You’ve taken the words out of my mouth. Why is this a news story at all??? And actually, why are we paying particular attention to this as opposed to any of the dozens of similar stories we’ve seen over the years?
The headline is clickbait. The article doesn’t even mention until half way in that he got into 4 schools, including UT Austin. Then he got a great job! This kid is doing well for himself and I don’t feel sorry in the slightest for this student.
His first move should have to been to ask his GC to ask if there was a problem that could be addressed. Instead, the article makes it seem as though the parents cried foul play immediately. Probably makes for more sensationalism than, “He contacted his guidance counselor to see if there was a way he could have improved his application and PIQs.”
100% agree, most likely UC 4 essays not aligned well with what is looking for (although no “Red” alert as CBS reporter said, that is not sufficient). actually with so many students having high GPA with most demanded classes and no recommendation letters and SAT required, the only differentiated factors are 4 -350 words essays. it was these 4 essays tell the story to convince AO to accept you to add the school valuable study body.
Speculating that this kid with stellar credentials must have been rejected from his less competitive in-state publics because he spoke of the social benefits of going to college (instead of just coding on a computer alone?), or that he was his parents’ “special snowflake”? That IS blaming the victim. And yes, the fact that this Asian kid with such high credentials from a highly ranked Bay Area public school doesn’t get into the less than top CA publics, which have gone test blind for just this reason, does make him a victim. California went test optional just for cases like this. GPA and 4 essays, that’s it. So there is no way to compare a student’s achievement against another’s, other than the GPA. The student who went to a school where you get an A for showing up, handing in your work, and not being disruptive, vs the student who went to a school with extremely high standards where the classwork is rigorous and all the students are highly motivated, do their work, are not disruptive, and study for tests, so an A there means you really are academically superior - there is no way to differentiate between the two. The fact that he gets into UT Austin comp sci which is highly selective, and which just happens to also be rigged to spread acceptances across the socioeconomic spectrum, leaving very few spots for OOS, says something about his qualifications. U Md comp sci accepts less than 10% overall, plus it favors in-state applicants, which means that it is extremely competitive for OOS, and he got in there, too.
He should have gotten into all of his in-state less selective options, certainly at least one. I can understand him not getting into UCB or UCLA, but none of the lesser ones, with his stats and ECs and awards? But he gets into equal or better OOS?
UC 4 essays out of 8 essays have some tricky here as a former UC admission officers mentioned - Ao is looking for in another way “holistic” – CS student not only has CS background, bult also more in collaboration, innovative and creativity–different perspective view. You need smartly configure 4 out 8 to show who you are… for OSS schools like UT austin , UMD, different story – requires 650 words personal statement + the school 1-2 supplementary essays… to some degree, UC 4 essays are more tougher to write.
I think some on this thread who are impressed by this kid’s story are underestimating the kids who ARE getting in to these majors at these schools. The competition is really something. My kid is at Cal, and every single kid he knows in CS has stronger credentials than the kid in the story (most are Asian males and went to high stats bay area schools, too…)
There are lots and LOTS of great kids applying to these schools, and only so many spots in CS majors.
Of course, it’s more than this. The UCs evaluate 13 different criteria, including location of your secondary school and residence, number of courses beyond minimum A-G, etc. I didn’t see this article lay out all of this candidate’s application details, so none of us here knows the strength of the entire application.
The schools don’t collaborate to make sure he got accepted to at least one. Oh wait, the UCs do handle this issue with their ELC program. I wonder if this candidate was offered an ELC spot as top 9% within his High School. That counts as at least one.
The only datapoint I’ve heard wrt his essays is that the KGO-TV anchor who ran his story twice in local news mentioned in her second report that his essay showed no red flags. Can’t comment on how she reached this conclusion.
Oh, now that’s another question altogether. There is not enough funding to pay for the teaching staff required to educate students in departments that are already stuffed to bursting with the influx of CS majors. Teaching staff does not just mean professors, but also includes the huge army of TA / GSI staff required to teach the enormous introductory CS courses that seemingly everyone in the university wants to take.
For Cal in particular, John DeNero (the professor who teaches 61a, the main intro CS class at Cal) has some videos on youtube talking about the budget and numbers, which you might find interesting.
But I do consider the anchor capable of reaching a reasonable assessment. I can understand taking her assessment with a large grain of salt. I think it’s safe to say it wasn’t something incredibly/obviously wrong.
Both Cal and Stanford have been using undergrad staff as assistants for their lower end CS courses for years. UCB uses automated grading of their homework code which is how they survive. I’m certain other (perhaps most) programs leverage this.
Yes, I know… have you watched DeNero’s videos? The union decision made them change everything because they could no longer hire an army of undergraduates for low hours per week. That’s why they had to cut down on CS admits so dramatically.
Hmm, I went to look up the earlier videos and they are now marked private. Here’s a daily cal article (the first that popped up on my google search) that discusses some of the budgeting issues and how they are trying to figure out how to support students.
It’s super sad to me that such a great university has to experiment with “solutions” such as having ChatGPT answer students’ questions, in order to deal with the overcrowding and understaffing.
There are staffing issues across all the intro computing courses including Data 8, etc.