As a California resident, I have to say that I disagree with you about “how bad it is here” in terms of a college education.
California has 9 UC’s that all ranked in the Top 100 colleges, 23 Cal states, 81 Private Universities and 116 Community colleges. There is a college for every student in CA that wants to attend. I do agree with you that most of the students (not just top students) are focused on the same UC’s and the few CSU’s along with same competitive majors so of course there is not enough room for all these students. At the UC Counselor Conference, the UCSB admissions officer stated that 10% of the Freshman applicants applied for Computer Science.
So California Parents/Students you need to ask these questions: But why only these schools when there are so many options available? Social media? Parent’s expectations? Peer pressure? All I see are students stating they want a top 20 school or bust.
UCLA received a total of 145,882 Freshman applications last year with 90,747 CA residents while UC Berkeley received 125,874 applications but 72,656 were CA residents. UCI, UCSD and UCSB received more CA applicants than UC Berkeley. Other states and other countries understand the quality education these schools provide so it is no wonder these top schools are so competitive.
The Cal states give priority to the local admission area applicants so you are going to see schools like SDSU and Cal Poly SLO deny plenty of 4.0 students again to due impaction and capacity limits.
Only 7 Cal states are fully impacted, so that leaves 16 CSU’s where most students with the minimum GPA and CSU requirements have a chance to attend barring some specific impacted programs such as Nursing.
I have helped many students over the years with their UC and CSU applications and the majority of these good to excellent students have actually ended up attending either their local CSU or another CSU and were happy and thriving.
I will just say overall I am thankful my son’s, my nieces, nephews, friends etc… had wonderful college options in California where they could get an excellent education and succeed.
Remember one student’s Safety is another student’s dream school. Setting realistic expectations and getting students out of the mindset that there are only a few UC’s and CSU’s worthy of them attending needs to be emphasized.
My 2 cents worth and everyone’s opinion is valid but as noted by @KDEGKDEG this issue is not exclusive to CA parents and colleges. “The grass is always greener”.
Here is a link to last year’s UC Vent if anyone is interested. Again, the same points keep being brought up I always say that where you go for Undergrad will not define you, it is what you do with the resources given that will make you successful.
https://talk.collegeconfidential.com/t/vent-about-uc-decisions/
Another article about CA schools: Why California’s Public Universities Are So Good