sakky--What is your relationship with UC Berkeley?

<p>To answer your question, first of all, I believe the admissions process is substantially flawed. I suspect that the flaw probably lies in the transfer-student admissions. But I’m not sure. However, I am fairly confident that the admissions could be significantly tightened up. </p>

<p>However, your second point is probably far more to the mark, and that is where I would concentrate my efforts on the most. Slackerness does tend to surface out of some students. There are entire swaths of students who haven’t been to class and haven’t studied anything in weeks. Don’t believe me? Just take a walk down fraternity row or go to some of the coops or some of the dorms, and you will notice some people who haven’t even been on campus for awhile. And then of course, like I said, there are people who have been undergrads for 8,9, or even 10+ and still haven’t graduated, and in some cases, aren’t even close. Come on, I think we can all agree that that’s getting ridiculous. Does anybody care to defend these people.</p>

<p>How do these people survive? Simple. They get into those easy, ‘gut’ majors where you not only hardly ever have to study, you never even have to show up, and you can still not only pass, but in some cases, pass with top grades. I know one guy who took a class in which he never showed up (not even once), and never bothered to do any of the reading. The class grade was based on writing 2 papers off the books. Instead of actually reading the books, all he did was just go to Amazon and read the user-reviews of those books, and basically rephrased those reviews in his own words as the basis for his papers. He ended up with an ‘A-’ in the class. </p>

<p>I know another guy who whenever final exams rolled around, when he realized he wasn’t going to do well in an exam, would just complain that he has a stomach-ache or a headache or some other ailment and ask to be excused from taking the exam, perhaps with a grade of an ‘I’ (Incomplete), or whatever. To back himself up, he would present a doctor’s note attesting to his ‘illness’. In reality, the doctor that he got these notes from was actually his cousin, who was an MD (because he had graduated from medical school), but was still just a low-level intern at the time. His cousin never bothered to examine him for any ‘condition’ he had, he just wrote him the notes for him because he is family. Hence, this guy is just allowed to hang around Berkeley for years and years without graduating, and whenever hs has to do an assignment or an exam he doesn’t want to do, out pops that “doctor’s note”. </p>

<p>What I’m advocating is that these games have to end, and end immediately. Berkeley can’t be having all these easy majors carrying all these students who never show up and never want to work. Either these students have to be convinced that they need to shape up, or Berkeley needs to get rid of them. </p>

<p>I know that somebody is going to say “Well other schools have lazy and shiftless students too”, so let me just head off that objection right now. Who cares what other schools are doing? What matters is what Berkeley is doing. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if Berkeley solves its laziness problem and other schools don’t, then Berkeley will be better off than those other schools.</p>

<p>" I suspect that the flaw probably lies in the transfer-student admissions."</p>

<p>How so?</p>

<p>It seems to me and to many other people who are associated at Cal that the incoming transfer students are not as good as the freshman admits, on average. Now don’t get me wrong - some of the transfers are very good. But a lot of the others are not. </p>

<p>I can’t prove this because Berkeley doesn’t break down its student information by freshman admits vs. transfer admits. The only thing Berkeley says is that transfer students graduate at the same rate and with roughly equivalent grades to the freshman admits. This is a massively unfair comparison for 2 reasons. </p>

<h1>1 - There is no information about what majors they are graduating from, and some majors are far easier to complete than others.</h1>

<h1>2 - The Berkeley weeder courses tend to be concentrated in the lower-division, and those weeders are often times highly responsible for the lower grades and lower graduation rates of the Berkeley freshman admits. Transfer students come in with advanced standing and hence get to skip many (and in some cases, all) of the weeders. They completed those lower-division classes at other schools where it was far easier and hence didn’t have to go through the Berkeley weeder meatgrinder.</h1>

<p>I think Berkeley could fix these problems in these ways.</p>

<h1>1 - Berkeley should not be comparing transfer student GPA and graduation rates to those of freshman admits. Rather, Berkeley should be comparing transfer students to the freshman-admits who actually make it to the upper division, and transfer student GPA to the freshman-admit GPA of upper-division coursework. In other words, it has to be an apples-to-apples comparison. It’s not fair to compare the graduation rate of transfer students who are (ideally) only around for 2 years to the graduation rate of freshman-admits who are around for 4 years. It’s not fair to compare the GPA of transfer students who don’t have to take the lower-division weeders to the overall GPA’s of freshman-admits which include grades in those weeders.</h1>

<p>And #2 - I don’t think transfer students should simply be ‘allowed’ to skip out of weeders. The presumption is that these transfer students learned the material in those weeder courses while they were in their old school, so they don’t need to take the weeders at Berkeley. I think a fair thing to do if for the transfer students to prove that they really did learn the material to the same extent as the Berkeley freshman-admits have to learn the material. For example, a fair thing to do is to force all transfer students to take the final exam of those weeder courses that they are skipping out of. I’m not asking them to take the whole course, just the final exam. They would be graded on a P/NP basis. If they really did learn the material, then they should have no problem in getting a passing score, right? I am not asking them to get an ‘A’ on the final exam. I am just asking them to pass it. But if they can’t pass it, then they shouldn’t be allowed to skip the weeder.</p>

<p>sakky, are you in a position to submit these ideas to someone that will actually consider implementing them at berkeley? these ideas aren’t bad.</p>

<p>sakky,</p>

<p>Transfer students, according to the UCOP official page, do as well as their non-transfer counterparts in every way.</p>

<p>Sakky,</p>

<p>The argument can be made that transfers getting to skip so-called “weeder” classes is irrelevant. </p>

<p>For anyone who has taken a jc/cc course, likely they can tell you, and I certainly can, that the caliber of these courses is certainly much lower and less intense than the difficulty of classes, even of the same material, at elite universities like Berkeley. As you said, this is part of your argument as (for example) a jc intro to economics hardly would serve as a weeder like a Berkeley intro to economics.</p>

<p>However, if transfers are able to come in junior year not being used to the rigor of en elite school, become immediately immersed in upper-division courses whose difficulty and workload level are worlds apart from what they were used to and still graduate at the same rate as Berkeley and the UCOP insist, then it stands to reason that these students are as capable as their admitted-as-freshmen counterparts.</p>

<p>“Admission to the College of Engineering is highly competitive. Selections are
primarily based on the completeness of the applicant’s lower division
preparation and the level of academic achievement reflected in the student’s
grade point average. Applicants should have at least 80% of the lower division
courses completed by the end of the spring term prior to fall enrollment. It is
recommended that students also have an Introduction to Engineering course.
Note: A summer 2005 course is not considered to be “work in progress” for fall
2005 selection purposes.”</p>

<p><a href=“Welcome to ASSIST”>Welcome to ASSIST;

<p>the above link shows the classes a student at pierce college needs to take for a chance at entering berkeley’s eecs program. a transfer student must have the appropriate gpa and must have completed 80% of the classes (weeder and otherwise). you’ll notice that some of the required classes aren’t offered, have been denied, or is under review. in such cases, students will often times take those classes at other cc’s. should the student not take some classes at a cc, they’ll have to take it at berkeley anyhow. at my cc (east los angeles college), most of the students i knew were ecomonically poor, worked 40+ hours a week, single parents, etc.</p>

<p>students who transfer to berkeley are up to par (especially those who transfer as math/science majors) educationally because berkeley demands it. not only do they transfer with good grades, but often times will do it under adverse social conditions.</p>

<p>Sakky, what do you care if transfers don’t take the weeder classes if they do just as well as the people who did? I can see it from the perspective that you feel they are getting out of the hard classes, but it obviously doesn’t make them any lesser students becasue when they do get to Cal they do just as well the those that came as freshman. Aren’t those “weeder” classes meant to see who will make it in the upper division classes? Transfers do just as well in those upper division classes, so really they don’t need the weeders.</p>

<p>Conor, youre missing the point. The entire idea of “weeder” classes is specifically to eliminate students who try to just scrape by with the least possible effort and still end up with an A (like im doing in HS now…senioritis). To skip by these classes then enter in with the surviving crop of students into upper division classes, which seem in some respects to be easier, is unfair. Sure maybe they wont do as well but thats not the point. They still got into those upper division classes with less work than the rest of the group. There may be better qualified students in the “weeded” group than in the transfer group. This will sound very strange, but the transfer students unfairly get the chance to fail when they may not have earned it. Am i saying transfer students are all idiots? Of course not i would have to meet every one of them and ask them all… But Sakky makes a good point that transfer students should be subjected to the same standards of rigor and the same, or at least equivalent means of weeding. Sure they may have their day of reckoning some day when working at a job or even sooner when taking the MCAT’s or whatever, the point is make the day of reckoning today and eliminate at least one lurking variable that certainly plays a part (clearly) in tarnishing Cal’s reputation.</p>

<p>Transfer students are not going to have their day of reckoning because they perform the same as non-transfer students.</p>

<p>Since i havent seen this data and since it was just stated outright please post it or at least a link. If they end up getting the same job as the guy who went for 4 years, then great all the better for them. If thats all true and they dont have a day of reckoning, then lucky for them, and how much more unfair is it for the guy who got cut by the weeder class but was just as smart. While this isnt exactly the same, its kind of similar to the Fall Extension Program, which i am going to take this following year: Would it be fair to compare my first year cumulative GPA to that of a regualr Fall admit? I get my first semester as basically P/NP so far as Cal is concerned. Fall admits get their first semester screw-ups thrown in there. If we both turn out the same then all the better for us both. But any statistics comparing regular admits and transfer students do need to compare the exact same thing.</p>

<p>If you haven’t seen the data, why do you have an opinion? Just go to Berkeley’s web site, and search around. Berkeley has tons of information about SAT scores, transfer students, low income students, etc.</p>

<p>“To skip by these classes then enter in with the surviving crop of students into upper division classes, which seem in some respects to be easier, is unfair.”</p>

<p>What?! Tell me a major where the upper div courses are easier than the lower div “intro to ----'s.”</p>

<p>curve is one factor.</p>

<p>Well i have two ways of responding 1) i have an opinion because they are like A****les, everyones got one. 2) I have an opinion because i can and because i have a mind with which to consider problems and ideas. Some of what i said stands whether or not there is actual data, regardless of how well they do after they graduate. But if were going to discuss the data, heres what ive found so far:</p>

<p>“The Berkeley campus is strongly committed to admitting transfer students, who make up about one-third of our fall 2004 class.* Transfer students do very well at Berkeley, graduating with similar grade point averages and at similar rates as students who started Cal as freshmen.”</p>

<p><a href=“http://students.berkeley.edu/admissions/transfer.asp[/url]”>http://students.berkeley.edu/admissions/transfer.asp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>As it has been stated before, those two statistics have little indication on how hard those people worked to get to the point of transfer, and even less when they do not compare the same statistic (see apples and apples by Sakky). Even if they are true my point stands that transfer students, however hard they work after transferring, may not have subjected to the same rigors as regular admits. All students should have an equal chance at an education like that afforded by Berkeley. That means you subject EVERYONE to the same rigors. Sakky’s got the right kind of idea by telling them to take the final from the weeder classes, thats where a lot of the weeding is done anyways.</p>

<p>You don’t know how hard the transfer students worked. You don’t know. What we do know is how they perform. So you want to judge people based on what you don’t know instead of what you do know. OK. I don’t.</p>

<p>I worked very hard at my CC and I think at times read more and studied more than I do at UCLA. Maybe my experience was not indicative of every school, but I think that I have done easily as well if not better than most of my 4 year counterparts. </p>

<p>But what do I know, I’m just a drooling transfer.</p>

<p>“Sakky’s got the right kind of idea by telling them to take the final from the weeder classes, thats where a lot of the weeding is done anyways.”</p>

<p>No no no. The purpose of lower division courses is to prepare students for upper division work. Why should we force transfer students to take the final from lower courses when the fact that they graduate (and thereby succeed in upper div. courses) at the same level as their non-transfer peers proves that they’re every bit as competent and capable?</p>

<p>yllwjep, I fear you’ve accepted the elitist Stanford argument against Berkeley that it is somehow “plagued” by subpar cmmunity college transfers. If these “second-rate” students can succeed in equal numbers (and often with adverse measures against them) in the supposed dog-eat-dog, grade-deflated, competitive atmosphere you Cal students are proud to boast about your alma mater as possessing, then who are you to discount them?</p>

<p>And to think that Cal students believe Stanford and USC smack of elitism!</p>

<p>A lot of you guys are missing the point, combined with not actually reading what I wrote. </p>

<p>For example, a bunch of you are saying that transfer students are just as good as freshman-admits. Fine, fair enough, then there should be absolutely no objection whatsoever to my idea of having the transfer students take the weeder final exams and passing them. After all, if transfer students really are just as good as freshman-admits, then they should be able to pass those weeders, right? So why object to this idea? In fact, I would argue that transfer students should want to implement this policy, because it will help them to prove that they really are just as good as the freshman admits. If transfer students don’t want to take the final exams of the weeders, then it just looks as if they have something to hide. </p>

<p>And another objection is that transfer students perform as well as freshman admits. Really? Read what I wrote about the apples-to-apples comparison again. You are comparing only the 2 years of upper division work of transfer students vs. the entire 4 years for regular freshman-admits. How is that a fair comparison? </p>

<p>I think what the problem is that people don’t truly understand the concept of weeders. For many majors at Berkeley, especially the technical ones like engineering, your first 2 years as a freshman admit will be spent trying to survive weeder courses. Some will make it through. Others won’t. Even the ones who make it through often times suffer the “scars” of the weeder wars - i.e., some really bad grades that they got in weeder classes. It is also during these first 2 years that freshman-admits tend to run into academic trouble, possibly culminating with expulsion, because their grades are too low to remain in good academic standing. </p>

<p>However, once you hit a certain level, at around junior year or so, the weeding stops. The understanding is that once you’ve survived the weeders, you’ve arrived, and they will no longer try to throw you out of the major. They will still curve you, but they are no longer out to give lots of people really bad grades. Once you hit the upper division, then as long as you do the work, you’re going to pass. Maybe not get a good grade, but you’re going to pass. This is a far cry from the weeders where you work extremely hard and still not pass the class. </p>

<p>Transfer students get to skip the weeder war. Their GPA doesn’t have to undergo the meatgrinder of the Berkeley weeders. They get to start with a clean slate at Berkeley, compared to many (not all, but many) of the freshman-admits who get to the upper division with their GPA’s badly damaged. </p>

<p>Let me give you another snippet from Moochworld. True, it’s about UCLA, not Berkeley, but it’s the same idea.</p>

<p>""Why Do You Keep Talking About “Harder As You Move Up?”</p>

<p>Amazingly, many majors get EASIER as you move up. This is because once you get through the weeder, they give you a break and the workload is only as hard as an “average” class. "</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.moochworld.com/scribbles/ucla/16.html[/url]”>http://www.moochworld.com/scribbles/ucla/16.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>The fair way to compare freshman-admits to transfers is to look at the Berkeley GPA’s of the transfer students with ONLY THE UPPER DIVISION GRADES of the freshman-admits. That’s a true apples-to-apples comparison. All the wounds and injuries inflicted during the weeder wars should not count. The fair way to compare Berkeley graduation rates between transfer students and freshman-admits is to look at the graduation rates of transfer students vs. the graduation rates of freshman-admits THAT MADE IT TO THE UPPER DIVISION. Those freshman-admits who flunked out because of the weeders should not be counted. </p>

<p>If Berkeley wants to shut me up, then Berkeley should publish the true apples-to-apples comparison. Why not? If transfer students really are as good as freshman-admits, then Berkeley has nothing to hide, so why not publish this information? Berkeley publishes reams and reams of other information about its student body, so why not this, if there truly is nothing to hide? By deliberately choosing not to publish it, and even worse, by insisting on publishing only apples-to-oranges comparisons, it only stokes the suspicion that there really is something to hide. </p>

<p>So to summarize, people here are saying that transfer students really do just as well as freshman-admits. My response to that is, well, if that’s really true, then let’s verify it. First, let’s publish the apples-to-apples comparison. And let’s have the transfer students get passing grades on the weeder final exams. Hey, if those transfer students really are just as good as the freshman-admits, then there should be no problem in publishing the apples-to-apples comparison, right? And there should be no problem with those transfer students getting passing scores on those weeder final exams, right? So what’s the objection? Objections only lead people to believe that there truly is something to hide.</p>

<p>Dstark: youre right i dont know how hard a transfer student worked but if they wont be taking the same weeder class i think its only fair that they prove all the same that theyre just as capable. The point is not how well transfer students do, but that they earn their spot just like everyone else, and making them pass the same final as everyone else is the perhaps the most clear-cut way of doing that. </p>

<p>UCLAri: I by no means am trying to insult you. And as much as I say that, im sure (as i read my own post) that its going to sound like that. I have my own friends who are going to CC’s or CSU’s that are way harder workers and just as smart as some people going to UC’s. One friend of mine i have a profound amount of respect for because shes going to pay her own way thru college, her car, the insurance on it, and all of her own expenses. All the while she still takes care of her school work and has a social life. Am i worried about her failing? Not for a second, because i know she works harder than most, including myself. For those who are qualified and work hard, being subjected to the same standards should not be a problem. The only thing it does is add legitimacy to the entire process. It silences the naysayers who put down the UC System as a whole because it accepts transfer students. Berkeley is an elite school. So is UCLA, SD, Davis, SC, SB and the rest. Those who dont think theyre all good schools are ignorant fools. But when SOME transfer students get by without taking the hardest classes it just invites criticism, no matter how many transfer students are harder working and smarter than the rest of us.</p>