Not at all! I’m a big fan of the UT-Austin plan that admits the top 5% of all high schools (I wish more states would do this, including the UCs.) My only change to the TX policy would be that students need to finish their remedial classes (or test out) before signing up for classes at UT-Austin. I think UT-Austin should guarantee that admission place for life. Personally I would like to see every one of these bright hardworking low SES, non-suburban kids matriculate and succeed at UT-Austin.
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A student with a 1200 SAT could absolutely succeed at a UC and could probably do reasonably well even in engineering. What this report shows is that a significant portion of student population wouldn’t even score 1000 on an SAT.
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I wasn’t referring to you or the Texas program. But I do disagree with your plan, at least in the sense that it would replace what already exists*. IMO successful hardworking kids who excelled within their context can successfully be brought up to speed within the current university systems.
For example, Texas had (and may still have) a groundbreaking program of how to deal with kids entering from different backgrounds, as described in an old NYTimes article, below. Kids were catching up and excelling without the need for what is traditionally considered remedial programs, and without blocking their access until they had met additional requirements beyond high school. Rather, kids from crummy schools were given some of the same sort of attention that the kids from the better schools had been receiving all along . . .
The heart of the project is a portfolio of “student success programs,” each one tailored, to a certain extent, for a different college at U.T. — natural sciences, liberal arts, engineering — but all of them following the basic TIP model Laude dreamed up 15 years ago: small classes, peer mentoring, extra tutoring help, engaged faculty advisers and community-building exercises.
gift link:
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UC has a “top 9%” to the UC system (which usually means UC Merced, which has space available). UC campuses are much smaller relative to the state population than UT Austin, so that a top x% automatic admission for a specific campus would have x significantly less than 5 that UT Austin currently has. Also, the UT Austin automatic admission does not assure admission to specific majors or divisions.
UC also does “top 9%” by comparing the applicant’s recalculated GPA to the high school’s benchmark recalculated GPA from a recent previous class, presumably to avoid the cutthroat rank grubbing that some have reported in Texas high schools
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Just verbally thanking you and send hearts. Appreciate your perspective a lot!
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Students who haven’t met middle school math standards shouldn’t be admitted to UC San Diego.
They should attend community college to come up to speed in math and then apply to UCSD at a later date as a transfer student.
If UCSD doesn’t want to admit incoming freshmen who don’t meet middle school math standards AND IF the current methods used to evaluate UCSD applicants are resulting in too many incoming freshman being admitted who don’t meet minimum math requirements, then UCSD admissions officials should consider reviewing & changing their process, standards, etc.
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An earlier version of a report by the same committee claimed that the students in the college concepts course had tested at a 4th-6th grade math level even though the placement test wasn’t testing such concepts. So I’d take the comparison to middle school level with a grain of salt, the characterization could be more rhetorical than actual.
Anyone have any evidence that these kids are unable to get up to speed and successfully graduate? If not why not? Is the theory here that the students can’t succeed in college? Or that they don’t deserve to be accepted?
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Please reference just one post that advocates that position.
(hint: keeping some kids who haven’t mastered middle school math out of one UC campus is not out of all UC campuses…hint 2: all UCs have an active transfer program so no one is ‘keeping’ kids out of any UC)
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Original comment Deleted.
Not going to single out individual posters. If you read this thread and think that many of the posts aren’t about UC admission of supposedly less qualified students at the expense of supposedly more qualified students, then we’ll just have to disagree.
Similar question for you I asked above. Is the issue that these students are incapable of receiving a quality UC education? (if so what’s the proof) Or is it that they don’t deserve to be accepted over other students?
As for you hints, I have no idea what you think you are addressing.
Definitely never said or even implied that a student with a 1200 couldn’t succeed at a UC. In fact, I mentioned that some students with lower test scores from underprivileged backgrounds might be selected regardless by UCSD because of their outstanding potential for success.
What I am objecting to is students with 1200’s being selected over students with 1500’s - not due to an intentional assessment of their ability to succeed or what they would bring to campus - but simply because admissions officers can’t see their test scores.
Thank you for providing an example of what I am talking about above. It’s the same old argument.
I’ll take a stab at it…
… in the UC system there are such a large number of schools that allows the system to provide a spectral range of educational options such that a student with academic deficiencies (remedial needs) who might not be admitted to what are considered to be academically top tier UC schools, has a plethora of other UC school options to apply to, which can address those deficiencies (and perhaps address them better/more efficiently).
… and, if the student who attended a UC school which was ‘downstream’ from the top tier UC schools, does perform in those remedial courses, bringing them up to speed - then the UC systems active transfer program allows for that student (who has shown they have mastered material) to transfer to a UC school ‘upstream’ from the one they are currently in.
Did I come close @bluebayou ?
We have similar issues with our State Flagships here in North Carolina - between University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University, we do see some issues result from the mission to serve all students of the state by admitting students from all areas of the state and from many of the poorer more rural counties where the programs have far fewer resources (teachers, AP / IB courses, tutors, clubs/activities).
There are a not inconsequential number of Carolina first year students who come in from the top 10%, if not the top of their HS class, with 3.95-4.0 uwgpa, coming out of small rural under powered schools - who are on the receiving end of multiple sub 60% scores during the first exam series - and are shattered by this experience.
It may be more than just that the student didn’t have access to the AP/IB coursework material in their HS - it may be that student just didn’t academically evolve in the environment that accompanies the high powered / high resourced schools with tons of APs - and tons of students who are chasing the A’s in those AP courses, and Club president, and Varsity sports, and Captaincies - because those students are competing in a completely different environment.
This is likely one of the reasons Carolina has a fair number of students start their first semester ‘abroad’ before coming to campus in the spring semester as well as guaranteed sophomore starts for a number of students, and why their transfer admissions rate hovers between 45-55%. They must need to replace a fair number of empty seats.
I’m sure there are success stories as well.
But I do wonder if we are doing our best by all the students with this strategy - what happens to those kids who have to be replaced after first semester and first year? Do they drop out of the college experience, do they end up elsewhere, do they take 5+ years to finish - at what cost. Did we really do them a favor by giving them a ‘chance’ at the state flagship and dropping them right into it.
The alternative suggestions include the fact that the UNC system has like 15 other schools not named UNC-CH or NCSU. Would those students be better served by offering them a position at one of the other 15 schools, with more ‘remedial’ and base building level courses’, with the guarantee of a slot at UNC-CH or NCSU (engineering for example), once they have completed their base level courses and achieved a B or above in each course, and a cumulative GPA of 3.XX, to then start at the premier flagships? Kids who were going to succeed at UNC-CH should be able to do so at the UNC system school and then simply transfer in as sophomores or juniors, and kids who would have struggled at UNC getting dropped right into the shark tank, may in fact stand a chance at being able to master the material and learn how to study / how to prepare so now they have a standing chance at UNC-CH, and those kids who can’t achieve those criteria at the UNC system school, well, then they can see where they maybe fit better and have a chance to succeed or even thrive at the school they are in.
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So here you are accusing people of wanting to intentionally keep low SES, non-suburban kids out of UC’s. This is a wildly offensive accusation. I have not seen this opinion voiced in any of the comments.
But now you move the goalposts. Yes, some of the posts, including mine, absolutely think that one UC school in particular that has itself identified a problem - UCSD - is admitting “supposedly less qualified students at the expense of supposedly more qualified students.” This is very different than saying UC schools should keep out low SES kids. Believe me, there are plenty of rich privileged kids with poor test scores at UCSD who are also under-prepared for UCSD classes. They too should not be taking the spots of better prepared applicants. And, in fact, the Dartmouth report suggests that low SES kids actually benefit when competitive schools require test scores because they can better assess those students’ achievements in context.
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If you took my post about remediation as an effort to keep kids who have faced challenges out of the system– then I apologize for mis-stating my position.
Y’know who is really good at teaching HS math? Expert HS math teachers. They aren’t PhD’s working as adjuncts because they couldn’t get a tenure track job. They are people with subject matter expertise in math AND a degree in education AND who have studied (and continue to study) pedagogy and go to conferences where they learn from Master teachers who have developed really creative ways of teaching math. Some of them have written textbooks on “how to teach math to kids who hate math” and some of them have written the curriculum which is used in 5 states which have greatly improved their math education. Some of them tutor over the summer– so they have experience with a wide range of “entry points and affection” for math, and some of them work as instructors in elite summer programs for very advanced math students.
Y’know who gets mixed results teaching HS math? Professors of mathematics who end up as adjuncts- through no fault of their own- who have limited experience teaching the math challenged. They know the math- it’s the pedagogy, the innovative approach, the ability to teach a mixed background class (some kids who are great at math but their HS never taught trig; some kids who actually passed trig but have no idea what Cosine means; some kids with actual learning disabilities (the 2E folks). As math majors in college they typically took zero courses on pedagogy– and why would they? And as Master’s and then doctoral candidates– the notion of teaching HS math rarely entered the picture. But now- you take any math adjacent job you can get- that’s how bad academia has become- and if it means teaching the remedial courses that a tenured prof won’t touch- that’s what you teach.
So this is my skepticism on remediation at the university level. Kids from poorly resourced school systems who never got the “good teachers” are STILL not getting the “good teachers” now that they are in college. And I’d love to see the longitudinal research on how many of these students end up graduating in 4, 5 or 6 years. Anecdotally- at least in the CCNY university system- those numbers are nothing to brag about.
So in states with a robust community college system- I ask again, what is gained from duplicating the remedial track, but this time at the four year college university level? If the solution is to beef up the resources as kids transition from CC to the four year university, isn’t that more effective than UCSD compensating for weak HS prep??? If a CC has figured out how to teach these kids who need remediation, why re- invent the wheel at the flagship?
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I don’t doubt that is what was meant, but again it is addressing the same old complaint. The advantaged kid from the great suburban school isn’t getting into their preferred UC, so their solution is to make more room by keeping out kids who don’t match that profile. It is elitist at its core, and it ignores the mission of not only the UC system, but of each UC school.
As for this concept that there are UC’s for the best kids and UC’s for the rest, it is utter nonsense. While hyper-competitive parents constantly rank the UCs as worthy or unworthy, they are all great schools. In fact, if we are to believe the rankings, they are all top 100 Institutions, which means that the a UC you consider “downstream” or “remedial” is higher ranked than the flagships in most states. More importantly, they ALL exist to educate the top kids from every community in an extremely diverse state.
It doesn’t serve the state’s interests to further segregate its UC schools by rules that would further favor middle class and rich suburban kids from excellent high schools.
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Sadly there are precious few of these teachers.
I definitely understand your point about duplication between CC and 4 year college. Yet as far as we know, virtually all four year publics offer remedial courses (or co-requisite courses, or whatever fancy terms are put in place.) Part of the issue is that some students don’t have easy access to a CC, and some don’t have the luxury of living at home while they attend CC. Regardless, meeting students where they are makes sense. Costs more, but these schools are all just trying to plug vast holes in learning.
Until there are data showing ‘better’ prepared applicants are being denied admission, I’ll hold off on making this assumption. I do want to shout from the rooftops that having a test score that shows college readiness does not mean the student doesn’t need a remedial course.
Likewise, having a test score that shows college readiness doesn’t mean an applicant is ‘better’ qualified.
Likewise, having a high test score doesn’t mean an applicant is ‘better’ qualified either.
Ah yes, the shadowy Dartmouth data that many leaders in the industry have asked to see, to no avail. I expect the sample size of low SES students who applied TO to Dartmouth and were denied, but whom Dartmouth somehow got a test score for is….not large. Could even be single digits, maybe a couple dozen. Who knows. The only thing we know for sure is that qualified students without a test score and/or with a test score below D’s published ranges aren’t applying. That doesn’t seem like a good outcome. But, if that’s what a school believes is best for them, that’s their prerogative.
What about the students best interest?
Again, I’m sure some of these kids who come from under powered / under resourced schools do succeed at the top tier flagships, but at what cost to those who truly need the remedial courses - and end up getting walloped in first series exams.
I think that its simply a matter of perspective - there are students who have performed at or above the college preparedness level who are turned away to give opportunities to kids who have not (because they havent had access or resources etc) - maybe we are doing them a disservice by not having them gear up through additional work to demonostrate their readiness.
As far as the state is concerned - is it 'better to have a kids come from an under powered school and perform poorly or drop out, so that they get ‘a chance’ than to offer them the opportunity to take classes in environments which may allow them to grow with the material, and once they’ve mastered that then they continue on.
I don’t think this is simply a one sided argument.
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Most schools have this data. Some even make it public. Some of the various studies published address grad rates and outcomes and the like as well. I’m far from an expert in this data, but the results of remedial programs seem mixed. I do encourage everyone to read the NYTimes article about Texas that mtmind posted above.
Separately, and not directed at anyone in particular, when posters start talking about under resourced schools, LCFF+ schools, rural schools, Title I schools, it’s fair for others to point out what many of the students at those schools look like, which we can’t talk about in this thread.
Surely no one on this thread is suggesting that we prohibit first year access to the top four-year publics in the state for the top low SES students who are coming out of under resourced HSs. Right?
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This is a different objection that has nothing to do with the UCSD report. UCSD is concerned about whether students are prepared to handle college math. They are looking for basic readiness. The report isn’t saying that they want to select students with 1500+ SAT scores.
As an example of how UC could use scores to demonstrate readiness without using scores for admission:
UC could add a basic readiness check to the minimum requirements for UC admission, that could be fulfilled in multiple ways (and I’m just throwing out some options here): (a) grade-level “Standard Met” on the CAASPP (taken by most CA HS students); (b) SAT or ACT score that demonstrates readiness for college math (we’re not talking about scoring 1500 here); (c) AP exam scores demonstrating readiness for college; (d) qualifying community college course.
This type of readiness check is already in place for the Entry Level Writing Requirement (ELWR), but it’s currently used only to place students in writing courses after they enter UC. Entry Level Writing Requirement | University of California
This is a totally different issue from using SAT scores in the admission process.
My S23 is a junior at UCB. He’s an EECS major and has received straight As since his first semester. He wasn’t a great SAT test taker and didn’t get 1500+, but he is outperforming many of his fellow students who did. (He did receive a 5 on his AP Calc BC exam, but it was taken in his senior year, so it was irrelevant for college admissions.)
Did my son not deserve his admission, in your opinion? Because if UCB was looking for students with 1500+, he wouldn’t be a student there.
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Not offense intended. But your own approach would result in exactly what I describe. Keeping out the kids at the top of their class who scored in the 1200 in favor of the kids from the high performing school in a high performing area who scored 1500 would further concentrate admissions on a relatively small number of high schools, and exclude kids from a relatively large number of high schools who don’t fit the description. This is because the factors parents of high performing kids want the UCs to value are directly correlated to income and opportunity.
It isn’t different at all. Favor the kids with 1500 and there will be little room for top kids from less well performing schools in lower SES neighborhoods. The kids with the 1500s are bunched at high performing high schools in high performing areas with high achieving parents, etc.
Thank you again, though, for demonstrating what this thread is really about. As @tamagotchi explained, it is a different issue than the UCSD report.
It most certainly isn’t about whether those kids who start out behind can catch up, or whether they are capable of attaining a quality UC education.
I don’t give a lot of credence to arguments that claim to be helping people by denying them opportunities, especially when they aren’t accompanied by significant evidence. I am sure you didn’t mean it could be construed as extremely patronizing.
Again, I’m sure some of these kids who come from under powered / under resourced schools do succeed at the top tier flagships, but at what cost to those who truly need the remedial courses - and end up getting walloped in first series exams.
I don’t buy the notion that the UCs are letting in kids who aren’t capable of catching up. These are kids who finished at the top of their class, and who have met the admissions requirements. And last I checked, UCSD’s graduation rate was 88%. And numerous studies indicate that when kids fail out of college, it most often because of non academic reasons. I’d love see evidence backing up your opinion.
Also, See the NYT article I linked above for an approach that has worked well at bringing kids along despite different starting points.
Seems to be an aside, and one that the universities could address. See the NYT link above, for example.