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<p>The issue is not about competition per se. I have no problem with competition. </p>
<p>The issue is regarding unfair competition, and specifically that transfer applicants are allowed to take a different sequence of pre-application prereqs than do continuing students. For example, Berkeley students who want to switch into Haas all have to put up with the cutthroat competition in BA10. But a community college transfer applicant from Chabot in nearby Hayward can just take Chabot’s Business 12, which is certainly easier. Granted, the transfer applicants have to present a higher GPA in order to be admitted to Haas. But certainly there will be some Berkeley students who didn’t do well in BA10 who would have done perfectly fine had they taken Business 12 at Chabot. </p>
<p>A far more fair way to run Haas admissions would be to not use grades at all. Instead, all applicants - whether continuing students or transfers - would take a comprehensive test run by Haas that covers the entire gamut of prereqs, i.e. intro to business, statistics, economics, and calculus. If you know the material, regardless of how you learned it or where you went to school, then will do well on the test. It won’t matter what your grades are. Combine that test score with your essays and your resumes into an aggregate score to determine admissions. Another method would be for transfer applicants to be ‘conditionally’ admitted to Haas, but only under the proviso that they take and earn a passing score on the final exams of the Haas prereqs such as BA10, Econ 1 or 2, etc. Again, the justification would be that if that transfer student really does understand basic economics or business, then he will have little trouble earning a decent score on those final exams. {Again, I’m not asking them to get A’s. I’m just asking them to pass. If you can’t even pass, then you probably shouldn’t be admitted to Haas.} Those transfers who can’t pass those prereqs may still be allowed to come to Berkeley, but only to some backup major.</p>