<p>GS, looks like you happen to be one of the lucky ones that have never had a major run-in with the Cal bureaucracy. But believe me, there are some Cal students who have had major running battles with the bureaucracy, to having your financial aid checks become inexplicably unavailable when you need to pay the rent, to being mysteriously dropped from enrollment databases and hence being forced to miss out on a Telebears phase, to a whole host of similarly ridiculous problems.</p>
<p>Now, again, this obviously only happens to a minority of students. But that’s bad enough. It may be asking too much to never have problems happen to any students. But I think there should be safety nets to ensure that students are still taken care of when they are screwed over by the bureaucracy. For example, how about offering a temporary cash-advance system for those students whose financial aid has been mangled, so that they can at least pay the bills and not get evicted from their apartments while their aid is being sorted out? </p>
<p>Furthermore, let’s look carefully at what I said. I said that Cal could arguably be considered a top 20 undergrad program (but not top 10). Is that bashing? What’s so bad about being in the top 20? I think top 20 is pretty darn good. I know a lot of other schools, particularly the other UC’s, would like to have an undergrad program that is as strong as Cal’s. All I’m saying is that to place Cal in the top 10 of undergrad programs is a bit strong, because I think I could name 10 others that are better, even if you exclude LAC’s (which, again, I really think you shouldn’t). For example, I would argue that HYPSMC, Duke, Columbia, Penn, and Northwestern are better at the undergraduate level (again, that’s undergraduate level, not graduate level). On a more aggregate level, I think that you could say that Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Wellesley, and Pomona, as well as several other LAC’s, are better than Cal at the undergraduate level. </p>
<p>As to your contention of student quality, again, I never said that it was bad. Again, Cal clearly has the best undergraduate student body of any public school in the West, if not the country. Yet simply put, on a macro level, the average student at Cal is still not good enough to merit a top 10 designation. Still good enough for top 20, but top 10 is a reach. The real point is that Cal would do itself a great service by by either not admitting the bottom X% of its students, or if they are admitted, then getting them to work harder. The sad truth is that the bottom X% of the students are often times at the bottom not because they don’t have the talent (although some truly don’t have the talent), but rather because they don’t have the motivation and maturity to study. Again, take a walk down fraternity/sorority row during the regular semester and you will see Cal ‘students’ who haven’t studied anything for for many days, and have just been partying for several days straight. I like a good party too, but sometimes you gotta get some work done. </p>
<p>You also say that it’s just a matter of finding the strong students. Yeah, well, that’s a massive oversimplification. Often times, it’s not up to you. For example, you get randomly matched into a dorm room as a freshman, and if you happen to be surrounded by lazy students, then that’s a massively negative psychological drag to carry around. Let’s face it. It’s hard to make the choice to study when you see the people around you not studying, just like it’s hard to quit smoking when everybody around you is smoking. </p>
<p>Furthermore, let’s not discount just how much learning is done via interaction within the classroom. You’re an English major, so you should know what I’m talking about. The more people in your English discussion section saying brilliantly insightful things, the more you learn. However, the fewer there are (and consequently the more people who are not motivated, or who didn’t even bother to do the reading), the less you learn. Unfortunately, you can’t control who is in your section and who isn’t. If you happen to be in the section that has a lot of brilliant students, then you will learn more. If you happen to be in the section that has a lot of bad students, then you learn less. </p>
<p>The real point is that Cal could use some greater selectivity at the undergraduate level. Part of what makes the Cal graduate schools so great is the selectivity. It is extremely difficult to get admitted to a Cal PhD program - arguably as difficult as getting into the equivalent program at HYPSMC. On the other hand, it is clearly not as difficult to get into the Cal undergraduate program as it is to get into the undergrad programs at HYPSMC. These 2 factors are linked. If Cal wants to make its undergrad program as strong as that of HYPSMC, then Cal should employ equivalent selectivity.</p>