UCSD comprehensive review formula

kluge
Wed, 09 Nov 2005 15:09:28 +0000

nedad, I pretty much agree with you. [pause for stunned silence] I would have liked to see my kids express some interest in a LAC or Ivy League environment - the things you say about the facts of life are true. But I raised a bunch of Lotus eaters who’d rather go to a school with a good beach and a cool football team than develop meaningful relationships with faculty or rub shoulders with the (future) power elite. So that’s what they’re going to go to.

As to admissions, it’s all inexact. You’re right about the arbitrary nature of numbers and cutoffs - just as subjective impressions are arbitrary as well. My bottom line is that it really doesn’t matter. Like I said, there will be some school somewhere that will admit any student who wants to go to college. The various admissions systems are roughly efficient enough so that most students will end up at a school with a cohort of fellow students who are roughly as intellectually talented and hard working as they are. So they’ll be in a position get an appropriate education and move on from there. And as such, I’ve got no beef with the system.