<p>Here’s a fact that you may find shocking. I certainly found it to be shocking. The fact is, 10 years ago, the undergraduate enrollment was basically the same as it is today. For example, in 1997, the total undergraduate enrollment at Berkeley was 21700. Now it is about 22100 (or 23400 depending on which data you use). That’s really not that big of an increase. </p>
<p>So it’s not like Berkeley was suddenly swamped with a huge influx of undergrads. The growth in the undergrad population has been rather mild. So Berkeley could have easily increased the capacities of forecasted-impacted majors to accomodate the rather mild growth of students. It’s not that hard. For example, a company that experiences mild growth in demand will create capital planning budgets that will increase manufacturing capacity to meet this demand, by building out or leasing more manufacturing space and equipment, signing more distribution leases, expanding hiring of staff, etc. Berkeley could have done the same thing. </p>
<p>Instead, Berkeley has many more impacted majors than it used to have just a decade ago. That’s either evidence of poor planning, or it’s evidence that Berkeley simply didn’t WANT to plan. I highly doubt that it’s the former because, like I said, it’s not like Berkeley was simply swamped with this gigantic influx of unanticipated demand. It is quite easy for Berkeley administrators to see that demand was slowly increasing and could have planned for this event. Instead, I think it’s more of a case that Berkeley administrators simply doesn’t WANT to meet that demand. They knew that certain majors were going to be oversubscribed, and they didn’t care. But, again, that just leads to the question of why you would want to go to a school like that if you have a good alternative?</p>
<p>Well, I am not sure if a Berkeley engineering student with a 2.8 GPA would be able to get into “a slew of top physics PhD programs” or MIT, and Berkeley, I think, has developed a reputation for rigor, at least when it comes to engineering, and I think few can say that they know any engineering students at Berkeley who just sits around all day. Maybe part of the problem is the school’s reputation, but it probably also has to do with advising, packaging, research, etc.</p>
<p>As an example, I think few can say that the pre-med students at Berkeley do not work hard. I think pre-med at Berkeley has developed a reputation for being very rigorious. Nevertheless, medical schools do not seem to be taking this into account, as Berkeley students seem to need HIGHER GPAs than those from other “less rigorious” schools. Which leads back to the question, why do Berkeley students need to get higher GPAs for med schools if it’s harder for them to get a high GPA?</p>
<p>Here’s a fact that you may find shocking. I certainly found it to be shocking. The fact is, 10 years ago, the undergraduate enrollment was basically the same as it is today. For example, in 1997, the total undergraduate enrollment at Berkeley was 21700. Now it is about 22100 (or 23400 depending on which data you use). That’s really not that big of an increase. </p>
<p>So it’s not like Berkeley was suddenly swamped with a huge influx of undergrads. The growth in the undergrad population has been rather mild. So Berkeley could have easily increased the capacities of forecasted-impacted majors to accomodate the rather mild growth of students. It’s not that hard. For example, a company that experiences mild growth in demand will create capital planning budgets that will increase manufacturing capacity to meet this demand, by building out or leasing more manufacturing space and equipment, signing more distribution leases, expanding hiring of staff, etc. Berkeley could have done the same thing. </p>
<p>Instead, Berkeley has many more impacted majors than it used to have just a decade ago. That’s either evidence of poor planning, or it’s evidence that Berkeley simply didn’t WANT to plan. I highly doubt that it’s the former because, like I said, it’s not like Berkeley was simply swamped with this gigantic influx of unanticipated demand. It is quite easy for Berkeley administrators to see that demand was slowly increasing and could have planned for this event. Instead, I think it’s more of a case that Berkeley administrators simply doesn’t WANT to meet that demand. They knew that certain majors were going to be oversubscribed, and they didn’t care. But, again, that just leads to the question of why you would want to go to a school like that if you have a good alternative? </p>
<p>Again, the salient point is, why would somebody who is admitted to one of the top private schools choose to go to Berkeley and risk getting shut out of the major he wants?</p>
<p>A lot of Berkeley students are, simply put, just not serious about studying. That’s because, sadly, they don’t have to be, and they know it. They lolly-gag their way through classes, and get good grades anyway because of the lack of rigor. So then when it comes to the things you need to do to get into graduate school, they lolly-gag through those things too, expecting to have the same easy results.
That will shield people from truly harsh grading, because those who get bad grades will simply drop those classes</p>
<p>Your statements are extremely contradictory. First you say Cal students are lazy and they dont have to work hard to get good grades, then you talk about the truly harsh grading. Which one is it, Sakky? Are we lazy or hardworking?? Please enlighten me with your amazing wisdom!</p>
<p>So just because I quote people, my structure is like his? So I guess everyone who uses the quote function on this board is copying sakky, right?</p>
<p>And I do happen to agree with most of what sakky writes. So what? When has it become a crime to agree with people? He happens to have some good points and backs them up convincingly with statistics and logic. Maybe I should tell GoldenBear10 that you are no celebrity and that GoldenBear10 should stop trying to become a future ab_med, just because he said that what you said is kinda true, hmm?</p>
<p>What’s wrong with becoming a future sakky? The way I see it, he actually wants to improve the school, unlike many others who don’t seem to care. I think Berkeley is an amazing place, and I was getting pretty annoyed at seeing all my friends pick other private schools over it, and seeing it get bashed on these boards. I would certainly like to see Berkeley improve and become one of the best Universities in the nation to go for undergrad and grad. If that means there are more people like sakky who really wants to improve the school, then I’m for it.</p>
<p>By the way, I don’t agree with everything he writes. For example, I don’t think making the history majors harder will get more Berkeley students into law school. I wouldn’t mind making them harder, but I’m not convinced that tougher grading will result in better results. I mean, Berkeley has a very competitive pre-med track but that doesn’t seem to help pre-med students. They still need very high GPAs to get into med school. I think the problem lies elsewhere.</p>
<p>As has been pointed out before, universal grade deflation will help berkeley students.</p>
<p>Grad schools/law schools adjust a person’s gpa depending on the average gpa at that college and the quality of the student body. Rice is known for universal grade deflation; that’s why rice students get a .2 boost to their GPA when applying to Berkeley’s grad programs.</p>
<p>Its a very simple concept. Because there is rather large grade deflation in Berkeley’s technical majors but significant inflation in all of Berkeley’s soft majors, this dilutes the value of the Berkele diploma to those who undertake difficult majors. Grad schools only look at your school’s average gpa.</p>
<p>That’s why having grade deflation be universal will help berkeley. </p>
<p>Of course there are plenty of other students that love to free ride in poli sci or some equivalent useless major (IB/asian studies major anyone?) to help inflate their gpa (or deflate a mediocre science one), but I doubt anyone will mind that these students no longer get a free ride.</p>
<p>Hmm, Shiboing, I was thinking about that too. I thought that if Berkeley has tougher grading in ALL the majors, then maybe Berkeley students will get a boost with regards to their GPA. But then again, Berkeley is already more grade deflated than HYP overall, and espefcially the pre-med track, yet Berkeley pre-med students still need higher GPAs to get admitted. So, I’m still not sure that universal grade deflation will help Berkeley.</p>
<p>That’s right, because most grad/professional schools only adjust your gpa according to their index which is based only on average GPA and the quality of the student body.</p>
<p>Considering that the average Engineering gpa is around a 2.7 and a the average poli sci gpa is like 3.7, you can see one side is hurt and one side is helped by the fact that adcoms only see Berkeley’s average gpa which is around a 3.2.</p>
<p>If you had bothered to read carefully, you would see that we are talking about TWO standards of grading at Berkeley - namely, the harsh standards used in the technical majors such as engineering and the pure sciences, and the easy grading used by the cheesepuff majors. </p>
<p>Let me put it to you this way. A LOT of engineering majors would love to be able to trade their grading schemes and workloads with those of certain other majors. Of the Cal football players on scholarship (not the walk-ons, but the recruited scholarship players), how many of them do you think are majoring in engineering, physics, or mathematics, and how many of them are majoring in, um, certain other things? Go down to frat-house row behind the IHouse on a weekday afternoon in the middle of the regular semester and you will notice that some of those guys there have basically been doing nothing but drinking and partying for weeks on end. How many engineering students can get with that? </p>
<p>The sad fact is that while certain majors at Berkeley are tough, others are not. I’ll be happy to name a rather prominent one - American Studies. In those majors, you really can do very little and still get good grades. That simply encourages laziness. Why work hard if you don’t have to? Hence, two things happen. Either some of the people who major in these subjects begin to develop a bad attitude towards hard work, because they realize they can get good grades for doing almost nothing. Or, those students who already have a bad attitude tend to choose those majors because they don’t want to avoid hard work. </p>
<p>Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that ALL people in those majors are lazy. Some are indeed very hard working and truly want to dive into those subjects. But the fact remains that a significant number of people in those majors are basically just lolly-gagging around. That’s a problem. It’s a problem because it makes all of the hard-working Berkeley students look bad. Like Shiboing Boing said, these students are basically getting a free ride. I don’e like freeloaders. I don’t think anybody does. </p>
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<p>I think there are several ways to solve the concerns that you and Drab have raised. The problem of differing grading standards happens on the low end. For example, in certain majors, it’s practically impossible to get any grade lower than a C. As long as you have a warm pulse, you are going to pass. On the other hand, there are certain other majors, i.e. chemical engineering, where you can work like a dog and still get an F. I think that those creampuff majors should start handing out non-passing grades, like D’s and F’s to those students who are clearly not cutting it. The grade spectrums at the bottom ends should all be normalized.</p>
<p>However, I would couple that with this reform. I believe that people who get grades lower than C’s should be able to expunge these courses completely from their records, as if they had never taken those courses at all. So instead of getting a D or an F, Berkeley just doesn’t give you any credit for the course at all. You may still end up being put on academic probation for not passing enough units per semester, and you may still lose some financial aid for not passing enough units to be considered a full-time student. But your transcript would be spared the debilitative effect of truly bad grades. </p>
<p>My concern is that I don’t think a guy with a 1.9 GPA in engineering should have to be put on probation, when a guy with a 2.1 GPA in American Studies should not be put on probation, when I think everybody knows that the former guy worked far harder than the latter guy. The American Studies major should be instituting tougher grading. </p>
<p>A bunch of you keep talking about the problems of grade deflation vis-a-vis grad school. However, I doubt that there would be much change at all. After all, the people who are on the low-end of the grading spectrum aren’t getting into graduate school anyway. Take the guy who barely graduated from engineering. I know several former Berkeley engineers who barely graduated with GPA’s ranging from around 2.05 to 2.2. So let’s say, hypothetically, that Berkeley had engineering grade inflation. So these guys might have ended up with 2.5’s-2.7’s. Guess what - they STILL aren’t going to be able to get into graduate school with GPA’s like that. Or take a guy who majored in a grade inflated major like American Studies and got a 2.5. Even with the grade inflation, he’s STILL not going to be able to get into graduate school with grades like that. So if American Studies had deflated its grades, he might have ended up with a 2.1. Whether you get a 2.5 or a 2.1, either way, you’re not going to graduate school. But at least that way, he might have been spurred to have taken his studies more seriously. </p>
<p>The point is, I think there can be reform in the lower-end of the grading spectrum of which people aren’t going to be able to get into graduate school anyway. Like I said, the engineer with the 2.1 knows full well that he won’t be going to graduate school, but he is still highly incented to work hard just to be able to graduate. He’s no longer able to shoot for grad school at Harvard, but he is still incented to avoid the D’s or the F’s that will put him on probation and eventually flunk him out. People in other majors have no such incentive because they know that it’s practically impossible to get a D or an F, and hence it’s practically impossible for them to flunk out, so they have little incentive to do much. Again, take the guy who’s getting the 2.5 in American Studies. He knows he’s not going to grad school at Harvard (or any grad school at all, for that matter). But he also knows that he won’t flunk out, because his courses simply won’t give him the kinds of grades that will flunk him out. So what exactly is his incentive to put in any effort at all?</p>
<p>So what, zhigui? Just because your friend jumps off a bridge, does that mean that you also have to jump off a bridge? Just because other universities do things that are bad, does that mean that Berkeley also has to do the same bad things? Put another way, if Berkeley fixes its problems, and other schools don’t, then Berkeley will be better than those other schools.</p>
<p>Furthermore, I doubt it’s true that every university has easy majors. Name the easy majors at Caltech. Name the easy majors at MIT. Even the easy majors at those schools are still pretty darn hard.</p>
<p>This seems fine to me, except for one problem. I think you mentioned earlier that if the student gets a D or F, that he doesn’t get any credit, and just takes the course over and delays graduation. I’m not sure how much I like the idea of delaying graduation because in my opinion, people are already taking too long to graduate. Only 85% graduate in 6 years as opposed to the high 90s for HYP (looking at Yale’s common set, the 6 year graduation rate for the 1999 cohort is 97%). If more students delay graduation that means more undergraduates at Berkeley and a further stretching of resources. Also, taking the course over again just means taking another spot (if engineering, then an impacted spot) from another student. Maybe something like, if you get a D or F, you can retake it at a CC during the summer for a passing grade, and if you don’t get it, you just get the D or F on the transcript.</p>
<p>Well, first off, an F grade already doesn’t give you any credit. Graduation requires that you pass a given number of units. F’s are not passing grades. So anybody who is getting F’s is already having his graduation delayed anyway. So that’s a wash.</p>
<p>As far as the D’s are concerned, a D does give you credit. But the fact is, most people who get a D in a class will probably take the class over in order to expunge the effects of that grade. If you repeat the class, then the grade you got in your repeat attempt is used for GPA calculation purposes. However, the D will still show up on your transcript. </p>
<p>The point here is if you are repeating classes anyway, as most people who get D’s are, then once again, that means that your graduation is being delayed anyway. Hence, it’s a wash. </p>
<p>Furthermore, I don’t particularly see that graduation will really get delayed significantly more than it already is. Like I said, you have to pass a certain number of units within a given amount of time to remain eligible for full financial aid. Furthermore, not maintaining minimum academic progress means that you eligibility to stay at Berkeley will be revoked, and hence will not be able to take up spots meant for other students.</p>
<p>The salient point is this. Why should an engineering student who has a 1.9 GPA be put on probation, have his financial aid jeopardized, and otherwise be threatened with myriad other problems, and an American Studies student with a 2.1 be considered a full-fledged and fully-eligible student and have nothing happen to him, when I think we can all agree that the latter guy is almost certainly far less serious about his studies than the former guy? The probation and sanctions enacted upon the former guy might spur him to work harder. But shouldn’t we also be spurring the latter guy to also work harder? It seems to me that if somebody really needs a kick in the rear, it’s the latter guy. I think that if anybody should be put on probation or have his financial aid threatened, it should be that American Studies guy.</p>
<p>Again, think about the situation. That theoretical guy with the 2.1 in AS clearly didn’t much of anything. He basically just lollygagged around. Yet he still managed to stay in good academic standing. He also knows that with grades like that, he’s not going to be able to get into grad school. So what exactly is his incentive to work hard now? He might as well just keep lollygagging all the way to graduation. If those AS classes gave out F’s, then he would at least have the incentive to avoid getting an F, hence delaying his graduation. That’s far better than no incentive at all.</p>
<p>What is the basis for believing this will happen?</p>
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<p>sakky, I asked you to explain that, not that they’re comporable. If you disagree with this statement, fine, if you agree, care to explain?</p>
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<p>Care to show that data? I bet it’s around the right place, but please, present some evidence of something.</p>
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<p>Do you not realize this will cause extreme grade inflation? What do you think the consequences of that will be? Really, I don’t know if this proposal solves many concerns.</p>
<p>Well, I suppose in theory it would be balanced out by the fewer As given.</p>
<p>But that kind of defeats the purpose of the grades Ds and Fs because now it’s essentially as if no one is receiving them. And it kind of defeats the “you must maintain a 2.0” because now everyone will have at least a 2.0. So in this sense, no one will drop out, right?</p>
<p>I suppose it COULD work if you want to make Berkeley like other private schools in that it’s almost impossible for someone to flunk out. But Berkeley doesn’t seem like the type of school to provide that much support for each individual student.</p>
<p>Or maybe you could just try to equalize the number of As and Ds/Fs given in every major. Maybe not to the point that the percentages are exactly the same, but close the gap a bit so some majors aren’t vastly easier than others.</p>
<p>Sakky, either you completely missed your own logic train, or you brought up a non-sequitor. I assumed you were arguing as follows:</p>
<p>I stated this:</p>
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<p>That says “there is no correlation between quality of education and GPA”. You responded with this:</p>
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<p>I kind of assumed you had a point. If you in fact didn’t, that’s fine. I figured your train of logic was something like this: easy to get high GPAs attracts bright students who want an easy way to get into law/med school, therefore your peers are better, therefore education is better. It looks like you were just saying something completely irrelevant to the discussion, though, which IMO looks much more ridiculous.</p>
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<p>What? You mean a Stanford professor won’t tell you to do better if you’re getting a D in his/her class? Really? Wow, because that professor must be completely useless as a result. If a professor doesn’t honestly tell a student that s/he needs to improve his/her grades, that professor isn’t doing his/her job as an advisor. Likewise, if a professor excessively insults a student, s/he also isn’t doing his/her job. You’ve also shown no reason for me to believe that Berkeley professors berate their students more often than Stanford professors, except “I’ve heard someone say so”.</p>
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<p>Okay, fine, your advisor insists on trying to help you. So go to your advisor and ask for your advisor code. If you show them your class schedule, they’re required to give you your code. They are also required to meet with you and shouldn’t give you your code without you at least talking to them. You think you’ll be a significantly worse student because you, once a semester, have to see your advisor for 10 minutes? Please.</p>
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<p>Look, there are a couple options here.</p>
<h1>1: School allows everyone into the major they want by dramatically increasing class and discussion sizes. Quality of education goes down. This is the “community college” solution.</h1>
<h1>2: School allows everyone into the major they want by never allowing students that couldn’t make the cut attend Berkeley in the first place. The quality of the education of those kids goes down. This is the “more selective” solution.</h1>
<h1>3: School takes in as many as it can without degrading education with current student numbers. Quality of education remains on par, while students that couldn’t get in at least had a shot at competing, and now may move on to a different major or transfer.</h1>
<p>It’s the best for everybody. Once again, you confuse “what I prefer” with “what’s best”. Look at this nonsense:</p>
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<p>Try convincing a 2-year old that the shot he’s about to get is good for him. That even though it’ll sting and he’ll cry, that it’s a good thing. Try explaining to the poor people of America that competition is a good thing, that it results in the best coming forth for the lowest prices, even if that means some people, meaning THEM, had to fail. It’s a sign the system works, not that it doesn’t.</p>
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<p>Sorry, I’m kind of jumping around here. I agree with this, but we can certainly agree on some common ground as to what the purpose of an advisor is. It is to meet with a student approximately once a semester to guide that student toward his/her goal, which is typically a degree. That means an advisor should inform the student what are good classes to take to keep him/her on track, and should let the student know if his/her performance is sufficient for graduation. That’s all a good advisor has to do. You haven’t shown how Berkeley’s advisors are bad by any standard, and especially not this pretty reasonable one.</p>
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<p>No argument there. But I can complain about US News the times it’s not right, which is a lot of the time. In fact, I should. Otherwise, people will continue to treat it as gospel truth.</p>
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<p>I don’t know, but people do, and there are a lot of extremely smart people here (that compete with HYPSM people). The reason is because the problem is insignificant. And for good students, it’s irrelevant. If you’re an exceptional student, guess what? You don’t care that you need a 3.0GPA to transfer into whatever major. Because you have a 3.7. Otherwise, you aren’t an exceptional student, and you wouldn’t have been exceptional at HYPSM either.</p>
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<p>This isn’t necessarily true, at least not in this context. If it were clear that all universities had a problem and Berkeley fixed it, it would be better than those others. The fact is, the grade inflation isn’t necessarily a problem. It doesn’t hurt education (to a point, at least). It only makes it more difficult for employers and graduate schools to gauge the value of a GPA. It would be best for all schools to refactor the system to elimate grade inflation. That won’t happen. Hence, it would be best for all schools to meet a common standard, even if that is grade inflated. I don’t like it, and I know you don’t like it, but that’s the best option.</p>
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<p>I don’t go to MIT or Caltech, so I can’t say. Do you go to either? I can’t say there are or aren’t hard majors there, but you imply there aren’t. How do you know? And, really, hard is in the eye of the beholder, isn’t it? We always have to ask, hard relative to what?</p>
<p>I think we already addressed this a few pages back which is that about 10 years ago L&S only had one impacted major and about the same number of students, and now there are quite a few impacted majors. The school allowed students who “don’t make the cut” back then (option 2) and the class sizes weren’t bigger (option 1).</p>
<p>Anyway, my take on the whole impacted majors issue: I don’t think it’s a big problem yet, because the number of impacted majors is still very small, but apparently it’s getting worse, and it could become a big problem. I think it’s something Berkeley should address.</p>
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<p>Sorry, but this is horrible logic. Are you honestly comparing a 2-year-old with a college student? A vaccination shot may be painful but it prevents further disease from sprouting, and saves a lot of pain. What good comes from not getting the major you want?</p>
<p>And the poor people of America aren’t doing so badly. I’ve worked at a homeless shelter and the conditions are quite good. The living quarters were clean and well-kept. The cooking was honestly better than what I get at home. There were games like chess to keep you busy and professional help to get you a job. There is also compensation from the government for the unemployed. If you have been to other countries in Asia or Africa and see the poor people there you would see how faulty your argument is.</p>
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<p>Now, this is something with which I really agree, which is to say that for a student choosing between Berkeley and HYPSM, the impacted majors don’t matter that much because in all likelihood he will get into them anyway. In fact, I don’t think impacted majors is much of a factor at all in a prospective student’s decision to choose a school like HYPSM over Berkeley. I don’t think most students are even aware of it. I think it’s mostly due to prestige, which I guess could have stemmed from not having impacted majors…mmmm probably not though.</p>
<p>Impacted majors in and of themselves may not be a big deal, but they are an indicator of uneven and unfair distribution of resources.</p>
<p>Its not fair that certain majors with large numbers of students (Econ, and MCB for example) have only 1 advisor while smaller majors also get 1 advisor. Class size is also uneven across different majors and as a consequence the ability to network with professors and other students is degraded as a result. I think this is a fact that Sakky touches upon and implies (i.e. his example of Haas students getting preferential treatment).</p>