Regents Scholars at UCD--please help!

LostCoast
Tue, 24 Apr 2012 15:33:24 +0000

Not to throw a monkey wrench into anybody’s decision, but I think that students are generally able to graduate from UC in four years, even without priority registration. From the Common Data Sets that I’ve seen for UC campuses, the four-year rate seems to be typically around 2/3. Yes, that’s worse than most LACs, and it includes students in very flexible majors. But, still, it seems that most students who don’t change majors late in the game or need remedial work are able to get out in four years.

That jibes with the experience of an engineering major I know at UCD. He’s a sophomore this year, not a Regents Scholar, and so far has been able to get all of the courses he needs when he needs them. That’s critical, and probably most difficult, for engineering majors with their intense and strongly sequenced requirements.

That said, once my daughter was awarded a Regents at a UC campus that she likes, everywhere else that she applied dropped off her radar. For her I think that the Regents gave two advantages. One was the priority registration, because with all the talk she was worried about getting out in four years. Also important was the honors program, which gives her a small group of students to interact with on the large campus. That gives some of the benefits of a LAC, while also having the resources of a large university.