Actually the point of the Texas system was to get a representative cohort-racially, geographically, ethnically, SES, etc. It achieves that better than most. That is a worthy goal for a public school.
UT Austin doesn’t actually have room for the entire top 6%, so though the students are admitted the college hopes the yield is reasonable. Sometimes it is too high and the school is overenrolled.
Regardless of whether one deems it “fair” it is transparent and predictable to applicants.
I wouldn’t. At least not in this thread.
Let’s keep to topic please. The question posed does not relate to med school admissions. Nor was it a request to denigrate Merced.
Exactly, in my son’s school, they look down on UCM, UCR, UCSC, and all CSU except SLO. No matter how hard I try to convince him, he is not happy.
My son came home discouraged yesterday because people were putting down Irvine and Davis as “mid” and nothing to be excited about.
They are just kids, but it gets ridiculous.
I 100 percent agree. Unfortunately, they listen to their friends rather than us. When my son started high school, I was worried about bullying. To my surprise, there was none. However, I am very disheartened by this toxic culture. I think instead of changing the UC system, there should be more encouragement for so-called mid- and low-tire UCs.
“Mid” … 
So sorry to hear that. Those are tough admits and great schools!
At a certain point, I hope your son realizes that none of those students are going to be going to college with him if they consider those schools ‘mid’. And most likely, he won’t be seeing much of those ‘friends’ after they all disperse off to their separate colleges.
Top 10 public universities in the US are now “mid”?
Ridiculous indeed.
And the CSUs which are fantastic schools, too - affordable and with a strong focus on undergrad education. But these, too, are often seen as "lesser’ when in fact they can be excellent options for many students - especially those who want to major in subjects that tend to be impacted at the UCs. CSUs don’t get nearly the respect they deserve (with the possible exception of SLO).
My son was deep in the “please, anything but having to go to a CSU” mentality for quite awhile. After many discussions he’s softened, but these ideas are hard to change when held by peers.
In our household, we approached this by telling our kids over and over that there are well more than a hundred great colleges in the US from which to earn a valuable degree. That messaging started in middle school.
I get so tired of these kids elitist comments! It’s stupid and naive.
Those same kids, who look down their noses at these good schools, are the ones whose parents have not saved a DIME for college expenses, assuming that when Financial Aid comes in, their snobby kids will go to those schools.
That bill comes due quickly in August and September from the UC’s. It’s either cash or credit card. If you’ve hit your limit, they will reject the card and those class confirmations/housing will go out the window.
I know that a number of my former students at my high school also received that elitist attitude from some peers, but staff later reported hearing from parents of the same braggart, snooty kids- begging for financial aid help because they thought their kids would receive full rides. They couldn’t afford to attend any UC’s “mid” or elite tier.
Our daughter chose to go to Davis because of their great record of preparing and advising med school students.
Davis has the best Vet school in the nation, per US News and World Report (if you’re into that kind of ranking). Our daughter’s dorm was kitty corner from the dairy cows. The students loved it!
Her Berkeley friends came to Davis on weekends to get away from the stress of Berkeley! Davis was always a “feel good” site. Daughter could have chosen Berkeley but she purposely chose Davis.
Then, later at UCSF School of Medicine, when she graduated, she felt Davis had prepared her well.
UT Austin is required to take 75% of the admits from the top 6% pool. At least 90% of admits have to be from Texas. That leaves 10% for whatever, made up from OOS and more kids not in 6%. The autoadmits are not guaranteed their major or selected college/school placement. They will have limited choice from a few majors. Its a pretty big percentage that don’t ever get their preferred major.
The negative perception of “lower tier” UCs and CSUs is clearly a real thing in some CA schools and peer groups. It’s fed by sites full of high school students confidently advising others about the culture and job prospects at various universities and, of course, by parents who really believe their child is owed at spot at their preferred UC or CSU.
But each year there are thousands of CA students who do appreciate and take advantage of the opportunities available to them across the state. https://www.calstate.edu/csu-system/about-the-csu/facts-about-the-csu/Documents/facts2023.pdf No one claims it’s perfect, but California does offer all HS graduates a path to a solid public education.
Those who’d prefer to send their kids to an out of state public or private because they’re not satisfied with their in-state options (often taking a financial hit) are free to do that, but they can’t honestly claim that their child had no in-state alternatives.
However, the majors that are oversubscribed at UCs (other than UCM) also tend to be the ones impacted at the CPSLO and perhaps other popular CSUs (e.g. CS at SJSU). But, except for nursing, those majors are available and not oversubscribed at many other CSUs and UCM that offer them (yes, including CS).
State residents generally see the “top 1 or 2” state universities as being worthy of “flagship” status. However, the size of the state population relative to the size of each state university is much higher in California than it is in most other states. To have “top 2 flagships” in California with admission selectivity more in line with many other states, the entire 9-campus UC system would have to be combined into 2 campuses with ~100,000 undergraduates each.
UC Merced also appears to have enough capacity in its engineering majors (including CSE) that changing into those majors is not significantly restricted – good for undecided-but-considering-engineering and engineering-but-not-sure-what-kind students. This is in contrast to some other UCs where students might get locked in to a specific engineering major, or locked out if they entered in some non-engineering major, due to the lack of space for later entrants to engineering majors.
https://bobcat-advising-center.ucmerced.edu/first-year-students/changing-major-or-declaring-minor
https://engr-advising.ucmerced.edu/policies/declaration-major
Rankings and prestige are not all that valuable when finding a good fit for college, but since such factors are at the core of this thread, here are the latest USNWR rankings of National Universities:
Maybe Texas should adopt a system like the UC system, which has more excellent schools (not even including the excellent CSU programs) and automatically admits higher percentage of top students from each school.
That is no different than any other admissions system, and still better than most.
On the other hand, UT Austin accepts more Texas students than UCLA or Berkeley accept California students. At UT Austin, 90% of the students are in-state. In contrast, Berkeley has 67% in-state, and UCLA has just below 70%. Both UCLA and Berkeley have more international students than UT Austin has OOS students.
USNews rankings no great indicator of “student excellence”? They’re a beauty contest, and Berkeley and UCLA are more well known and are more popular.
As of 2020, both UC Berkeley and UCLA have increased their enrollment of CA students to due to the state mandated OOS/International cap imposed. For 2023, UC Berkeley had 80% enrolled CA Freshman and 81% of all in-coming students as CA residents. UCLA had 79% Freshman CA residents enrolled and 84% of all in-coming students as CA residents. The UC’s are making positive strides in the right direction.