UC college admissions are broken

Choice of major maybe, or willingness to go undeclared for a bit.

My very white son is in his second year. He could have gone to any UC except Berkeley and UCLA. His SAT was lower and he had about the same GPA. he had a boatload of high AP test scores, he volunteered at the public library once or twice a week for 18 months! He was only in one school club and no sports. I think he had to accept undeclared entrance, but now is in a biochem major. He did qualify for work-study, but only works about 6 hours a week.

Yeah I’m guessing the student in question didn’t apply to Riverside or Merced. Merced I get; it has a very narrow mission to serve that region. UC Riverside would have been a great choice, though, with a much better chance to get in. And then if you want to go in-state public why not also try for SDSU or one of the polys? Fullerton and SJSU are strong schools as well. Guarantee he gets admitted to several of those. In-state tuition at San Diego State is just over $8k. That is a phenomenal deal.

SDSU is a hidden gem. It's better than Santa Cruz, Riverside, Merced, and Davis in my opinion. Lots of their grads work in business and biotech in So Cal. There is a huge network of alumni. No one has pride in those lower tier UC's or any fun going there. You can also go honors program at Colorado State and pay cheaper tuition through the WUE. There are options if you check them out. UC admission is basically a crap shot at this point regardless of grades.

There is no comparison between a low tier UC and a high tier Cal State. Check out US News and World Report rankings. Cal States are reasonably good at preparing you for a job. UCs set you up for grad school/professional school.

That doesn’t sound too crazy. My wife had a 4.2 many years ago when GPAs were not inflated and did better on the SAT. She was only accepted to UCSB. Nowadays a 4.2 is nothing. I taught kids with 4.5s at UCI during my TA days in grad school. Did he apply to UCR? No way UCR would reject him. Anyways, they are admitting the Chinese who pay cash up front. The UCI student parking lot has more $500k+ cars than a wall street firm’s parking lot.

But that isn't really the point of the thread. The point is that this "pissed off taxpayer" thinks his son has somehow been screwed out of his birthright because he can't attend one of seven schools. But there are several other strong schools with cheap in-state tuition, all of which he probably would have been admitted to had he applied. People in Colorado, to name just one state, would kill for the chance to attend a school like San Diego State for 8k a year in tuition (CU Boulder in-state tuition is $13k and rising.) Or compare the Cal Polys ($11k in-state) to CO School of Mines (almost $20k in-state).

OP seems to want to make some point about unfair admissions decisions but the real unsolvable problem is that there are too many smart California high school graduates with high grades and they all apply to the same schools. Nothing wrong with tossing your hat in the ring but you should probably be aware that there are other options and that you're lucky to have them. A big step towards solving the problem would just be to stop everyone's fixation with the same handful of schools that will never be able to grow enough to keep up with demand. The fact that 150,000 high school seniors think that UCLA is the perfect school for them AND that they have a shot at hell in getting in does not reflect well on the way we talk to high schoolers about choosing a college.

UC admissions have beenr ace blind since 1996 when a Black man, Ward Connerly, pushed through legislation to make it that way. Asians form the MAJORITY of many UCs and anyone who has attended one (I did all the way through my Ph.D.) knows this.

Then how do you explain the hundreds of thousands of Asians who have attended and graduated from UCs in this century alone? The idea that the UCs, which have had race-blind admissions since 1996, a fact of state law that is not a matter of debate no matter how many idiots on LetsB.S. want to argue about it, somehow discriminate against Asians is laughable. Asians make up the majority of students at many UCs. I have three UC degrees. Asians outnumbered everyone else by a wide, wide margin.

The OP is a jack-leg loser.

No, it's not true. You've never been to a UC campus, let alone graduated from a UC. Most of the students at the UCs are Asian. Berkeley, UCLA, UCR, etc. If you go to Berkeley right now, virtually the only Black people you will see there are student-athletes and janitors.

Stop f'ing complaining. The OP is most likely a troll and a liar. He's most definitely a loser.

Yep. I taught in the CA community colleges for many years and saw countless students matriculate to UCs in precisely this manner. Guess what, LetsRun? Most of them were ASIAN.

Just to put some numbers on it:

UCLA undergrad is 33% Asian/Pacific Islander, 26% white, 21% Hispanic, 5% black.

I can only find high school demographic information on California public high schools, but they are 57% hispanic, 22% white, 12% Asian, and 5% black. I'm sure when you account for private high schools that skews a bit, but the idea that you're penalized for being white or especially Asian in CA college admissions is insane.

Depends on the Asian wave. Vietnamese did that a lot in the '80s. The wave(s) of wealthy Chinese high-end real estate inflators and their families are not going to community colleges at the same rate.

^This

Circling back here with a few responses. I disclosed my obvious bias (mad tax-paying parent) in my op so take this fwiw and thanks to those who have constructively responded.

1. Kid's race should not matter if the UCs are truly color blind. Some posters say it does and others say it does not. Question: if my kid was able to check off the Native American box on the app, do you think (s)he would have been admitted to at least 1 school? More than 1? All? If yes, how is the admission process color-blind?

2. The main point of my post was that the UC school's admission process is a joke because it punishes California tax-payers. Any and all in-state applicants should be admitted over other similarly-situated out of state and international applicants. There are other states with mandates that a certain % of in-state applicants must be admitted. Saying that there are too many applicants to do this is a convenient cop-out when at the same time, the broken state of California is turning its back on those who fund the state via its exorbitant tax rate.

3. I am actually an adjunct instructor at a local JC and am well aware of the TAG program. It is a wonderful opportunity for JC students. Unfortunately, very few of them take advantage. I implore all my students to do so. You can lead a horse to water ...

4. To the poster that said being poor makes you more "well-rounded" no it does not. It makes you poor. Being poor and overcoming adversity because of that fact is a different story of course. But if that fact alone results in a lesser academically qualified student being admitted over one with my kid's credentials, you've only proven my point for me; California's UC admissions are broken.

5. Finally, while the rejections are difficult for my kid in the moment, they will be laughable in the end. Just a small bump in the road. (S)he will be just fine and whatever school (s)he chooses to call home will be lucky to have her/him. On a larger scale though, the problems that the state of California continues to create for its tax-payers across the board are very concerning. This is just one example.

It does help taxpayers. Out of state kids pay more so they help the state. The process doesn't help you. I don't think it is right but it is California and California is sort of nutty.

I don't understand why it's a problem for tax payers. You have people willing to pay 3X as much as Californians, of course they'll accept out of state kids. The same thing happens throughout the country. My kid, no genius, was accepted into some good Big10 state schools, I suspect to expand their profile and in the hope that we'll pay the 10, 20, or 30 thousand more than their own state kids are willing to pay. They even threw us some aid and placed in some good programs and dorms. NY does the same for out of state kids. He has friends who were denied admission to Stonybrook's cs major but accepted into Wisconsin, Maryland and even Northeastern.

It's a problem for those denied admission but it generates revenue.

One thing I've learned this year is that the whole admissions process makes no sense. It is a game and it helps to learn how to play it.

Fortunately, there are so many good choices out there.

Just responding to a couple of these:

1. UC schools are legally prohibited from using race in admissions decisions. I'm not sure how many times this can be reiterated. There are boxes to check regarding race (and you're always given the option not the check any box) because federal law requires the collection of demographic data. Checking Native American would have done nothing for your child's application prospects. It's just a fact.

2. Almost 90% of UC students are California residents. They will guarantee anyone in the top 9% of CA high school students or the top 9% of a participating high school a spot (it will be at Merced, though). Even if they went to 100% in-state they would not be close to accommodating every highly qualified CA HS graduate. If you want to mitigate this problem you should either be willing to pay more taxes, so that that the UC can expand existing campuses and build more, or be advocating to divert current spending on prisons, roads, etc. to the UC general fund. See numbers and details here:

edsource.org

New report: California must address imbalance of too many eligible students and not enough slots at UC and CSU

Ashley A. Smith

A new report urges California to take steps to create more spaces at UC and CSU for qualified students, especially Black and Latino students who are underrepresented among enrolled students.

Link:edsource.org/2021/too-many-eligible-ca...

5. I am glad you recognize that this is just a bump in the road. The freakout by students and parents about college admissions is just a completely unhealthy and unnecessary element of contemporary American life. The vast majority of students are going to find a good fit somewhere that provides them a great opportunity to do/study/become whatever they want to be. But it's hard to take you seriously about getting ripped off by the state of California when you're ignoring an excellent and cheap CSU system that your child would have easily been admitted to (not to mention UC-Riverside, if that is indeed the school they did not apply to). Pretty much every resident of a Mountain West would love to have the sorts of options that CA residents have when it comes to affordable higher education.

How naive do you think people are?

Harvard claims they don't discriminate also, and yet somehow all the asian students have no personality.

The whole point of eliminating the SAT from admissions consideration is to get rid of the only 'objective' criteria and allow more play from admissions.

Do you really think the admissions folks in the UC system don't let the box that was checked affect their rankings?

Can they consider income? How do they pass over more qualified instate kids for international ones?