a tough decision for you? And do you really think the #1 pro for Berkeley is the semester system? This is pretty sad. And can this thread end now.</p>
<p>flutterfly: obviously not semester is #1 pro but one of the pro’s. you wouldnt know what im talking about because you never had quarter system in HIGH SCHOOL. IT WAS VERY HARD FIRST 2 YEARS OF HIGH SCHOOL. try to put yourself in my shoes.</p>
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Sounds like if you can live in the dorm, you would prefer UCSB. Can you persuade your parents, it could be still cheaper than other UC since no travel cost and some misc. items.</p>
<p>watermark: Highly unlikely, because our family lives in a 4 beb, 3 bath house and i only have 1 sibling. so there is always room for me to live in. i also wanna stay as far away from my parents as possible because they are very very very let me emphasize very anal toward the realtionships or the actions i have. Mom almost killed my last girlfriend. and my parents always give me crap about going to parties. hard to avoid when you are on the varsity football team. which is why i havent gone to many during my hs career (maybe 2 hourse parties and 2 school dances in 4 years). so yes i need to get the hell away and Berkeley is about 6 hours away</p>
<p>ENT:</p>
<p>Davis will not doubt be “easier”. By how much depends on a lot of factors, some out of your control. For example, TA’s grade lab reports, and some TA’s grade harsher than others. Some/many TAs are foreign-born and still dislike women in science. Now if you are a guy, you may not care, but the point is that some grading is the luck of the draw which is independent of the curve.</p>
<p>If you decide against medicine as an undergrad, for whatever reason, a degree from Cal will carry you farther – it gets more notice. Cal also has undergrad biz should you decide you like that field better. Cal has the full range of d1 sports if that is of interest. But even if you are not a big sports fan, Cal has more spirit, which translates into active alums.</p>
<p>I’m a big fan of SLO, but it should not be a realistic option for a premed. If you really want to increase your chances at med school, take a gap year, attend U-Washington and apply to U-Dub med as an instater.</p>
<p>omg, quit dragging this s h i t out…if you find this so complicated I’m not sure if you have the smarts to get into medical school (let alone match into a surg residency)</p>