State Schools, Uneven Rigor at High Schools (& GPAs), & Options

College Search & Lists
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In the thread Is there grade inflation at your child’s high school? a discussion has arisen in posts #99-109 about how, depending on a state’s admission priorities, some applicants to their state flagships may be disadvantaged (whether they come from a school with more or less rigor).

Implied in that conversation is that some of a state’s schools are better than others, so for a worthy student who is disadvantaged by the high school they attend (due to higher or lower rigor) that the other state options are a significant downgrade. This, of course, is primarily only an issue at the most popular colleges in the country, as I strongly suspect that the majority of state flagships in the U.S. still accept the majority of their applicants.

To illustrate this, here is a list of the public schools ranked in the top 100 by USNWR, as my sense is that the majority of posters on CC would consider the T100 schools to be good schools. There are definite issues with rankings and their methodologies, but USNWR is a popular source of many people’s thoughts as to what a “quality” school is, so I will this as a common reference point.

Public Universities among the USNWR Top 100 National Universities by State (# of schools in parentheses)

CALIFORNIA (9)

  • UCLA: #15
  • UC – Berkeley: #17
  • UC – San Diego: #29
  • UC – Davis: #33
  • UC – Irvine: #33
  • UC – Santa Barbara: #39
  • UC – Merced: #58
  • UC – Riverside: #76
  • UC – Santa Cruz: #84

COLORADO (2)

  • Colorado School of Mines: #76
  • U. of Colorado – Boulder #98

CONNECTICUT (1)

  • U. of Connecticut – Storrs: #70

DELAWARE (1)

  • U. of Delaware: #86

FLORIDA (4)

  • U. of Florida: #30
  • Florida State: #54
  • U. of South Florida: #91
  • Florida International: #98

GEORGIA (2)

  • Georgia Tech: #33
  • U. of Georgia: #46

ILLINOIS (2)

  • U. of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign: #33
  • U. of Illinois – Chicago: #80

INDIANA (2)

  • Purdue: #46
  • Indiana U – Bloomington: #73

IOWA (1)

  • U. of Iowa: #98

MARYLAND (1)

  • U. of Maryland – College Park: #44

MASSACHUSETTS (1)

  • UMass-Amherst: #58

MICHIGAN (2)

  • U. of Michigan: #21
  • Michigan State: #63

MINNESOTA (1)

  • U. of Minnesota – Twin Cities: #54

NEW JERSEY (4)

  • Rutgers – New Brunswick: #41
  • Rutgers – Newark: #80
  • New Jersey Institute of Technology: #84
  • Rutgers – Camden: #98

NEW YORK (3)

  • Stony Brook (SUNY): #58
  • Binghamton (SUNY): #73
  • U. at Buffalo (SUNY): #76

NORTH CAROLINA (2)

  • UNC-Chapel Hill: #27
  • NC State: #58

OHIO (1)

  • The Ohio State U: #41

PENNSYLVANIA (3)

  • Penn State – University Park: #63
  • U. of Pittsburgh: #70
  • Temple #98

SOUTH CAROLINA (1)

  • Clemson: #80

TEXAS (2)

  • U. of Texas: #30
  • Texas A&M: #51

VIRGINIA (3)

  • U. of Virginia: #24
  • Virginia Tech: #51
  • William & Mary: #54

WASHINGTON (1)

  • U. of Washington: #46

WISCONSIN (1)

  • U. of Wisconsin – Madison: #39

Then there are states with no public colleges in the top 100, namely:

Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming. (Also, so glad I learned the “Fifty Nifty United States” in 4th grade!)

I have more thoughts, but I will leave this post more fact-based and put more of my opinions in the next one.

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I find it interesting that I hear far more complaints from Californians about students not getting into a preferred state school (state population 39 million) as compared to Texans (state population 30.5 million). California has 9 schools in the top 100 as compared to Texas which has 2.

I suspect that part of the difference in reactions is cultural. My impression is that in many parts of California there is increased importance on status and appearances. If the desire was just for a “high-ranked” school, this wouldn’t seem to be that much of an issue for California as its UC system composes 9% of the country’s top colleges, whether public or private. Thus, it seems as though exclusivity is the desire. It’s not that a good education can’t be received at UC - Merced, but that it’s not nearly as exclusive as a UCLA or Cal.

In contrast, I don’t think there is as much importance on status and appearances in Texas, or at least not around higher education. So if a student doesn’t attend UT or A&M then they’ll go to LSU or Oklahoma or Arkansas and it’s not that big of a deal (so long as there is a good football/tailgating culture).

I can’t recall which thread it was in (perhaps the one about northern students increasingly choosing southern schools?), but in the south, it’s very common for families of means to send their students to public schools whereas in some other parts of the country, like the northeast, many families of means prefer to send their children to a private school. So there is no stigma for a student to go to Oklahoma State vs Oklahoma.

Others’ thoughts?

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If California had two UCs with 100,000 students each, then it would be more analogous to other states, where all of the students there and their parents could say that they are at the flagship or second flagship, rather than the ninth flagship or whatever.

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I don’t believe that it’s all cultural. I think some UC’s are- to be blunt- in nicer places than others. And in a state as populous as CA, I think you can convince a kid who is set on UCLA to consider Santa Barbara (not the same vibe, location, etc. but both “attractive” places to live) but it’s a harder lift to convince the Santa Barbara kid that Merced is a fantastic place to live for 4 years.

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I’m not sure that attracting Santa Barbara kids is a primary purpose of UC Merced. Part of its purpose was to create a UC presence in the San Joaquin Valley and increase educational attainment in that region specifically. Although UC Merced hasn’t reached all of its long term goals, it does seem that it may have had a positive effect on the number of students from the SJV area that apply to the UC system, are admitted and attend.

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Source of the above graph is from the recent report UC Merced at 20 which is an interesting read! It also goes into depth about how UCM is falling short of some of its other long term goals.

I was also reading some bios of Merced students earlier today, and I was struck by how many of them specifically mentioned that it made a difference to them to attend a UC close to their home: Outstanding Students | School of Engineering

Anyway, I do think it makes a positive difference to SJV residents that we have a UC in Merced. It could do a better job of meeting some of its goals, but it doesn’t have to impress the Santa Barbara kids in order to be valuable as a UC.

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I was not suggesting that Merced has no value. And certainly in a state as geographically big as California, allowing students to attend college close to home is absolutely a noble mission.

I was pointing out to the earlier poster that the differences between CA and “other” state systems might not be “cultural” which was the stated hypothesis. It might be cultural, or it could be just geography at work. A big, very big geography!

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That’s interesting. Perhaps that is because Californians have a much higher selection of prestigious schools that we place more importance on getting into them. It’s like, if you can’t into Stanford, then at least get into Berkeley or LA or USC or CalTech, etc. There’s so many big names that there’s almost an expectation to get into at least one.

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It has more to do with perception of “good” public schools in CA. Top 6 UCs and Top 2 CSUs (CPSLO and SDSU) are all have acceptance rate around 30% and below. The rest of UCs and CSUs are all have acceptance rate over 60%. For most kids with high stats, they are not happy to attend them. Therefore, the complaint.

This is the case for S24, he had UWGPA 4.0 and WGPA 4.21. Out of the top UCs and CSUs, he only got accepted to SDSU and waitlisted by UCD. He was not happy about the result and ready to attend uDub if he did not come off the waitlist.

I guess, CA high schools produce so many high stat kids specially in Bay Area and Southern CA, we need some lower UCs or CSUs to have mid-level acceptance rate such as uDub, Ohio State, TAMU to satisfy high stat students who cannot make it to top UCs and CSUs.

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One question I would have is whether the ultimately very small percentage of Californians I encounter at sites popular with people very interested in optimizing for highly selective college admissions are actually representative of Californians as a whole.

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I am not sure what you are saying. Do you mean that Merced, Santa Cruz, and Riverside should accept fewer students, so that their acceptance stats fall into the 50-60% range similar to Ohio State and TAMU? What do you think the UC/CSU system should do differently?

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No. I am not suggesting UCM, UCR and UCSC to accept fewer students to bring down the acceptance rate. At the end, acceptance rate is determined by yield rate. This is all about supply and demand. I was explaining why there are more complaint from CA families.

I know many Bay Areas families don’t even bother to apply to lower tier UCs and CSUs. They spend million dollars to buy house in good school district, pay for private tutor and college counselor. If their kids get rejected by the top UCs or CSUs, they are not going to settle for schools with 60% acceptance rate. They would rather go OOS or private schools. And for sure, they will complaint.

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But some of them will happily apply to and attend out-of-state schools that are similarly or less selective than “lower tier UCs”. Perhaps it is because attending the flagship or one of the top two in a state (e.g. UA and ASU in Arizona) feels more prestigious to them than attending what they see as the seventh to ninth best UC (UCM, UCR, UCSC).

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I grew up in Texas. I attended UT Austin. I have family and friends all over the state. I have had countless conversations with them as our kids have applied to college. Perhaps our experiences aren’t representative, but my experience has been the opposite of your statement.

Also, one of the major SCOTUS cases about college admissions was Fisher vs The University of Texas, which was about a young lady who was upset about being denied at Texas and having to attend LSU.

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Pure speculation, but maybe a high percentage of Texas residents want to stay in Texas, at least initially after college. Within Texas, IMO, as far as employment prospects and opportunities are concerned, schools like Baylor, TCU, SMU, UT Dallas are just a hair below UT and TAM. Based on friends and acquaintances experiences, if you have the stats for UT or TAM, at least Baylor and TCU will match UT’s in-state cost if not better through merit/grants. So in essence for high stats students, it is not just UT/TAM but several other schools (including privates) in state with higher admit rates, similar net costs and equivalent prestige within the state.

I also think Texas parents complain less about their system because it is simple – you make the top X% and you are in XYZ campuses (maybe not colleges or majors, but you know the campus). I suspect the lack of certainty in which campus even if you make the state or local guarantee of admissions irks many California families.

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The other thing that irks CA families is that the % of OOS admitted to UCs is higher than many other flagship state systems. So it adds to the uncertainty.

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This isn’t true. If that’s what irks CA families, then unfortunately they are misinformed.

At both Berkeley and UCLA, about 80% of students are Californians (the other 20% includes international students, not just OOS).

The percentage of in-state students at some other popular flagships is as follows:
UMich - 53%
Georgia Tech - 60%
UIUC - 74%
Purdue - 46%
UMD - 76%

So California flagships are not the outliers.

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Since students usually can’t help which high school they go to, I don’t think this is fair. However, I’m at Bama this year, and wow is it apparent how easy some high schools are. For reference, I went to a challenging magnet school that usually ranks very highly in my state. My friend is in an accelerated MBA program, so she has to do group projects. Some students write like 3rd graders, and when my friend (politely) tried to figure out what was going on, they said they didn’t write any papers in high school. The whole time!! :flushed:

In chemistry, we spent a week or two going over basic metric conversions, states of matter, etc. The teacher said it’s because students coming from rural or lower income high schools often fall behind in college science because they did not learn things like that, so he goes ahead and covers it at the beginning. I didn’t mind since it was a super easy test to pad my grade, but I can imagine that more competitive state schools wouldn’t do that.

So it isn’t their fault, but I could see how some high schools would leave kids unprepared for somewhere like UCLA, even if they got all As. It’s just another reason that educational disparities between urban vs rural and rich vs poor areas truly can truly have a lifelong effect.

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I think the only solution for states that want to give opportunities for students throughout the state is to run placement tests for students who do not meet hurdles for SAT, ACT, AP or IB scores. This helps in placement and perhaps indicates a need for supplemental classes the summer before the fall term. It is no fun for less prepared students to fail or more advanced students to sit through classes that are remedial to them.

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Lots of colleges do have placement tests (though usually in English, math, and maybe foreign languages) to advise incoming students which entry level courses to take.

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