This was posted on the Berkeley.edu news page today.

http://news.berkeley.edu/2018/07/11/students-with-wide-array-of-talents-strong-academics-admitted-to-freshman-class/

That's a 15.1% without gaming 'early admissions' like just about every private school in America. And it includes kids on the waiting list.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2017/10/07/what-vanderbilt-northwestern-and-other-elite-colleges-dont-say-about-acceptance-rates/?utm_term=.720cffd9c760

socaliganbear said:

---

That's a 15.1% without gaming 'early admissions' like just about every private school in America. And it includes kids on the waiting list.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2017/10/07/what-vanderbilt-northwestern-and-other-elite-colleges-dont-say-about-acceptance-rates/?utm_term=.720cffd9c760

---

Thanks for posting. The article was very informative
It bolsters my feeling that it is difficult to determine whether those of us who were admitted to Cal long ago could or could not get into Cal today
First of all when I applied there were no AP classes, no SAT preparation classes, no college admission counsellors/programs/advisers/coaches, no early admissions, no guidance on how to Game the system, no GPAs higher than 4.0, No wide spread grade inflation at the HS level.

Yes there were a growing number of applicants (at the start of the Baby Boom Generation) but applying to more than a few colleges was almost unheard of. So the info in the attached article totally screws up an attempt to to make legitimate comparisons.

So in my view comparing Cal applicants then and now is a lot like comparing Major League Baseball players then and now.

People do what they have to do to get what they want. I cruised in high school and took the SAT one time, w/o prep work (well, I read the sample questions they sent me) and I stayed out drinking till about 1 AM the night before.

I'd have to take things a little more seriously.

Still, nope, I wouldn't get in today. My high school used to send 30-35 freshmen to Cal. Now, it's 8-10. I'd have to go the community college route.

It's more difficult to get into cal undergrad than graduate school, Neither of my sons were admitted to Cal as freshman. Both got into grad school at Cal. Go figure?

calumnus said:

---

Big C said:

---

People do what they have to do to get what they want. I cruised in high school and took the SAT one time, w/o prep work (well, I read the sample questions they sent me) and I stayed out drinking till about 1 AM the night before.

I'd have to take things a little more seriously.

Still, nope, I wouldn't get in today. My high school used to send 30-35 freshmen to Cal. Now, it's 8-10. I'd have to go the community college route.

---

Exactly my story. Got in on high SATs, taken one time before I'd ever heard of prep classes and maybe a B plus average. I also got into Stanford (as a legacy).

The sad thing was my daughter, who grew up a huge Cal fan only wanting to go to Cal, hanging out in Berkeley on weekends, did not get in despite having a 2250 SAT and 3.9 GPA at perhaps the most competitive high school in the country, was a National Achievement Scholar (top 1% of African Americans in the country), first place in the Fremont Science Fair, was a paid speaker for Stanford's Department of Education and received unsolicited scholarship offers from schools all over the country. She wanted to go to a UC and got into UCSD on appeal where she was one of 40 African Americans in an entering class of 5,000 and had to face harassment and face down adult neo-Nazi and KKK "protesters" from North San Diego County on campus in support "free speech" (a frat party called a "Compton cook-out" with racist imagery and costumes and one of the organizers defending the event on campus TV repeating the N word over and over. When she helped organize protests she then faced harassment and suspension from a dean that called her a "trouble maker." (the story, along with similar ones from Ivy League schools, is fictionalized in the movie "Dear White People").

It made me really sad. She would have had a much better experience at Cal. Though it seems similar stuff happens at Cal too now.

---

I feel bad for your child and for every qualified applicant who really wants to go to Cal but fails to get in.
Maybe she would have succeeded in getting in if she had not gone to a highly competitive HS.
I live in the Montclair area of Oakland and know that two kids in the neighborhood who got into Cal. But they attended Oakland High and Oakland Tech.
Cal was looking to increase admissions from these schools since they qualified as "inner city" schools. (BTW the kids were not minority kids.)

GivemTheAxe said:

---

calumnus said:

---

Big C said:

---

People do what they have to do to get what they want. I cruised in high school and took the SAT one time, w/o prep work (well, I read the sample questions they sent me) and I stayed out drinking till about 1 AM the night before.

I'd have to take things a little more seriously.

Still, nope, I wouldn't get in today. My high school used to send 30-35 freshmen to Cal. Now, it's 8-10. I'd have to go the community college route.

---

Exactly my story. Got in on high SATs, taken one time before I'd ever heard of prep classes and maybe a B plus average. I also got into Stanford (as a legacy).

The sad thing was my daughter, who grew up a huge Cal fan only wanting to go to Cal, hanging out in Berkeley on weekends, did not get in despite having a 2250 SAT and 3.9 GPA at perhaps the most competitive high school in the country, was a National Achievement Scholar (top 1% of African Americans in the country), first place in the Fremont Science Fair, was a paid speaker for Stanford's Department of Education and received unsolicited scholarship offers from schools all over the country. She wanted to go to a UC and got into UCSD on appeal where she was one of 40 African Americans in an entering class of 5,000 and had to face harassment and face down adult neo-Nazi and KKK "protesters" from North San Diego County on campus in support "free speech" (a frat party called a "Compton cook-out" with racist imagery and costumes and one of the organizers defending the event on campus TV repeating the N word over and over. When she helped organize protests she then faced harassment and suspension from a dean that called her a "trouble maker." (the story, along with similar ones from Ivy League schools, is fictionalized in the movie "Dear White People").

It made me really sad. She would have had a much better experience at Cal. Though it seems similar stuff happens at Cal too now.

---

I feel bad for your child and for every qualified applicant who really wants to go to Cal but fails to get in.
Maybe she would have succeeded in getting in if she had not gone to a highly competitive HS.
I live in the Montclair area of Oakland and know that two kids in the neighborhood who got into Cal. But they attended Oakland High and Oakland Tech.
Cal was looking to increase admissions from these schools since they qualified as "inner city" schools. (BTW the kids were not minority kids.)

---

I'm guessing that Oakland Tech and Oakland High got wayyyyy fewer kids in than say, the high schools on the other side of the Caldecott...

GivemTheAxe said:

---

calumnus said:

---

Big C said:

---

People do what they have to do to get what they want. I cruised in high school and took the SAT one time, w/o prep work (well, I read the sample questions they sent me) and I stayed out drinking till about 1 AM the night before.

I'd have to take things a little more seriously.

Still, nope, I wouldn't get in today. My high school used to send 30-35 freshmen to Cal. Now, it's 8-10. I'd have to go the community college route.

---

Exactly my story. Got in on high SATs, taken one time before I'd ever heard of prep classes and maybe a B plus average. I also got into Stanford (as a legacy).

The sad thing was my daughter, who grew up a huge Cal fan only wanting to go to Cal, hanging out in Berkeley on weekends, did not get in despite having a 2250 SAT and 3.9 GPA at perhaps the most competitive high school in the country, was a National Achievement Scholar (top 1% of African Americans in the country), first place in the Fremont Science Fair, was a paid speaker for Stanford's Department of Education and received unsolicited scholarship offers from schools all over the country. She wanted to go to a UC and got into UCSD on appeal where she was one of 40 African Americans in an entering class of 5,000 and had to face harassment and face down adult neo-Nazi and KKK "protesters" from North San Diego County on campus in support "free speech" (a frat party called a "Compton cook-out" with racist imagery and costumes and one of the organizers defending the event on campus TV repeating the N word over and over. When she helped organize protests she then faced harassment and suspension from a dean that called her a "trouble maker." (the story, along with similar ones from Ivy League schools, is fictionalized in the movie "Dear White People").

It made me really sad. She would have had a much better experience at Cal. Though it seems similar stuff happens at Cal too now.

---

I feel bad for your child and for every qualified applicant who really wants to go to Cal but fails to get in.
Maybe she would have succeeded in getting in if she had not gone to a highly competitive HS.
I live in the Montclair area of Oakland and know that two kids in the neighborhood who got into Cal. But they attended Oakland High and Oakland Tech.
Cal was looking to increase admissions from these schools since they qualified as "inner city" schools. (BTW the kids were not minority kids.)

---

Yes, the problem was her class rank at Mission San Jose in Fremont, then (maybe still is) Cal's single largest feeder. Your chances are better applying from a California public high school that does not normally send kids to Cal.

We have an odd thing in our family and watching it play out will be interesting coming next year. BTW, I do not give these numbers as braggadocio but to exemplify how difficult it is to get into Cal. Finishing 3 years at a public HS she has never had anything but an A---her weighted is 4.0, unweighted 4.6..From that you can figure she has taken about 60% AP and Accelerated classes. Her ACT is 33.

She is a white female, who has played club soccer since age eight, but the soccer will not help in any way at Cal. She is on the honor societies commensurate with her GPA (I don't even know the names). She is in the hierarchy of working with disadvantaged kids on a continuous basis not so much as a pad your portfolio, but more something she enjoys. I don't think many from her school go to Cal, as she is from the south OC.

Disadvantages: both parents went to UCDavis, grandparents Cal, Kansas, USC Med, UCSF.
White
All the advisement we get is that it is a roll of the dice even with these credentials. She is writing her UC essays this summer and application will be in November. Her school of choice is G'town where her sister is in the Business undergrad school playing soccer, but she does like Cal very much.

Selfishly, I want her to apply to Stanfurd and then turn them down for Cal or Georgetown but that is just funning. Yes, I know her stats are greedily good, but there is nothing about it that is a sure thing. I will update in 2019.
Shows what a jungle it is out there.

Do they still calculate GPA based on a subset of your classes from sophomore and junior years? I had a crazy high GPA for the purposes of cal admission in comparison to my actual high school GPA.

I'm hoping that when my kids apply to Cal there won't be as much competition based on the population being smaller but who knows. We are in a peak time for the current college age demographic right?

OdontoBear66 said:

---

We have an odd thing in our family and watching it play out will be interesting coming next year. BTW, I do not give these numbers as braggadocio but to exemplify how difficult it is to get into Cal. Finishing 3 years at a public HS she has never had anything but an A---her weighted is 4.0, unweighted 4.6..From that you can figure she has taken about 60% AP and Accelerated classes. Her ACT is 33.

She is a white female, who has played club soccer since age eight, but the soccer will not help in any way at Cal. She is on the honor societies commensurate with her GPA (I don't even know the names). She is in the hierarchy of working with disadvantaged kids on a continuous basis not so much as a pad your portfolio, but more something she enjoys. I don't think many from her school go to Cal, as she is from the south OC.

Disadvantages: both parents went to UCDavis, grandparents Cal, Kansas, USC Med, UCSF.
White
All the advisement we get is that it is a roll of the dice even with these credentials. She is writing her UC essays this summer and application will be in November. Her school of choice is G'town where her sister is in the Business undergrad school playing soccer, but she does like Cal very much.

Selfishly, I want her to apply to Stanfurd and then turn them down for Cal or Georgetown but that is just funning. Yes, I know her stats are greedily good, but there is nothing about it that is a sure thing. I will update in 2019.
Shows what a jungle it is out there.

---

My info may be dated but here it is.
When my kids were in the college admission process I had a long conversation with a Cal admissions officer I knew reasonably well. He said that grades and test scores were important but only roughly half the admissions were based on these factors. And to get in on these factors they had to be stellar.
The othe admits were based upon a variety of factors.
1. Cal was looking for kids that had a real passion for some endeavor and had worked hard following that passion for a long time and had received some public recognition for that effort. For example a number of admits had been Eagle Scouts since it takes years and continued effort to become an Eagle Scout and an Eagle Scout must complete a public project of some sort.
2. Cal was looking for kids who showed a concern for the public good. Kids who worked for several years with the homeless or to protect the environment
3. Cal was looking for kids who had overcome adversity or poverty
4. Cal was looking to reach out to communities that were under represented at Cal.

Then the student needed to bring these to the attention of the admissions officer reading their application. The essay was often a good way to for an distinguish himself or herself from many others who had the same grades and test scores.

Extracurriculars disproportionately benefits the affluent and well connected. How many of us spent our summer working low paying jobs to help our families out? The fancy summer internships at my work that sound good on essays are entirely given to the children of elites.

Wonder how Cal corrects for that.

GivemTheAxe said:

---

OdontoBear66 said:

---

We have an odd thing in our family and watching it play out will be interesting coming next year. BTW, I do not give these numbers as braggadocio but to exemplify how difficult it is to get into Cal. Finishing 3 years at a public HS she has never had anything but an A---her weighted is 4.0, unweighted 4.6..From that you can figure she has taken about 60% AP and Accelerated classes. Her ACT is 33.

She is a white female, who has played club soccer since age eight, but the soccer will not help in any way at Cal. She is on the honor societies commensurate with her GPA (I don't even know the names). She is in the hierarchy of working with disadvantaged kids on a continuous basis not so much as a pad your portfolio, but more something she enjoys. I don't think many from her school go to Cal, as she is from the south OC.

Disadvantages: both parents went to UCDavis, grandparents Cal, Kansas, USC Med, UCSF.
White
All the advisement we get is that it is a roll of the dice even with these credentials. She is writing her UC essays this summer and application will be in November. Her school of choice is G'town where her sister is in the Business undergrad school playing soccer, but she does like Cal very much.

Selfishly, I want her to apply to Stanfurd and then turn them down for Cal or Georgetown but that is just funning. Yes, I know her stats are greedily good, but there is nothing about it that is a sure thing. I will update in 2019.
Shows what a jungle it is out there.

---

My info may be dated but here it is.
When my kids were in the college admission process I had a long conversation with a Cal admissions officer I knew reasonably well. He said that grades and test scores were important but only roughly half the admissions were based on these factors. And to get in on these factors they had to be stellar.
The othe admits were based upon a variety of factors.
1. Cal was looking for kids that had a real passion for some endeavor and had worked hard following that passion for a long time and had received some public recognition for that effort. For example a number of admits had been Eagle Scouts since it takes years and continued effort to become an Eagle Scout and an Eagle Scout must complete a public project of some sort.
2. Cal was looking for kids who showed a concern for the public good. Kids who worked for several years with the homeless or to protect the environment
3. Cal was looking for kids who had overcome adversity or poverty
4. Cal was looking to reach out to communities that were under represented at Cal.

Then the student needed to bring these to the attention of the admissions officer reading their application. The essay was often a good way to for an distinguish himself or herself from many others who had the same grades and test scores.

---

If half of the admit class was brought in on the latter points, which it's not if you do a bit of research*, Cal 's admit stats would be dragged wayyyyy down. But they're incredibly high.

*Even by UC standards Cal does a terrible job at admitting underrepresented minorities. For example, UCLA takes in more (%) black and latino students. Cal took in the lowest % of Latino students of the entire UC. Additionally, Cal's admits have the highest median family income in the entire UC. Cal also has the fewest # of first gen students in the entire UC.

So the numbers suggest the best way to get into Cal is to not be poor, not to be first gen college student, and have incredibly high grades.

My eldest just graduated high school.
She had a 4.38 with just one A- in an AP class.
She had a 740 math and 660 verbal for a 1400 total SAT. I think that is in the 96 or 97th percentile.
That is pretty damn good! Blows me away!
Yet she was denied at UCSB and initially waitlisted at Cal Poly.
Accepted to UCSC and UCSD.
Did not even apply to Cal, ucla, Davis, for whatever reason in her teen mind she did not consider them.
I was upset that she was not more open minded about things. I simply think she was intimidated by the highly competitive nature she envisions, doesn't want to live in a big city, or close to home.
She nearly went to U of Richmond, as I had encouraged her to apply back east. She picked the schools she applied to oddly, imo, but the second she was moved off waitlist, she flipped to SLO.
It'll be okay for her. Not the trappings of living in Westwood, and she's rooming with a best friend from HS, which for her will be a plus.

But I was SHOCKED that anyone with her credentials would be waitlisted at a CSU school, or denied at UCSB!!!
I'll let you know how it goes with daughter #2 in two years. She's an even better student, but will likely also eschew the highly competitive schools, which would be good for her. She is so goddam intent on perfection that she'd drive herself crazy at a place that demanded her 24/7 focus. I'm going to try and get her to watch Race To Nowhere, and any suggestions you'll have about how to achieve life balance for a 16 year old are welcome.

Send her to Furd where just showing up rates as perfection.

Congrats on your eldest. She got into some great schools!

PS: ASU's honors college was also recommended to her and she applied and was accepted.
But you just know I would have gone crazy with my kid on the same campus as Shocky's. The honors program is well spoken for from what I've heard, but she couldn't get over the horrible academic reputation of ASU as a whole. Her degree would always say Arizona State, not Barrett Honors, which most folks have never heard of.

Well, at least my kid still is going to a college with the name "Cal" in it!

Unit2Sucks said:

---

Send her to Furd where just showing up rates as perfection.

---

Lol, I'll let her know.

It's a crapshot now. It's always been so but now more than ever.

Your daughter sounds like a remarkable person, not afraid to stand up to & against racism, is smart, good self-esteem. She clearly has the heart of a Bear!

GivemTheAxe said:

---

For example a number of admits had been Eagle Scouts since it takes years and continued effort to become an Eagle Scout and an Eagle Scout must complete a public project of some sort.

---

I remember being told the same thing when my kids were looking at colleges; they thought I was crazy to tell them they should become Eagle Scouts so they could get into Cal. One of my sons played football at Azusa Pacific (too short for D1 line play), the other decided on a program at San Jose State that facilitated him studying Shakespeare in England .

Both are huge fans of the Bears by the way.

Unit2Sucks said:

---

Extracurriculars disproportionately benefits the affluent and well connected. How many of us spent our summer working low paying jobs to help our families out? The fancy summer internships at my work that sound good on essays are entirely given to the children of elites.

Wonder how Cal corrects for that.

---

I believe that the admissions office takes into account when a student has to work at a real job and not a low paid internship.
I am a donor to Cal alumni scholarship program and all of the students I have met there told me that their "real" part time and summer jobs were considered in their admission process.

Bear19 said:

---

GivemTheAxe said:

---

For example a number of admits had been Eagle Scouts since it takes years and continued effort to become an Eagle Scout and an Eagle Scout must complete a public project of some sort.

---

I remember being told the same thing when my kids were looking at colleges; they thought I was crazy to tell them they should become Eagle Scouts so they could get into Cal. One of my sons played football at Azusa Pacific (too short for D1 line play), the other decided on a program at San Jose State that facilitated him studying Shakespeare in England .

FYI. Both my sons were Eagle Scouts and were admitted to Cal. They both lived in the dorms their Freshman year. Both said they were surprised how many of their fellow freshmen were also Eagle Scouts. ( especially since they thought they would be more like strangers in a strange land: Boy Scouts at Cal.)
Both are huge fans of the Bears by the way.

---

If I remember correctly, a large part of the admissions process is the context of the performance of the student within their respective school. So even if you probably got a much better education, at say, Mission San Jose than you would have in Oakland, if you were valedictorian at a high school in say inner-city Oakland you'd have a higher chance of getting in compared to a top 15%-10% MSJ student in even if that someone at MSJ was comparable to/surpassed you in some way. One of my best friends, who's far smarter than me, had trouble getting admitted to the UCs because she didn't perform at the absolute top of her competitive high school.

Actually Oakland Tech gets quite a few kids into Cal - like 50 per year. They have a great academic reputation, they have a relationship with the University where a number of professors at Cal teach there, and they have a very strong UC acceptance rate for the 40% of the kids there who are in their "Academy" programs. I have two friends whose kids go there and both got into Cal - neither of whom were exceptional in my opinion. If your kid is smart, Oakland Tech is the place to go for Cal admission.

I did read an analysis of the admissions of bunch of different schools - I think it was in the New York times about a week or two ago - where it said over 40% of applications to colleges now have a 4.0 or higher. Grade inflation is a real thing. This was in an article about Latin Honors and how at Harvard something like 80% of the students get "honors" degrees.

Oski87 said:

---

Actually Oakland Tech gets quite a few kids into Cal - like 50 per year. They have a great academic reputation, they have a relationship with the University where a number of professors at Cal teach there, and they have a very strong UC acceptance rate for the 40% of the kids there who are in their "Academy" programs. I have two friends whose kids go there and both got into Cal - neither of whom were exceptional in my opinion. If your kid is smart, Oakland Tech is the place to go for Cal admission.

I did read an analysis of the admissions of bunch of different schools - I think it was in the New York times about a week or two ago - where it said over 40% of applications to colleges now have a 4.0 or higher. Grade inflation is a real thing. This was in an article about Latin Honors and how at Harvard something like 80% of the students get "honors" degrees.

---

Not saying you're wrong, but I'd be really surprised if the number of Tech seniors that get accepted into Cal nowadays is anything approaching 50.

A lot of the "grade inflation" is caused by AP classes getting students an additional 1.0 bump on their GPA . What there is for sure is "AP inflation", where high schools are offering more and more AP courses and encouraging students to take them. I trace this to 10-15 years ago, when Newsweek came out with a "top 100 high schools in the country" edition and the ONLY criterion (that year anyway) was % of students enrolled in AP classes. And the race was on...

Oski87 said:

---

Actually Oakland Tech gets quite a few kids into Cal - like 50 per year. They have a great academic reputation, they have a relationship with the University where a number of professors at Cal teach there, and they have a very strong UC acceptance rate for the 40% of the kids there who are in their "Academy" programs. I have two friends whose kids go there and both got into Cal - neither of whom were exceptional in my opinion. If your kid is smart, Oakland Tech is the place to go for Cal admission.

I did read an analysis of the admissions of bunch of different schools - I think it was in the New York times about a week or two ago - where it said over 40% of applications to colleges now have a 4.0 or higher. Grade inflation is a real thing. This was in an article about Latin Honors and how at Harvard something like 80% of the students get "honors" degrees.

---

I don't believe this at all (o tech).

2017 class had 13 kids go to Cal. Not even close.
https://oaklandtech.com/staff/blog/2017/10/tech-class-of-2017-college-destinations-where-are-they-now/


This thread confirms that there's so much bad info out there on admissions.

Oh, oh....Even BI has fake news? What has the world come to?

concordtom said:

---

My eldest just graduated high school.
She had a 4.38 with just one A- in an AP class.
She had a 740 math and 660 verbal for a 1400 total SAT. I think that is in the 96 or 97th percentile.
That is pretty damn good! Blows me away!
Yet she was denied at UCSB and initially waitlisted at Cal Poly.
Accepted to UCSC and UCSD.
Did not even apply to Cal, ucla, Davis, for whatever reason in her teen mind she did not consider them.
I was upset that she was not more open minded about things. I simply think she was intimidated by the highly competitive nature she envisions, doesn't want to live in a big city, or close to home.
She nearly went to U of Richmond, as I had encouraged her to apply back east. She picked the schools she applied to oddly, imo, but the second she was moved off waitlist, she flipped to SLO.
It'll be okay for her. Not the trappings of living in Westwood, and she's rooming with a best friend from HS, which for her will be a plus.

But I was SHOCKED that anyone with her credentials would be waitlisted at a CSU school, or denied at UCSB!!!
I'll let you know how it goes with daughter #2 in two years. She's an even better student, but will likely also eschew the highly competitive schools, which would be good for her. She is so goddam intent on perfection that she'd drive herself crazy at a place that demanded her 24/7 focus. I'm going to try and get her to watch Race To Nowhere, and any suggestions you'll have about how to achieve life balance for a 16 year old are welcome.

---

As the parent of two Poly grads, I hope she (and you) enjoys it. My sons had closer relationships with their major-subject professors than I ever had at Cal. You'll enjoy the visits down there - great bicycling, hike up Bishop's Peak, go to Taco Temple in Morro Bay. I still remember on the campus tour when one of the parents asked the guide about the difficulty of getting your required classes in time to graduate in four years. His response was that graduating from Poly in four years was like leaving the party at 9PM. I'd say that also applies for the parents. And the best part was that when they graduated in 2010 and 2013 (admittedly with technical and semi-technical majors, respectively) with the country still in the biggest recession of most of our lifetimes, they each had multiple job offers. Your daughter will do great!

Anecdotally, we definitely have seen the trend that being at the top of your school (regardless of its rank) is better than being in the second or third quintile at a more prestigious high school. Isn't just true of Cal, but of a lot of the large public schools.

With that said, having recently gone through the process with my son at a number of schools, I think Cal does a better job than most large schools of taking a holistic view of the student (beyond just grades and test scores). Impression is that activities matter a lot. What is most important is showing a leadership role in an activity where you had a clear passion - much more important than showing a lot of different activities.

But there's some luck in this, no doubt. You need to get the right reviewer on the right day. It's not very comforting but it's the truth.

Big C said:

---

Oski87 said:

---

Actually Oakland Tech gets quite a few kids into Cal - like 50 per year. They have a great academic reputation, they have a relationship with the University where a number of professors at Cal teach there, and they have a very strong UC acceptance rate for the 40% of the kids there who are in their "Academy" programs. I have two friends whose kids go there and both got into Cal - neither of whom were exceptional in my opinion. If your kid is smart, Oakland Tech is the place to go for Cal admission.

I did read an analysis of the admissions of bunch of different schools - I think it was in the New York times about a week or two ago - where it said over 40% of applications to colleges now have a 4.0 or higher. Grade inflation is a real thing. This was in an article about Latin Honors and how at Harvard something like 80% of the students get "honors" degrees.

---

Not saying you're wrong, but I'd be really surprised if the number of Tech seniors that get accepted into Cal nowadays is anything approaching 50.

A lot of the "grade inflation" is caused by AP classes getting students an additional 1.0 bump on their GPA . What there is for sure is "AP inflation", where high schools are offering more and more AP courses and encouraging students to take them. I trace this to 10-15 years ago, when Newsweek came out with a "top 100 high schools in the country" edition and the ONLY criterion (that year anyway) was % of students enrolled in AP classes. And the race was on...

---

I'm skeptical that as many HS students really are learning college level material as AP class attendance indicates. A good friend of ours (Silicon Valley) had her kid sign up for AP Chem as a junior and had a tutor hired before the class even started. This is one of the ways these part-time JC instructors survive on their lousy salaries - tutoring these kids.

socaliganbear said:

---

I don't believe this at all (o tech).

2017 class had 13 kids go to Cal. Not even close.
https://oaklandtech.com/staff/blog/2017/10/tech-class-of-2017-college-destinations-where-are-they-now/


This thread confirms that there's so much bad info out there on admissions.

---

I would normally say that if 13 kids attend Cal, some much higher number must have gotten in (say 30-50), but looking at the other colleges it doesn't seem like that many would have been chosen over Cal. Perhaps a handful.

If it's of interest to folks, here are some numbers from my son's high school: 37 applied to Cal in 2018, 6 were admitted and 4 will be matriculating. His high school was ranked in the top 10 private schools in the state and top 40 in the country.

As a caveat, take these numbers with a bit of a grain of salt (which is to say they aren't quite as bad as they seem). While 37 may have applied, I am certain a lot of those withdrew before Cal's decisions came out. If you apply early decision or early action to one of the elite privates (Iveys, Stanford, Chicago, etc.), you are generally allowed to also apply to public schools, but not to another Ivey. This means you could apply early decision to Harvard and still apply to Cal, with the idea that you'd have to withdraw your application to Cal if Harvard took you. I know of several families that happened to.

But even so, 6 admitted is still pretty bad in this context given the ranking of the school and the standardized test scores of the students.

In the words of Rodney Dangerfield in Back to School: "It's a jungle out there."

Sebastabear said:

---

As a caveat, take these numbers with a bit of a grain of salt (which is to say they aren't quite as bad as they seem). While 37 may have applied, I am certain a lot of those withdrew before Cal's decisions came out.

---

They just didn't want to compete.

Yogi Bear said:

---

Sebastabear said:

---

As a caveat, take these numbers with a bit of a grain of salt (which is to say they aren't quite as bad as they seem). While 37 may have applied, I am certain a lot of those withdrew before Cal's decisions came out.

---

They just didn't want to compete.

---

bingo.