tydog;842487452 said:

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I'm a third generation bear and made that well known in my essay. I'm not sure if it made a difference, but I got in with grades and test scores that were right about the median for my incoming class. This was about 15 years ago, so times may have changed.

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You only submit one application to the UCs today. So, if you play up the fact that you are a legacy Bear, then you run the risk of alienating other UC admissions officers.

rhinowl;842487455 said:

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You only submit one application to the UCs today. So, if you play up the fact that you are a legacy Bear, then you run the risk of alienating other UC admissions officers.

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That was a risk I was willing to take (although it may have been the reason I didn't get into UCLA).

XXXBEAR;842487429 said:

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Let's show a little empathy. From a parent's standpoint it hurts.

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YuSeeBerkeley;842487431 said:

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I swear there are some real dbags here. A guy comes here to vent about how his kid got rejected at his alma mater, and everybody's reaction is to just tell him that his kid is nothing special.

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I would, except the OP comes across like an entitled whiner. We brag about Berkeley's selectivity and academic standing, but that is enabled by rejecting tons of otherwise qualified candidates. We joke about Stanford letting in legacies and parent's "buying" their kid's way in, but somehow Cal should have the same policy when it suits them? It's incredible sour grapes. Somehow the politicians tagging a few kids every year (this isn't verifiable, but I wouldn't be shocked if it were true) impedes you from taking one of the 13,000 other spots. Or the underhanded dig at first generation college attendees. Yeah, the admissions department fulfilling it's role as a public institution, how dare they!

tydog;842487456 said:

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That was a risk I was willing to take (although it may have been the reason I didn't get into UCLA).

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Now you can say you have two things in common with DeSean Jackson.

While a 4.5 and 4.3 gap are impressive, the real question is what was their class ranking? There should be real gripes if they're in the top 3-5% but otherwise not so much.

jackbauerish;842487368 said:

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Two kids from different Cal families with 4.5 and 4.3 GPAs; ACT scores in the upper 30% percentile of admitted students; extracurriculars the length of War and Peace and all of their parents graduated from Cal are denied admission, however admitted to Usc, Ucla, Claremont, Duke and Vanderbilt. ANd they want money from alums???If they had just checked the unverifiable box their parents didn't attend college and not tell the truth!:headbang
Pretty shi**y when Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi and other politicians get all their friends and family tagged!

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This is unlikely consolation, but most of us oldies would not get into Cal these days its so competitive. The other schools your kids got into are nothing to sneer at. Heck, if your child wants to work in SoCal they probably are better off with a Claremont, UCLA or SC degree. UC always will allow their political elites to select a few students, but its a much smaller then the percentage of legacy donors getting their kids into private schools. I do think that overtime support for UCs will erode if they are viewed as elitist and unobtainable, and having made the reunion phone calls, I know that many alums are no longer donating because of the admission policies. Your not alone in withdrawing support.

93Bear;842487463 said:

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While a 4.5 and 4.3 gap are impressive, the real question is what was their class ranking? There should be real gripes if they're in the top 3-5% but otherwise not so much.

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what does class rank have to with it? it could be a really good HS and a lot of Ivy league candidates...

Withdrawing support for public education because my kid doesn't get in. How egalitarian.

Unfortunately this story is hardly unique. You can't praise Cal's selectivity and brutal meritocracy but not expect some collateral damage. These kids are hardly screwed, they still have excellent options and can transfer or attend grad school at Cal if they do well elsewhere. I didn't apply to any schools I had zero interest in attending. The kids who are really hosed are the ones being denied by ASU or similar schools. They don't have other attractive higher education options

Have some friends whose daughter went to Hopkins as an undergrad, grad school at Columbia, med school at NYU, and they were worried she would be upset if she didn't get into UCSF for residency. She didn't and had to settle for Northwestern, where she became Chief Resident. What a horrible tragedy.

conservativebear;842487416 said:

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UCLA is now the toughest UC to gain admission to, so more power to them on that. Ridiculously tough now to get to Westwood. Depends on what ranking system you're looking at in terms of Berkeley being ranked higher than Duke, for many, a private school whose prestige has become comparable to Stanford's outside the Ivy League.

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It's not, Cal acceptance rate dropped below UCLA two years ago. In fact the acceptance rate at SC is lower than in Westwood. And as was mentioned already, our pool has a slight edge in literally every metric. Our pool is overall better.

interesting thread

a 4.3 and a 4.5 is not THAT great when you compare that to what other kids get nowadays. With all the APs you can take and all else, you need to get above a 4.5 to really keep pace with the other applicants. There are a ton of schools that offer AP's staring your freshman year, which then give you so many chances to get the highest GPA. Honestly, it's put your kid or a kid of a close friend on a pedestal, but in the end, those stats the OP list are pretty ordinary.

Well...he said in the top 30% of admitted students, not applicants.

1979bear;842487449 said:

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I view JCs as less competitive than good high schools. That may not be true today, but I don't know that. When I came out of high schooI, we called the local JC a high school with ashtrays. I know the JCs are supposed to be feeders to the UCs. I do not see why these days an excellent JC student would have much of a chance at getting in to Cal. One of the other campuses, maybe. But not Cal.

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Our counseling department tell us that at the best JC's our transfer students do BETTER in upper division classes than students who start at UC. When they leave us they are ready to compete. Our best are good enough for Cal.

Golden One;842487385 said:

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That's precisely the problem; it's not true. Today, it seems to be an advantage if your from out of state and/or if your parents can't afford to pay your way. If your parents are doctors, lawyers or other professionals your odds of getting into Cal are not good.

I've become so disillusioned with Cal's admission practices that I've decided to no longer make my annual contributions to academic departments.

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Me too. Stopped donating two years ago. It's now a 5 figure loss for the university. That number will continue to grow. Fortunately there's plenty of other non-profits worthy of my donations.

Interestingly, on a side note, the university is so clueless about its donors / alumni, I havent had any reach out to find out why I've stopped.

PapaBear93;842487381 said:

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I know I wouldn't be admitted if I applied today. Who knows what the admissions officers are thinking on a particular day and what their mood is. Certainly feel for those families.

However, I disagree with jackbauerish that having parents who are Cal alumni and who may donate to their alma mater should make any difference in whether their child gets a leg up or not in the admissions game. The beauty of the UC and CSU system is that they are equal access for all residents of our wonderful state. This embodies America's spirit of equal opportunity for all. I certainly wouldn't want my kids to get into Cal because of my alumus and donation status. It should be based on their merits and their merits alone.

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I think you'd have a valid point -- IF the state paid the vast majority of tuition. The reality is Berkeley is effectively a private school now given the cost of tuition and what poor portion the state actually pays. Donations matter, and it's impractical to think that should not factor into the admissions process.

Dbearson;842487447 said:

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Is upper 30% good? I'm not sure of what it is now but I remember when I was doing the SATs, we were aiming for higher than that

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It depends.......
For applicants, maybe not.
For football........seems to be the bar that it strives for.

Cheers!

"The stats are available, the out of state kids have higher everything than the in state kids."

If you got 'em, please post 'em?

"The real problem is that because of budget cuts and rising costs, Cal "balances" the class with out of state and foreign students who pay full tuition. "

That is a common misconception perpetuated by the UC spinmeisters. The fact is that UC provides need-based aid to OOS students.

Cal is the most popular UC for OOS and internationals...

P.S. fwiw: local HS kid admitted to MIT and a slew of other top privates, interviewed at UCLA for Regents, but denied at Cal.

I'll save you the pleasure of googling that yourself. But the average GPA, ACT, SAT are all higher for out of state admits AND applicants.

CalBearinLA;842487491 said:

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a 4.3 and a 4.5 is not THAT great when you compare that to what other kids get nowadays. With all the APs you can take and all else, you need to get above a 4.5 to really keep pace with the other applicants. There are a ton of schools that offer AP's staring your freshman year, which then give you so many chances to get the highest GPA. Honestly, it's put your kid or a kid of a close friend on a pedestal, but in the end, those stats the OP list are pretty ordinary.

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This is also why class rank is an important indicator. My HS capped GPA's at 4.32. So basically, you could get the AP GPA bump for some limited number of classes, but then couldn't go up anymore. Another school in my city only offered two or three AP classes period, and so it was actually impossible for students to get those crazy high GPA's. Because of stuff like this the UC recalculates GPA's on their own standard scale, in which case knowing the GPA that a kid has on their HS report card doesn't mean that you know the GPA that they have from the standpoint of UC. Even in that case, if your school only offers a few AP's and you're #1 in your class, that should count for something, which is why the UC has the Eligibility in Local Context program, which draws students from the top-9% of any given participating HS.

As for other people's posts about JC transfers, I teach a bunch of them at another school, and they're often the best students. Think about it: an 18 year old frosh is already accepted, and many of them spend the first two years "figuring college out." A JC transfer has known that they were going to transfer from the beginning and been working like crazy to get accepted, not to mention the fact that a number of them could've gone to a UC straight out of HS but just didn't have the money/desire to pay for a full 4-years. Plenty of them are also a little older when they come in and have some real-world experience, which often makes them better students.

"This is also why class rank is an important indicator."

While it maybe, class rank is NOT an admissions criteria used by UC.

"I'll save you the pleasure of googling that yourself. But the average GPA, ACT, SAT are all higher for out of state admits AND applicants.."

Nice try. Back when UC used to publish that info (~5 years ago), the OOS matriculants did not have higher GPA's.....test scores may have been higher, but since UC does not value them so highly, they are not as relevant.

Big Dog;842487516 said:

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"I'll save you the pleasure of googling that yourself. But the average GPA, ACT, SAT are all higher for out of state admits AND applicants.."

Nice try. Back when UC used to publish that info (~5 years ago), the OOS matriculants did not have higher GPA's.....test scores may have been higher, but since UC does not value them so highly, they are not as relevant.

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They still publish this data and you are wrong.

berk18;842487511 said:

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This is also why class rank is an important indicator. My HS capped GPA's at 4.32. So basically, you could get the AP GPA bump for some limited number of classes, but then couldn't go up anymore. Another school in my city only offered two or three AP classes period, and so it was actually impossible for students to get those crazy high GPA's. Because of stuff like this the UC recalculates GPA's on their own standard scale, in which case knowing the GPA that a kid has on their HS report card doesn't mean that you know the GPA that they have from the standpoint of UC. Even in that case, if your school only offers a few AP's and you're #1 in your class, that should count for something, which is why the UC has the Eligibility in Local Context program, which draws students from the top-9% of any given participating HS.

As for other people's posts about JC transfers, I teach a bunch of them at another school, and they're often the best students. Think about it: an 18 year old frosh is already accepted, and many of them spend the first two years "figuring college out." A JC transfer has known that they were going to transfer from the beginning and been working like crazy to get accepted, not to mention the fact that a number of them could've gone to a UC straight out of HS but just didn't have the money/desire to pay for a full 4-years. Plenty of them are also a little older when they come in and have some real-world experience, which often makes them better students.

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My sister and I are fourth generation Cal grads and both of us transfered from JCs to Cal. I dropped out of high school but maintained a 4.0 GPA at my JC. I was admitted to all 3 UCs I applied to and had a full scholarship offer from UCLA.

Keep in mind the grade inflation at JCs is a lot more contained than it is in highschool and the ability to go over a 4.0 doesn't exist (there are no +/- in JC).

You tend to have two groups of people at JCs. People who are busting their rump to get to the next level and get into a UC school, and those who are there because their parents say they have to be...but if you work your ass off you are rewarded with a good education and undergrad classes with 30 people in them instead of 300 like you might get at UC Berkeley. You are also taught by people passionate about the subject matter AND about teaching instead of getting a majority of your information from someone who has to teach to fund their research and GSIs.

As far as Cal and UCLA go...I did notice a huge bias towards sending nor cal kids to UCLA and socal kids to Cal if all other things are equal. If you are in the bay area there is a chance that there was some in state location bias to get kids living away from home for college. I know 90% of my frat was from socal and I was the only person I met at Cal in my time there that grew up in Berkeley.

~MrGPAC

Big Dog;842487515 said:

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"This is also why class rank is an important indicator."

While it maybe, class rank is NOT an admissions criteria used by UC.

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50% of admissions is based on "local context" with the top 2% of every California public high school pretty much guaranteed admission. Your best chance is excelling at a large public high school with plenty of AP and honors options but where most of the kids do not want to take them. Or go the JC route (and go to class, do the work conscientiously).

pingpong2;842487518 said:

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They still publish this data and you are wrong.

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Just post it and be done with the argument

Big Dog;842487515 said:

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"This is also why class rank is an important indicator."

While it maybe, class rank is NOT an admissions criteria used by UC.

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It creeps in. ELC status, for example, is a factor in the review of applications. So, if a student comes from a school that offers only a few AP classes and has a 2100 SAT but "only" a 4.2 GPA, admissions can note that they're in the top 9% of their HS in terms of GPA. That's a way to balance that application vs. someone who's 40th in their class with comparable test scores but a 4.7 GPA.

conservativebear;842487416 said:

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UCLA is now the toughest UC to gain admission to, so more power to them on that. Ridiculously tough now to get to Westwood. Depends on what ranking system you're looking at in terms of Berkeley being ranked higher than Duke, for many, a private school whose prestige has become comparable to Stanford's outside the Ivy League.

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This is incorrect. Ucla gets more applications since it is in SoCal where 2/3 of the state's population resides.

In terms of admissions averages, Cal is ever so slightly higher in both GPA and SAT averages as of the data for the Fall 2014 entering class, although the difference between the profiles of the admitted classes at both school is so small as to be insignificant.

According to a story in the San Jose Mercury News a few weeks ago, the estimated Fall 2015 admissions rate for Ucla was 16.3% and for Cal was 13.5%. Again, those are just estimates since UC Office of the President declined to release admissions stats in late April like they usually do, instead saying they will release the data in May.

calumnus;842487526 said:

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50% of admissions is based on "local context" with the top 2% of every California public high school pretty much guaranteed admission. Your best chance is excelling at a large public high school with plenty of AP and honors options but where most of the kids do not want to take them. Or go the JC route (and go to class, do the work conscientiously).

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Dirks and Napolitano are both believers in first generation students going to college and have made initiatives for same. See quotes below from http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2014/01/16/dirks-takes-berkeley-model-of-improving-college-access-to-white-house-summit/

"Berkeley, the top public university in the country, stands out for its accessibility programs for low-income and first-generation college students. The percentage of Berkeley undergraduate students receiving federal Pell Grants for low-income students, 33 percent, is about double the percentage for the eight elite Ivy League schools at 17 percent. Pell Grant students at Berkeley outnumber all the Ivy League schools combined.

As a measure of their success, 84 percent of Berkeley's Pell students who started in fall of 2006 graduated within six years.

Campus outreach efforts also have increased the number of students who are the first in their family to go to college more than 25 percent as of fall 2010. "

Hail2Calif;842487438 said:

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AP (Advanced Placement) and Honors classes in High School get an 1 point bump (ie - an A is worth 5, an B is worth 4, etc). I do not know how a class is determined to really be an AP or Honors class - whether that is left up to various school districts or if there is some independent means to determine if the class is truly challenging enough to warrant the extra 1 point.

If half a kid's classes are AP or Honors classes and half are "regular" and the kid gets straight A's, then the GPA for UC purposes is 4.5

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All high school Honors classes,to get UC credit, must be approved by UC. Advanced Placement classes are authorized only by the College Board, which also runs the SAT. Each course must have an approved syllabus and presumably dedicated teacher. Although the AP classes are unevenly distributed between poor and rich schools, sometimes, the better the school the FEWER the AP classes, and early college high schools just send kids directly to JC in their junior and senior year of high school.

GB54;842487535 said:

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Dirks and Napolitano are both believers in first generation students going to college and have made initiatives for same. See quotes below from http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2014/01/16/dirks-takes-berkeley-model-of-improving-college-access-to-white-house-summit/

"Berkeley, the top public university in the country, stands out for its accessibility programs for low-income and first-generation college students. The percentage of Berkeley undergraduate students receiving federal Pell Grants for low-income students, 33 percent, is about double the percentage for the eight elite Ivy League schools at 17 percent. Pell Grant students at Berkeley outnumber all the Ivy League schools combined.

As a measure of their success, 84 percent of Berkeley's Pell students who started in fall of 2006 graduated within six years.

Campus outreach efforts also have increased the number of students who are the first in their family to go to college more than 25 percent as of fall 2010. "

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"Campus outreach" efforts are to the high schools (think Central Valley) where the top 2% often do not apply--it is to encourage kids to apply to Cal not a stated admission preference.

XXXBEAR;842487538 said:

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All high school Honors classes,to get UC credit, must be approved by UC. Advanced Placement classes are authorized only by the College Board, which also runs the SAT. Each course must have an approved syllabus and presumably dedicated teacher. Although the AP classes are unevenly distributed between poor and rich schools, sometimes, the better the school the FEWER the AP classes, and early college high schools just send kids directly to JC in their junior and senior year of high school.

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My daughters went to a very competitive high school (Mission San Jose in Fremont) where nearly everyone wants every AP class possible so they ration them. Even though they send more kids to Cal than any other high school on the planet, most of those kids would have an easier path at another high school (if they worked as hard, which maybe they wouldn't with less peer pressure?).

As admissions have gotten more selective in the US, the process has become more chaotic. It used to be easier to predict where a student of a certain profile would or would not be admitted. Another factor is which college within Cal one applies to - engineering and chemistry are especially competitive, for example. CNR is widely believed to be less competitive.

XXXBEAR;842487538 said:

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All high school Honors classes,to get UC credit, must be approved by UC. Advanced Placement classes are authorized only by the College Board, which also runs the SAT. Each course must have an approved syllabus and presumably dedicated teacher. Although the AP classes are unevenly distributed between poor and rich schools, sometimes, the better the school the FEWER the AP classes, and early college high schools just send kids directly to JC in their junior and senior year of high school.

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The flaw in this though is that you can get an A and also flunk the SAT AP test in that subject. The grade may result from a crappy teacher or peer group

Well, I know for a fact this kid got in with a 3.7 from Ohio.