There are A LOT of kids with lower GPAs and lower SATs getting into the schools where your kid got waitlisted. Because, you know. The Golden State no more. Your parents or grandparents were hearty enough to move across the country to California. You can summon some of that pluck and move to a sane red state.
Yeah go to a red state for "education" ......... um nope
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?
They literally never see that information. The data gets sent to an institutional research gathering department and the federal government in disaggregated form. It does not appear on materials that reviewers see.
I have no idea what you're talking about with Harvard other than wanting to make a racist comment. Harvard absolutely uses race in admissions. They are defending the use of affirmative action in the Supreme Court right now. You might have heard about it.
And the SAT has been shown over and over and over again to be far less predictive of college GPA than HS GPA is.
No it hasn't been shown to be far less predictive because high school GPA closely mirrors test scores. Your statement leads people to believe that the two things are in conflict. Of course test scores are predictive of GPA. How well are 100 kids with 16 on the ACT going to do in comparison to 100 kids with 36 on the ACT in college?
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.
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.
Not the point of the thread, but it was the point of the guy I was replying to who seems to think SDSU is a better than 4 UCs. That’s laughable. You can argue the location is better and that you’ll have more fun in San Diego, but there’s no comparison education wise.
“SDSU is a hidden gem. It's better than Santa Cruz, Riverside, Merced, and Davis in my opinion.”
Plenty of CSUs that are excellent. Or start at a community college, get a 4.0 (since they are so smart) an be practically guaranteed admission to a top 3 UC. California has plenty of options for up-and-coming students academically.
1450 sat = 96th percentile
Cal Berk SAT avg: 1415 25th percentile: 1300 75th: 1530
For a non-recruited athlete a 1450 is danger zone at UC Berkeley.
You have to remember that athletes drag down SAT averages. The average SAT of a Harvard admit is quite a big lower than the average SAT of the Harvard applicant pool.
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.
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.
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:
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.
“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).”
Finally someone who knows how the UCs get around their race blind admissions. If your child went to Crenshaw high, they would have been accepted to more colleges. As stated, the 9% is for the whole system, which is why UCR ends up with more minority students. So I guess your mistake was living in white suburbia.
No it hasn't been shown to be far less predictive because high school GPA closely mirrors test scores. Your statement leads people to believe that the two things are in conflict. Of course test scores are predictive of GPA. How well are 100 kids with 16 on the ACT going to do in comparison to 100 kids with 36 on the ACT in college?
Students’ high-school grade point averages are five times stronger than their ACT scores at predicting college graduation, according to a new study from the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research. UChicago Consortium researchers found that the predictive power of GPAs is consistent across high schools—something that did not hold true for test scores. At many high schools, they discovered no connection between students’ ACT scores and eventual college graduation. The authors were also surprised to find that, at some high schools, students with the highest ACT scores were less likely to succeed in college. These findings suggest that college admissions may be overemphasizing test scores, or that high school students with high test scores may be less prepared for demanding college programs than they believe.
We should also allow campuses to build a lot more school-owned housing, Berkeley is struggling with this because nearby homeowners complain of "noise." Berkeley should have 60k undergrads to adequately serve California.
You should move from Berkeley if you dont want to be around college kids in a town that is solely known for its college.
Finally someone who knows how the UCs get around their race blind admissions. If your child went to Crenshaw high, they would have been accepted to more colleges. As stated, the 9% is for the whole system, which is why UCR ends up with more minority students. So I guess your mistake was living in white suburbia.
Latinos were the largest group admitted for the second year in a row, making up 37%. Asian Americans made up 34%, white students 20% and Black students 5%.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The University of California admitted its largest and most diverse undergraduate class ever after receiving a record number of applications, officials announced. The university system’s nine undergraduate...
The demographics of CA public high schools are 57% hispanic, 22% white, 12% Asian, and 5% black. UC has more non-white students because... California has more non-white students.
Cal Berk SAT avg: 1415 25th percentile: 1300 75th: 1530
For a non-recruited athlete a 1450 is danger zone at UC Berkeley.
You have to remember that athletes drag down SAT averages. The average SAT of a Harvard admit is quite a big lower than the average SAT of the Harvard applicant pool.
Danger zone? At Berkeley for an in-state candidate? Consider the number of athletes as a percentage of all admits. So yeah, the average is dragged down by a number of outliers, but not by that much. And so a score above the mean, above the median as "danger zone"? Nah.
Also, I didn't look carefully, but I didn't see intended major. For CS or engineering, that SAT would be competitive at most Cal schools only if the math were 800 and it were paired with some good AP courses/results in STEM fields.
For a non-recruited athlete a 1450 is danger zone at UC Berkeley.
You have to remember that athletes drag down SAT averages. The average SAT of a Harvard admit is quite a big lower than the average SAT of the Harvard applicant pool.
Danger zone? At Berkeley for an in-state candidate? Consider the number of athletes as a percentage of all admits. So yeah, the average is dragged down by a number of outliers, but not by that much. And so a score above the mean, above the median as "danger zone"? Nah.
Also, I didn't look carefully, but I didn't see intended major. For CS or engineering, that SAT would be competitive at most Cal schools only if the math were 800 and it were paired with some good AP courses/results in STEM fields.
I don't think a near average SAT is going to get you into any selective/highly-selective college without a major extra-curricular pull. But its been a while since I went to college!
Danger zone? At Berkeley for an in-state candidate? Consider the number of athletes as a percentage of all admits. So yeah, the average is dragged down by a number of outliers, but not by that much. And so a score above the mean, above the median as "danger zone"? Nah.
Also, I didn't look carefully, but I didn't see intended major. For CS or engineering, that SAT would be competitive at most Cal schools only if the math were 800 and it were paired with some good AP courses/results in STEM fields.
I don't think a near average SAT is going to get you into any selective/highly-selective college without a major extra-curricular pull. But its been a while since I went to college!
It's not a "near-average SAT." It's above the median of those students who matriculated at Cal-Berkeley (or were admitted, or from one of those groups where the scores were not required and so were more likely to be higher than the actual median of those admitted/matriculated). A 1450 is 99th %ile for that age nationally, 96th %ile of SAT users (roughly on par with a sample of likely college admits). So > 50% actually at Cal-Berkeley had lower SAT scores than OP's child, and I doubt all of them had "major extra-curricular pull."
I don't think a near average SAT is going to get you into any selective/highly-selective college without a major extra-curricular pull. But its been a while since I went to college!
It's not a "near-average SAT." It's above the median of those students who matriculated at Cal-Berkeley (or were admitted, or from one of those groups where the scores were not required and so were more likely to be higher than the actual median of those admitted/matriculated). A 1450 is 99th %ile for that age nationally, 96th %ile of SAT users (roughly on par with a sample of likely college admits). So > 50% actually at Cal-Berkeley had lower SAT scores than OP's child, and I doubt all of them had "major extra-curricular pull."
1) I cannot find the median score data anywhere, if you have please show me!
2) You are conflating having an SAT in the 50 %ile range with having a 50% chance of admission. This is false. Most students with lower SAT scores have a significant pull. Otherwise they wouldnt be admitted! Remember the average SAT of Harvard rejects is higher than Harvard admits, so based on your analysis a lower SAT score increases your chance of admission to Harvard!
I got in to multiple UCs last year with a 4.5, 1530 SAT, captain of xc team etc. Doing math and computer science at a good one now. Sounds like they should have worked harder on academics in high school to be qualified. I'm white, if any of you chuds actually think that matters. 4.2 and 1450 just... isn't very good
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?
They literally never see that information. The data gets sent to an institutional research gathering department and the federal government in disaggregated form. It does not appear on materials that reviewers see.
I have no idea what you're talking about with Harvard other than wanting to make a racist comment. Harvard absolutely uses race in admissions. They are defending the use of affirmative action in the Supreme Court right now. You might have heard about it.
And the SAT has been shown over and over and over again to be far less predictive of college GPA than HS GPA is.
So you do think people are pretty naive.
In addition to schools being pretty segregated so you pretty much know the applicants race, here is an example question on the UC admissions application:
"Describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to overcome this challenge. How has this challenge affected your academic achievement?"
Let's give an answer that will probably be considered pretty well in Ca:
As a trans person of color, the systematic racism of this country is the biggest challenge blah blah blah.
Do you think it is not well known that if you can make it clear that you are not white or asian in the application it is going to help?
It is against federal law to discriminate based on race in admissions. Because the supreme court is the supreme court and so can't take the law at face value, schools are allowed 'limited' use of race to get more 'diversity' in the student body.
It is obvious, however, that Harvard doesn't meet the standard allowed by the Supreme Court, which is why they claim they don't discriminate. Through discovery in the discrimination lawsuit, the admissions rankings were obtained. According to Harvard, asians have no personality.
Plenty of CSUs that are excellent. Or start at a community college, get a 4.0 (since they are so smart) an be practically guaranteed admission to a top 3 UC. California has plenty of options for up-and-coming students academically.
1450 sat = 96th percentile
Cal Berk SAT avg: 1415 25th percentile: 1300 75th: 1530
The average SAT score nationwide is abysmal. 96th percentile to get into selective schools is not sufficient. I stand by what I said. A 1450 is getting at least 10 questions wrong, on a very very easy test. It's a decent score, but not particularly impressive.
