meant growing up in poverty.
@leghornchicken: Yeah, that was exactly my “secret” plan many years ago as a senior when applying to just one school (UCB) and had a worst scenario solution in mind - would have attended a local CC if I had been rejected from UCB.
Not sure if UC admission offices nowadays evaluate transfer applicants strictly based on academic performance of required, accredited courses.
Interesting to note that for the admitted class of 2024 @Harvard, “the percentage of Asian American admits decreased to 24.5 percent compared to last year’s 25.4 percent. Asian Americans remain the largest minority group among the admitted students. African Americans comprise 14.8 percent of the admitted class, a figure that remains the same from the previous class. The percentage of Latinx admits increased to 12.7 percent from 12.4 percent last year. The percentage of Native American or Native Hawaiian admits decreased to 2.2 percent, down from last year’s 2.6 percent.”
Source: “Harvard College Admits 4.92 Percent of Applicants to Class of 2024” by Benjamin L. Fu and Dohyun Kim, March 27, 2020
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/3/27/harvard-admissions-2024/
It is probably not “most”, since overall college students are 56% female. Probably only some of the more selective colleges that are not constrained against considering gender (as California publics are by proposition 209) deliberately try to gender-balance their students (since an approximately equal gender ratio is usually seen as desirable by students in college, even though efforts to get to it by admissions produces some resentment among applicants of the gender with excess applicants to that college or division or major).
UC admissions currently does look favorably on those who achieved against obstacles and limitations on opportunity (that are more common in low SES situations).
UC already does an approximation of this with the statewide guarantee for student in the approximate top 9% statewide (based on recalculated HS GPA and SAT/ACT scores – not sure how that will change as SAT/ACT policy changes) and for students meeting a top 9% benchmark recalculated HS GPA for their high school (“Eligibility in Local Context”).
https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/admission-requirements/freshman-requirements/california-residents/statewide-guarantee/
https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/admission-requirements/freshman-requirements/california-residents/local-guarantee-elc.html
Note, however, that this admission guarantee for either “top 9%” is to the UC system, not a specific campus. Lots of students who apply to UCs are only interest in UCB and UCLA and would not want to go to UCM that they may get admission to under these “top 9%” guarantees.
Prior college GPA and completion of as many required and recommended pre-transfer courses as possible are the most important factors in holistic reading for transfer admission. However, some majors at some campuses have plethoras of applicants clustered around 4.0 college GPA, which presumably makes essays more important in distinguishing between them.
https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/transfers-major
@ucbalumnus : Notice that by comparison, the UT Austin currently automatically admits eligible Texas students in the top six percent of their high school graduating class. 6% vs. 9% ><
https://news.utexas.edu/2019/09/24/ut-austin-automatic-admission-rate-to-remain-at-6/
An interesting read on “a 2019 study by the USC Race and Equity Center ranked Berkeley last among UC campuses in equity for Black students based on four factors…”
UT Austin is larger than UCB, but is in a state with a smaller population.
UT Austin also uses current class rank instead of having students aim for their high school’s top x% GPA, leading to cutthroat behavior and rank-grubbing in some Texas high schools.
If I remember correctly, since D18 was in the top 9% in CA, then that distinction just guarantees you a spot in one of the nine (9) UC campuses, er, UC Merced, not just Cal.
So could it be a possible solution to the admission issue if California is split into at least 2 separate states: NorCal vs. SoCal. The population spit is roughly 2:3, that is 16m (NorCal) vs. 24m (SoCal) and the resulting residential demographics of two regions also differs from one another significantly I believe. And the NorCal thus consists of five UC campuses: Berkeley, SF, Davis, Santa Cruz, Merced; SoCal consists of another five: LA, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Riverside, and Irvine. We then would have two separate UC flagships: UCB and UCLA for each region. I think it probably makes more sense even if the two individual “systems” adopt an admission policy that reflects its own ethnic composition. Of course, there are more and deeper issues such as financial resource budget allocation, etc.
-Just my two cents.
Side note: UCSF does not offer undergraduate program.
CA will never split into 2 states. The US Congress would never allow CA to have two more senators, likely Democratic.
Here’s the last effort to split CA into 3 states.
@sushiritto: OK, I get it now. Two more, most likely Democratic senators. lol
Thanks @sushiritto : That’s really a good point. Because “no matter which end of the state they live in — are favored to win in statewide contests against Republicans.”
https://www.dailydemocrat.com/2018/10/29/its-norcal-vs-socal-in-ballot-of-the-ballots/
Eh, I’d like to weigh in.
I don’t really see any point in ACA-5/Prop 16. Being Asian, I’m obviously super biased but come on. Stop making college all about race and nothing about actual education.
I’m in favor of a system similar to what @hebegebe proposed, where affirmative action-esque programs consider income, not race. For example, there are tons of low income students that will never have the same opportunities as those living in, say, suburban California, and that’s grossly unfair. How are they supposed to study for the SAT when they’ve got to work to support their family? I do feel that needs to be addressed more clearly. A system that’s proposed by ACA-5 suggests a low income Asian kid would be at a disadvantage purely because of race compared to an upper middle class Black or Hispanic student. Is it really ethical to deny students admission on the basis of race? Seriously?
Also, people need to stop spreading the idea that if an Asian student is qualified, they’ve got nothing to worry about. We live in a time where Rickoids and Olympiad finalists are sweating about their decisions every December/March. Stop using thinly veiled racism in admissions to justify existing inequalities in our society. You’re combating racism with more racism and the cycle never ends.
^^True. The irony is too rich.
Proposition 16 probably will not pass, if voters focus on colleges and the survey results from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/02/25/most-americans-say-colleges-should-not-consider-race-or-ethnicity-in-admissions/ are similar to what people in California think on the matter.
In that survey, all of the race/ethnicity groups had majorities “saying that race or ethnicity should be not a factor in college admissions.” Breakdown by race/ethnicity and party saying “not a factor”:
73% All
78% White
62% Black
65% Hispanic
58% Asian
85% Republican and lean Republican
63% Democrat and lean Democrat
Following.
My S is applying to UC this cycle and bringing no kind of diversity to the table. I was a bit surprised and disappointed that he has to put in our total family income “to help us determine if you’re eligible for certain outreach programs, scholarships, and the application fee waiver.” We are not asking for any aid but will put a truthful answer since there are no other options but to enter this.
“Justice Department Finds Yale Illegally Discriminates Against Asians and Whites in Undergraduate Admissions in Violation of Federal Civil-Rights Laws”
(Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs 8/13/2020)
…
“The Department of Justice has demanded Yale agree not to use race or national origin in its upcoming 2020-2021 undergraduate admissions cycle, and, if Yale proposes to consider race or national origin in future admissions cycles, it must first submit to the Department of Justice a plan demonstrating its proposal is narrowly tailored as required by law, including by identifying a date for the end of race discrimination.”
Just checked the election result data of California Proposition 209 in 1996:
*[color=blue]YES/color
*[color=red]NO/color.
It was 24 years ago.
Does anyone have how Prop 209 read? I know that Napolitano brought some causes in overturning it that didn’t seem to have any factor in it as in sexual orientation. I think she was just bargaining for added votes for Prop 16.
As far as gender, assuming only a binary differentiation, I think that Napolitano wanted to get the hiring processes at the UCs more even, because it certainly isn’t a factor for students because the UC has considerably more female students than male. As far as evening out the imbalance that exists in engineering, that would be tough because there are less percentages of women who are interested in the subject. On one hand, there are a greater percentage of women who are becoming MDs, but considerably less than half who are becoming computer scientists and engineers. I don’t see how things can be so micro-managed to force a more even gender percentage in all areas of study, especially with gender preferences wrt professions.
As far as race, @CalCUStanford per your #41, Harvard has 15% Black and 13% Latina/o in its incoming class, but it can also cherry-pick the top students from high schools around the country. If I may be apolitically correct or politically incorrect here for a second, the UC is trying to balance the percentages out racially/ethnically, but all it ends up doing is getting a good portion of URM students to major in things like Sociology and Ethnic Studies. These may be an expedient way to balance things ethnically and get them degrees, but these majors will not get someone employed. Social justice is an admirable cause, but it’s not going to get someone a job, which is what they need to bring their families up.
Here’s a link to the aamc.org website which shows the percentage of Black and Latina/o applicants in 2018-19 to allopathic med schools:
And there were only 99 Latinas/os “L” of the total 1,014 UCLA baccalaureate applicants who applied to med school in 2019, a percentage of 9.8%, considerably less than the L population at UCLA, as well as those who started out with a bio/pre-med major.
I think what the UCs can do – particularly UCLA, because the University has an overabundance of Social Science majors, which is okay for the ORMs who can major in history or sociology and enter Law or Dental school or into a business marketing career by taking various internships, is to encourage URMs to major in Econ, Bus Econ, Stats, or Applied Math, or even Soc with a minor in Accounting.
I’d still also like to see students who attend really bad high schools to dual enroll in their local community college. Compton College isn’t sending effectively any to the UCs as transfers, neither are effectively any students matriculating at UC from Centenenial, Dominguez, or Compton High Schools, so they can convert Compton College into essentially a college-prep, dual-enrollment institution.
I think also that UC has to lose its self-importance: the idea that the campus can make a difference over the Cal States in bringing students up in social indexing. Which is a better choice: getting admitted to a business management program at CSUDH, or an undeclared Social Science major at UCLA? I think it’s the former, because some of the mentors and professors at UCLA will turn the student into a SJW who has no future professionally. And the UCs are not preparatories for teaching; less than 1% of its graduates are employed in CA public schools. On the other hand, the CSUs are the dominant providers to the teaching profession in CA. I’m not factoring in those who join Ameriteach or some of the others, because that’s just for the undecideds before they go to grad or professional school.