Something Weird About College Admissions

[dr150]

You nerds calling people stupid......talk about being arrogant.

Just take note that whatever college you attend, it's your hard work that will get you into a good grad school.

Too much is made about the college name. Just focus on your studies and you'll do just fine.



<---------Cal grad. (Hispanic. HS Valedictorian.....no AA for me.)

 

[Eeezee]

Originally posted by: KingofCamelot

Originally posted by: Eeezee

Originally posted by: Ronstang
Liberals, that is all you need to know. Merit means little if strictly going by work, achievement, and results excludes a minority. This is just another case where diversity is a sham because it has to be FORCED.

Not quite. Your post just indicates how little you know about the college system. This is surprising, since you're apparently a die hard conservative (normal people don't badmouth liberals unless they know what they're talking about, which you do not)

Do you realize how many minority scholarships exist? This is PURELY a money issue. A good Mexican student can get 10x more money and remain debt-free than a white student. Gender is also a big role, there are many scholarships for women (and then you get into scholarships that are purely for women of certain heritages).

Berkeley, being a public school, is accepting the student that is less likely to need a job to get through school and is more likely to actually pay the tuition/fees since the scholarship foundations will be paying them for her, whereas the white male student may fall on hard times through no fault of his own and be unable to pay for additional semesters.

This is purely a matter of statistics of money. You have two students

Student A has unknown financial status and has a very low likelihood of getting outside financial support not counting family or debt.

Student B has unknown financial status but a VERY VERY HIGH likelihood of receiving outside scholarships, grants, and other sources of funding that do not include family or debt.

Do you now understand the fiscal reason behind this? Unless student A was an outstanding athlete (in which case Berkeley will want him to bring more sports funds to the university), Student B is the better choice financially.

There, now you understand why this has nothing to do with affirmative action or liberals. Now go talk to the hundreds of female mexicans that DID NOT get in because they had worse grades and were less likely to receive outside financial support.

You also have to remember that getting into college is a lot like playing craps. I know someone that got accepted to Harvard and UC Berkeley but rejected from UCLA. Berkeley >>> UCLA. Harvard goes without questioning. This was a mexican male, mind you.

:thumbsup: Thank you, this was the kind of insight I was looking for when I started this thread.

That does make a lot of sense. At first I was wondering why they would take someone poor over someone who is financially stable, but your explanation of how scholarships create a more stable financial situation when it comes to tuition makes perfect sense.

It still has made me a little bitter. I was one of the lucky ones, I'm a white male with a merit-based tuition scholarship. I've had to work to support myself (scholarship doesn't provide me with a place to live), but I've had good employment with a decent wage and flexible hours. It was hard, but I'm leaving college with almost a 3.5 GPA and just got into grad school, which is going to be much easier on me financially because natural sciences pay their grad students enough money to live comfortably on-campus.

Many of my white male friends are deep in debt despite having the same scholarship because they couldn't find the same kind of employment. Others don't even have a scholarship like this, which makes it even tougher; white males don't get gender or racial based scholarships.

In the meantime, my Mexican male friend has had to drop out of the same university twice for poor grades. The first time he had the same scholarship I do plus money for books, about $1200 per year. He failed out of college, worked his ass off at community college for 2 years while holding a full-time job as a system admin, came back to college with a new tuition scholarship and still flunked out after the first semester. It's another example of university funding. When he had guaranteed tuition from an outside tuition (it was because he was a Mexican that wanted to become an engineer that he got the scholarship), the university let him back into the school. It didn't matter that he had done very well at community college for two years and held a nice steady job with a lot of money in the bank. In the end, the university dropped him after the first year because overall they would be losing money; the quality of a university's graduating class each year helps to determine how many future enrollments they'll receive, so dropping the dead weight is very important.

 

[Eeezee]

Originally posted by: KingofCamelot

Originally posted by: Shortcut

Originally posted by: mugs
Don't they do interviews and stuff? It's not all based on what the student looks like on paper.

No interviews, IIRC. But the applications do include essays...so that's another variable the OP failed to consider.

Nice job jumping onto the race card, OP. University of College for you!

You're right, little old racist me, with my Mexican friend who said that she only got in because she was Mexican and poor.

Also, I did mention the essays earlier, and that Student 2 wasn't a great essay writer. I've been told that essays only come into play when they have to decide between multiple students who may or may not make it in.

Whoever told you that essays aren't important is mistaken. The essay is the second most important part of the application. Here's a good breakdown

1) Recommendation Letters
2) Essays
3) SAT scores
4) GPA
5) Race/Gender

Recommendation letters are the most important, most overlooked aspect to any college application. Essays come next. They're trying to understand who you are and whether or not you'll succeed in college, and SAT and GPA don't tell them much. Most schools require 3 recommendation letters, and the essays are essentially a recommendation letter that you write for yourself, so technically they're obtaining 4 perspectives on who you are as a person. That's very important to any admissions department.

In grad school admissions replace SAT scores with your favorite flavor of graduate exam scores (GRE, MCAT, LSAT, etc.). Same deal

 

[AccruedExpenditure]

Originally posted by: Eeezee

Originally posted by: KingofCamelot

Originally posted by: Shortcut

Originally posted by: mugs
Don't they do interviews and stuff? It's not all based on what the student looks like on paper.

No interviews, IIRC. But the applications do include essays...so that's another variable the OP failed to consider.

Nice job jumping onto the race card, OP. University of College for you!

You're right, little old racist me, with my Mexican friend who said that she only got in because she was Mexican and poor.

Also, I did mention the essays earlier, and that Student 2 wasn't a great essay writer. I've been told that essays only come into play when they have to decide between multiple students who may or may not make it in.

Whoever told you that essays aren't important is mistaken. The essay is the second most important part of the application. Here's a good breakdown

1) Recommendation Letters
2) Essays
3) SAT scores
4) GPA
5) Race/Gender

Recommendation letters are the most important, most overlooked aspect to any college application. Essays come next. They're trying to understand who you are and whether or not you'll succeed in college, and SAT and GPA don't tell them much. Most schools require 3 recommendation letters, and the essays are essentially a recommendation letter that you write for yourself, so technically they're obtaining 4 perspectives on who you are as a person. That's very important to any admissions department.

In grad school admissions replace SAT scores with your favorite flavor of graduate exam scores (GRE, MCAT, LSAT, etc.). Same deal

There are no letters of rec for University of California undergrad schools.

 

[mrkun]

As someone previously posted, it's illegal for any California educational institution to use race as an admission criterion.

 

[IAteYourMother]

I love how people assume people with high GPAs/SATs are suddenly antisocial nerds

 

[cHeeZeFacTory]

AA is probably the reason, but the major you applied to matters too. If you applied for sociology, liberal arts, or some language major, it will be easier to get in.

 

[aswedc]

Note, I did not read most of this thread.

Affirmative action is not legal in California. It must have been something else.

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: aswedc
Note, I did not read most of this thread.

Affirmative action is not legal in California. It must have been something else.

NO NO!!! Its those damm "Liberals". Right Ronstang and others. :laugh:

 

[Imported]

What majors? Maybe Student1 applied to a major that is harder to get into. Otherwise, ya, the race/gender issue.

 

[astralusion]

also...just to point out something that seems to be coming out here that is completely wrong, financial situation has absolutely nothing to do with admissions for students who live in state. the admissions people aren't even able to look at your financial background, so the only thing that they will see is what comes through in your personal statements. so as far as i'm concerned the entire, not konwing if the white dude can pay thing is a crock. (i'm not saying the hispanic chick can't get a lot of money, just saying there's no way it plays into admsssions except for if she's like wow my life sucks in high school and look at my adversity).

 

[KingofCamelot]

Originally posted by: astralusion
also...just to point out something that seems to be coming out here that is completely wrong, financial situation has absolutely nothing to do with admissions for students who live in state. the admissions people aren't even able to look at your financial background, so the only thing that they will see is what comes through in your personal statements. so as far as i'm concerned the entire, not konwing if the white dude can pay thing is a crock. (i'm not saying the hispanic chick can't get a lot of money, just saying there's no way it plays into admsssions except for if she's like wow my life sucks in high school and look at my adversity).

Er, when I filled out my UC application it asked for how much money your family brought in, and number of siblings.

Also, as per the rest of this thread, good point about majors. I hadn't thought about it much before, I'll have to ask them.

 

[astralusion]

yes, they ask that, and it goes to financials, you don't fill out another section for the financial department. your application get's split, the admissions people never see those numbers.

 

[Dacalo]

Originally posted by: sjwaste
Did your life turn out ok? Are you able to steer in the direction you want to be? If the answer is "yes", and i suspect thats the case, you'll quickly see my point

I didn't get into my top choices either, but I ended up at a good school and built a nice foundation out of it. Education is what we make of it.

Yes, my life turned out fine, actually great. My comments were in jest.

 

[mrkun]

Originally posted by: astralusion
yes, they ask that, and it goes to financials, you don't fill out another section for the financial department. your application get's split, the admissions people never see those numbers.

Exactly. All the admissions people see is your transcript and essays. They don't see anything else on your application, including race/ethnicity (which is illegal to use a basis for admission in California anyway).

Edit: It's illegal in California for public universities to use any sort of racial consideration; private schools can do whatever they want.

 

[ColdFusion718]

Look at it this way, about 98% of my AP English class got admission to UC Berkeley. This was in 1999. Most of those people had SAT scores of 1000-1100 out of 1600. Their GPAs averaged 3.75-3.8. I had a 4.0 GPA and a 1400 on my SATs. I didn't get admitted. The UCs are pretty much all the same in terms of quality of education. It's all about prestige. Once you're out in the real world, none of that really matters.

 

[mrkun]

Originally posted by: ColdFusion718
The UCs are pretty much all the same in terms of quality of education. It's all about prestige.

This is probably true to a large extent at the undergraduate level. However, at the graduate level there's quite a distinction between Cal and UCR/UCSC.

 

[Fenixgoon]

Originally posted by: SoLiDus88
Straight As and couldn't even break 2000 on the SATs? wow ****** high school.

Minority status is a huge factor for college admissions. I am asian and technically a minority, but over represented in higher education. oh well.

a comparison of grades vs. SAT scores aren't always indicative of how intelligent you are. some people simply test poorly. not to mention that SAT's are a crock since you can take preparation courses and BS like that (i consider SAT prep work and/or courses tantamount to cheating, but that's just me).

 

[magomago]

I fit the Student 1 mold, but I'm not a white male in the classical sense of a european. I'm Iraqi and I was still rejected from Berkeley on the eve of the invasion, although my HS GPA was ~4.2 I had all the AP classes, I did sports year round, I was part of clubvs to be active, I was the president of one, I had my share of community service, and my SAT while not was super star 1500, it was fine. There was no AA there to help, nor was being a minority any assistance, and nor was being born in a foreign land in conflict something that helped me.

Tell your friend to suck it up and go to a different UC - despite the common myth that education is substantially better at one UC over another, (When the reality is you have most of the UCs in the top 50 school anyways....talk about the upper echelon b|tching about eachother) college is what you make out of it and i would say 90% of students don't really take what they should out of college. I have friends that got into UCSD or UCB and they pretty much pissed their time away in terms of academics. Some found something beyond the actual academics that interested them and that was what made their college experience, and some just don't even care and are a waste of space at the school.

My point is simple : the top students at all the UCs will pretty much be the same providing they put in the effort. I find it very hard to assume that the top 5-10% at UCB is better than the top 5-10% at UCSD, UCLA, UCI, UCR, etc ~ when the kids are there to learn the material, they will learn it and gain from it period.

Took me a while to realize that about college; nothing is spoon fed and you must chase what you want. And if you do that, then it doesn't matter which UC you are going to cause the education is pretty much pimp at all campuses (but that isn't too high of a standard since most genius professor suck nuts when it comes to lecturing)
Both UCSD and UCB rejected me, but I didn't let it phase me. That has led me to go for my fifth year next fall so I can finish the rest of the classes for my dual degrees in engineering and hopefully a Chinese minor.

 

[imported_Lothar]

Originally posted by: KingofCamelot

Originally posted by: George P Burdell
I'm playing devil's advocate: did you read their college admission essays?

Nope. Although, I know how Student 2 writes, and shes not the best writer.

BTW, I'm not saying that Student 1 should have been admitted, because I realize UC Berkeley is quite selective. Its the fact that he had a 50-50 shot that makes it so surprising that someone not as good as him in general got in.

Maybe Student #2 has better letters of recommendation from teachers?
Maybe Student #2 had a bad SAT score, but had an excellent ACT score?

Did you ever consider that they didn't apply to the same department?
My Pre-Pharmacy department had admission for only 18 students doing the accelerated 6 year Pharm D program.
How many students get admission to the Biology/Chemistry department here in total every year? Probably close to 200-300 students, if not more.
If Student #1 applied to Pre-Pharmacy and didn't get in, while Student #2 applied to Biology and got in; I don't see a problem with that.

You don't sit on the UC Berkeley admissions board so you're not doing anything except speculating at this point.

 

[mrkun]

Just to throw this in there, one of my cousins is half Mexican, she had a 4.3 HS GPA, played sports all four years of HS, worked, and did a fair amount of community service, and she just got rejected at UCLA.

 

[McCartney]

This is why you need to be interviewed for Medical school.
Even though there are a spawning of stupid forum sites showing you to "Nail the interview" character bleeds in answers no matter how good your answer is.

In this case I guarantee you she had a good essay that made her stand out and on top of that she wrote about something that wasn't cliche and actually meant something other than "Insert textbook essay of determination here"
to help her vault stuff.

I've seen people get shut down @ my university after 2nd, 3rd and 4th year with a 4.0 GPA and a relatively OK Mcat (On the school mean, and our university is the 2nd best Medical University in the country Canada).
How? One girl had a 4.0 and a 40 MCAT (Yes 40!!!!) and she got denied, because she had cue cards whilst being interviewed to answer things.

I've known this really nice girl who is unintentionally a "down-talker" in the sense that she's unintentionally an elitist. She had a 3.9 GPA and got an interview after 3rd year (Very tough, you need a 3.7GPA and a mean MCAT) and she got shut down even though her answers were good and honest. Why?
Because even though she said all the right things that she actually felt, the way she presented herself and carried her beliefs were RUDE.

These are just 2 examples, I know many more. What I'm getting at is that getting into places that are "exclusive" are more contingent upon the person you are and what you will do as a PERSON to be a good ambassador to that University.

I'll be the first to admit I've never been the smartest kid in my class; Hell, I've been getting 3.0's all of my 2nd year in University with a study session commencing at 6AM the day of the exam.
Here's the kicker though; every time I need something from a course coordinator or Faculty Advisor like getting a pre-requisite waived or doing some graduate research, I've gotten it. How?
I am a person that relies on writing and face-to-face to convey my sincerity and politeness. Every adult or person I'm meeting sees that I'm very sincere and extremely polite, here's an example:

Friday I had to get a special consent from the MEdical Laboratory Science coordinator to get admitted into a professional BSc program. When I had met her I ended up talking to her not about what I came for. We chatted about life, theory
and just the whole belief of getting into medical school by darwinism and then once you're admitted you are a socialist.
Immediately after 20 minutes of talking to her about NOT what I came for she was telling me anecdotes of how kids come into this class and get rocked. She said the kids in the program were very bright and the competition is stiff and she usually wouldn't allow a non-MLSCI student such as me to register, but she had a change of heart.
Why?
She said, and I quote "i believe you're bright enough to keep up with these kids" and she said that it'd be tough for me to keep up since they're taken exclusive courses that supplement that class. She then told me about a class I was taking that is implemented into the course I wanted to take (The MLSCI program) and when I told her I had taken it.
She didn't know I had taken the class and then said she couldn't allow me to register due to the unfairness. I completely agree with this since these kids are a class of 25 and one kid coming in and rocking the first half of the course can really skew the Grade point distribution.
Now, how did I even get that close? I am just very confident that if I have the ability to get a face to face interview I can get the job done. My grades will always be low just for the fact that I have ADHD and it will never be perfect with medication or even more extra time.


Another example:
In Alberta we have a very exclusive researching summer internship for undergraduates that alot of students cant get called the AHFMR (http://www.ahfmr.ab.ca/grants/Sum-student.php#ss_eligibility).
I'd go out on a limb and say out of the total faculty of science maybe 5 students in their 2nd and 3rd year (each) will get it. Typically their GPA is a 3.7 (A-) or higher on a B (2nd and 3rd year mean) or B- (B- for first years) curve.

I will be granted one next year in a researchers lab (With the help of God and not cursing now that I've shared, sorry I'm really superstitious just putting this in). Why?
I am willing to learn, I'm sincere and I"m polite. I believe that even though my grades aren't as strong as others that I am as intelligent as them and every person that's met me without seeing my transcript assumes I'm an A student. I don't even practice this BS of putting up a front, I just learn things without even considering them to be learning.
Usually I'm very easy to like, willing to learn, calm and easygoing, humorous and very lovable. I take everything with a light heart and I'm able to make dreary situations a bit more upbeat. I'm very approachable.


I believe that a solid understanding of life in general and being a well-rounded student in not just academics will get you places. I've always been asked why I've done so well on standardized exams but not as great in class, and I can't even answer that with the same preparation. I was 16 when I wrote the SAT and I ended up getting 2190 (old school 1490, 790 verbal 700 math 700 writing SAT2) with 65s or 70s (Didn't have medicine at this time so I didn't even study I would just wing all of my high school). University brought a new wake up call with a 2.0 pulling my above method in my first year. I went to get re-diagnosed and it seems that even though I'm almost through puberty that I will have ADHD my whole life, thus I am now on 54mg concerta (No I don't ****** take these drugs because I *Think* I have ADD, imagine driving with your ****** peripheral vision without medicine, it's THAT bad for me!) which has greatly increased my ability to focus (I couldn't at all before) and it's resulted in a full grade point improvement.

People can say "Oh you don't work hard enough die slow because what you've earned is useless and unearned" and I just rub it off. I was talking to my friend and asking him if he would revise my Special Consideration letter for Medicine after my 3rd year, he said "WTF YOU GET special consideration? BECAUSE YOU HAVE ADHD? I DON'T AGREE WITH THAT, YOU'RE NO BETTER THAN ABORIGINALS GETTING IN WITH A 2.0" (In our province we have a stipulation that Native Canadians can apply to medicine with a 2.0 and be granted an interview since most do not even get this or aren't even in the Faculty of Science, sad state for them over here).

I won't lie, that pissed me off, but that's life. People will never understand what having ADHD is all about until they realize how hard it is to cope at times. It is hard to cope because sometimes I can't focus and I get pissed off even ON medicine. This happens alot and even so I suck it up and do what I can.
I believe I should get a special consideration, having ADHD and doing even as average as I am is far and between. I think out of a total of 30 000 students there are about 500 kids with "disabilities" on our campus in total. 1.6%. I don't think any of them have aspirations of becoming a doctor either.
I don't know how you Americans diagnose ADHD but in Canada we have the drug and the diagnosis to be very tough (almost like a screening process. To boot our prescriptions have a carbon copy, expire within 5 days if they're not submitted and allow only 30 pills at a time with a refill period no less than 30 days)

No medicine is a 100 percent perfect, nor is anything in life. It's all about dealing the cards you're dealt, and I'm dealing with mine as much as I can.

In the end it's not about what your grades are, it's about the type of person you are and how good you are at putting it on paper because in the real world you won't be saved by a transcript.

I believe I'm ready for the real world.

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: George P Burdell
I'm playing devil's advocate: did you read their college admission essays?

frankly the essay is bullsh*t. it should be something used when there are vacancies to be filled not when there are people desperately competing on merit.

 

[mrkun]

Originally posted by: McCartney
I don't know how you Americans diagnose ADHD but in Canada we have the drug and the diagnosis to be very tough (almost like a screening process. To boot our prescriptions have a carbon copy, expire within 5 days if they're not submitted and allow only 30 pills at a time with a refill period no less than 30 days)

It's not really "diagnosed" here. You kind of just ask for the prescription and they give it to you.

 

[KingofCamelot]

Christ there is a lot of hostility in this thread.

For the record I'm not upset over Student 2 getting in, and Student 1 didn't even seem to care, so this thread is just for my personal knowledge. In fact, Student 2 is a better friend of mine than Student 1. All I was wondering is if anyone had any insight into the discrepency, and that the only two 'major' things I could think of were ethnicity and financial situation.

I will check out the majors thing as soon as I can and report back.

Also, I agree with what others have said about there not being a big difference between UC education for most majors, especially undergraduate. I'm not complaining mind you about this, I'm perfectly happy about where I got in, this thread was just about understanding how this kind of stuff works.

I also agree that the SATs aren't a great indicator of intelligence. Some people just aren't good at taking tests. Plus I feel the test is somewhat flawed. I took it twice and scored 10 points different, pretty accurate. Except 100 points exactly magically moved from my reading category to my writing category the second time around.