State school admissions should not be wholistic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's ridiculous that you can bring your kid up in a state public school system from k to 12 and they can graduate with a perfect or near-perfect grade record and they don't get into your taxpayer-funded state college. There is an annual cycle of people in Maryland learning that going to a good public high school, taking hard classes, and getting good grades is not enough to get into UMDCP. Especially in MoCo. This is a system for distributing a government benefit, and it shouldn't be done through a mysterious black box and essentially random back room vibes.

It should be clear to every student no later than the first year of freshman year of high school what they will need to do to get into their state flagship. In a lot of states it is, but in particular in Maryland it is not and it is ridiculous. In Maryland kids are actively punished for attending good schools and working hard to do well.

It's all part of a unified public education system. If the people running the state university flagship don't think that the most academically accomplished high school graduates should attend the college, something is wrong.

I have been saying this forever about Crook-VA, Dollar-Billiam and Mary, and Pickpocket Tech. Rejecting a kid with a 4.0 is ludicrous and should be condemned.

So rigor should not be considered?
SAT scores should not be considered?

Easy classes and grade inflation makes for easy 4.0

AOs at UMD know the rigor levels.
The trouble is that a lot of parents think the rigor level at their school is higher than it actually is.
I'm sure that the UMD team has their own algorithm for each school in the state. They just recompute the inflated (or deflated) GPAs and make their decisions.

Even if you make the system 100% transparent, it still won't be "fair" because schools aren't homogeneous.

DP That's what standardized tests are for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There might be a few odd cases, but like PP said, the top 10% are getting into UMD. Not into CS though.

You are clearly not from Maryland. I’m not sure if it’s worse in other states, but here for certain high schools it’s essentially a lottery.

That’s the whole point. Guaranteed admissions is guaranteed. Maryland is vibes.

UVA is that way in VA. The difference is we have William&Mary, VA Tech and JMU—so really 4 state flagships and then GMU and VCU are well-respected too.

I am truly baffled by how some state school systems like Virginia and California can have so many great options while other states don't.

Why is it baffling? Each state developed differently, has a different system of governance, different demographics, different populaces to be served and different priorities. California benefited by the post Korean War building boom which allowed it to set up 100s of community colleges and its unique three-tiered system (it has the Cal States in addition to the UC and community college systems). Texas, similarly, had money and a legislature which prioritized education. Other states didn’t … VA has always prioritized education, which is why you are seeing now so much building and expansions going on at GMU and other institutions which can physically grow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UNC is 82% in-state students. If UMD took more in-state kids it would be much easier to get in!

UVA is 60% in-state or something, hence why it was a bloodbath this year with more applicants. They need to actually start serving the state of Virginia properly.

UVA doesn't need the state. They are almost fully self funding.
They serve Virginia very well.
There are dozens of other state schools that your larlo can go to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

In Texas, the top 5% high school kids are guaranteed admission to its top public college (UT Austin), but there’s no guarantee that they’ll get into their first choice majors. Other TX colleges (including Texas A&M) will take the top 10% for sure, again to some major not necessarily your first choice. In practice, the top 5-10% of high school kids in Maryland ARE pretty much guaranteed a spot at UMD. I don’t see how imposing such a rule would make any practical difference.

To be clear, this system is NOT wholly merit based. It was actually designed intentionally to be inclusive of students from a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds and high schools.

Students admitted from the top 5% of underperforming high schools often have much lower scores and metrics than students from more competitive high schools that don't make the top 5%. It's not uncommon for a straight-A students with high SAT scores from very competitive high schools to fall under the top 5% cutoff.

The system was Texas's response to legal challenges. I think it is generally viewed favorably, despite the issues it causes in more affluent areas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, have you contacted your elected officials?

The State can make changes to how UMD admits students as it is a state funded and run institution. It's not private.

But I would wager, they would come back with exactly the same argument that others on this board have voiced - go to a different state school.

CA does the same. UCs will take the top x% of every HS, but you are no guaranteed to go to your first choice of Cal or UCLA.

IMO, MD does the same, indirectly. The problem is that your high stats kid is competing with other high stat kids in your same school and/or same demographic of SES. And people may say that UMDCP doesn't admit by major, but for majors like CS, they do look at what you want to major in.

Your high stat kid can easily get into UMBC or Towson, not so much to UMDCP. Not that different to how other states like CA does it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's ridiculous that you can bring your kid up in a state public school system from k to 12 and they can graduate with a perfect or near-perfect grade record and they don't get into your taxpayer-funded state college. There is an annual cycle of people in Maryland learning that going to a good public high school, taking hard classes, and getting good grades is not enough to get into UMDCP. Especially in MoCo. This is a system for distributing a government benefit, and it shouldn't be done through a mysterious black box and essentially random back room vibes.

It should be clear to every student no later than the first year of freshman year of high school what they will need to do to get into their state flagship. In a lot of states it is, but in particular in Maryland it is not and it is ridiculous. In Maryland kids are actively punished for attending good schools and working hard to do well.

It's all part of a unified public education system. If the people running the state university flagship don't think that the most academically accomplished high school graduates should attend the college, something is wrong.

I have been saying this forever about Crook-VA, Dollar-Billiam and Mary, and Pickpocket Tech. Rejecting a kid with a 4.0 is ludicrous and should be condemned.

So rigor should not be considered?
SAT scores should not be considered?

Easy classes and grade inflation makes for easy 4.0

AOs at UMD know the rigor levels.
The trouble is that a lot of parents think the rigor level at their school is higher than it actually is.
I'm sure that the UMD team has their own algorithm for each school in the state. They just recompute the inflated (or deflated) GPAs and make their decisions.

Even if you make the system 100% transparent, it still won't be "fair" because schools aren't homogeneous.

DP That's what standardized tests are for.

yes, but UMDCP is TO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's ridiculous that you can bring your kid up in a state public school system from k to 12 and they can graduate with a perfect or near-perfect grade record and they don't get into your taxpayer-funded state college. There is an annual cycle of people in Maryland learning that going to a good public high school, taking hard classes, and getting good grades is not enough to get into UMDCP. Especially in MoCo. This is a system for distributing a government benefit, and it shouldn't be done through a mysterious black box and essentially random back room vibes.

It should be clear to every student no later than the first year of freshman year of high school what they will need to do to get into their state flagship. In a lot of states it is, but in particular in Maryland it is not and it is ridiculous. In Maryland kids are actively punished for attending good schools and working hard to do well.

It's all part of a unified public education system. If the people running the state university flagship don't think that the most academically accomplished high school graduates should attend the college, something is wrong.

I have been saying this forever about Crook-VA, Dollar-Billiam and Mary, and Pickpocket Tech. Rejecting a kid with a 4.0 is ludicrous and should be condemned.

When did Donald Trump join DCUM?

What’s with the grade school playground name calling?

When did Virginia's public colleges start catering to Richie Rich and rejecting qualified students?

UVA has been a Richie Rich school since about the 1700s. It is on a short list of schools that high society kids were expected to attend.

Because that’s what those early colleges in America were designed to do: train the males for the clergy. Harvard and Yale trained Congregationalist clergy. Princeton was Protestant. William & Mary was Anglican. UVA was the only one not affiliated with a religion by design of Thomas Jefferson. As the colonies and universities grew, the religious aspects grew less important to the education of colonial males.

Penn was really the first 60 years earlier.

Penn was actually supposed to service as a house of worship. https://www.upenn.edu/about/history#:~:text=Penn%20dates%20its%20founding%20to,as%20a%20house%20of%20worship.

That text was about its precursor in 1740. Penn didn't really exist until 1755 and was non sectarian. Union College (1795) was also non-sectarian.

"Penn dates its founding to 1740, when a plan emerged to build a Philadelphia charity school that would double as a house of worship. After construction was underway, however, the cost was seen to be much greater than the available resources, and the project went unfinished for a decade."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UNC is 82% in-state students. If UMD took more in-state kids it would be much easier to get in!

UVA is 60% in-state or something, hence why it was a bloodbath this year with more applicants. They need to actually start serving the state of Virginia properly.

UVA doesn't need the state. They are almost fully self funding.
They serve Virginia very well.
There are dozens of other state schools that your larlo can go to.

No, if UVA had to offset loss $200M state general fund appropriation and capital appropriations with tuition increases from in-state students, tuition would need rise to private school levels.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UNC is 82% in-state students. If UMD took more in-state kids it would be much easier to get in!

UVA is 60% in-state or something, hence why it was a bloodbath this year with more applicants. They need to actually start serving the state of Virginia properly.

UVA doesn't need the state. They are almost fully self funding.
They serve Virginia very well.
There are dozens of other state schools that your larlo can go to.

No, if UVA had to offset loss $200M state general fund appropriation and capital appropriations with tuition increases from in-state students, tuition would need rise to private school levels.

And one more point, if UVA were to truly go private, they would need to purchase the land and the physical plant from the state, which would cost billions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UNC is 82% in-state students. If UMD took more in-state kids it would be much easier to get in!

UVA is 60% in-state or something, hence why it was a bloodbath this year with more applicants. They need to actually start serving the state of Virginia properly.

Was it really a bloodbath though? It seemed the same as previous years. Top kids with high GPAs and test scores were admitted.

[Anonymous]

Do what Ohio has done. Squeeze the juice even more at your state school, offer free tuition, and pay each student a stipend for 4 years if they have a perfect SAT or ACT score, and are residents. They have pulled in about 180 kids so far, which is a drop in the bucket compared to the class size at OSU, and in the process, bumped up the average GPA of EA to a 3.8. In the meantime, market your school up and down the East Coast and pull in capable students from MA, CT, NY, NJ, MD, and VA who can do the work and pay full out of state tution to subsidize everyone else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UNC is 82% in-state students. If UMD took more in-state kids it would be much easier to get in!

UVA is 60% in-state or something, hence why it was a bloodbath this year with more applicants. They need to actually start serving the state of Virginia properly.

Then the state should start paying a more appropriate percentage of UVA's expenses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There might be a few odd cases, but like PP said, the top 10% are getting into UMD. Not into CS though.

You are clearly not from Maryland. I’m not sure if it’s worse in other states, but here for certain high schools it’s essentially a lottery.

That’s the whole point. Guaranteed admissions is guaranteed. Maryland is vibes.

UVA is that way in VA. The difference is we have William&Mary, VA Tech and JMU—so really 4 state flagships and then GMU and VCU are well-respected too.

I am truly baffled by how some state school systems like Virginia and California can have so many great options while other states don't.

Why is it baffling? Each state developed differently, has a different system of governance, different demographics, different populaces to be served and different priorities. California benefited by the post Korean War building boom which allowed it to set up 100s of community colleges and its unique three-tiered system (it has the Cal States in addition to the UC and community college systems). Texas, similarly, had money and a legislature which prioritized education. Other states didn’t … VA has always prioritized education, which is why you are seeing now so much building and expansions going on at GMU and other institutions which can physically grow.

Yes and no. Virginia has never been close to the top in per in-state student funding. It is significantly lower than Maryland and North Carolina.