How your high school affects your chances of UC Admission: The better the school, the worse your chances.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UC's are explicit in how they assess applicants. It isn't just about who has the absolute highest GPA. There are 13 areas they are look into including:

Quality of the academic performance relative to the educational opportunities available in the student’s high school

Identification by UC as ranking in the top 9 percent of the student’s high school class (eligible in the local context, or ELC)

Academic accomplishments in light of a student’s life experiences and special circumstances, including but not limited to: disabilities, low family income, first generation to attend college, need to work, disadvantaged social or educational environment, difficult personal and family situations or circumstances, refugee status or veteran status

Location of a student’s secondary school and residence

UC's are intended to serve the entire state, not just affluent areas. Anyone can transfer into a low performing school and then boost their chances of going to a top UC. Families rarely do this because the trade off isn't worth it.

My son was waitlisted for UC San Diego, which was his top choice. Am I bitter about it? No. He went to a high ranking high school that was really competitive. Most of the students had parents who had at least a college degree, while many had graduate or professional degrees. There was a specialized STEM program that was pretty amazing. He was at a really long medical appointment with a specialist and the doctor came in and saw the lab write up he was working on. She was amazed and couldn't believe he had that opportunity because she said it was something that she did in college because few high schools have that type of lab equipment and it was an advanced technique. A resident came into the room and was also surprised (and luckily helped my son finish his homework!).

He got into all the next lower ranked UC's - Irvine, Davis, Santa Barbara so he had plenty of choices. He is at one of them and is loving it. He has done really well his first three semesters in all his pre-med classes because he was so well prepared. It is a great environment for him and he doesn't find it as cut throat as going to a competitive high school. Meanwhile good friends who did slightly better and are at UCSD and UC Berkeley in pre-med really do not like how the classes are curved and they are competing against the very tippy top students. So in the end he has ended up with a better college GPA, got into a lab, has a better social life.

His younger sibling goes to a public school that is really low ranked but has a good sports program he participates in. He has classes with long term substitutes who often know nothing about the subject, many teachers are brand new teachers, the school looks physically run down, there are fights and limited honors/AP classes. Teachers just turn on videos instead of teaching, look away when kids spend all class periods on their phones, and do nothing when half the class cheats. His honors chemistry class did a lot of coloring pages. The labs were cancelled because the teacher said too many kids were out of control and couldn't be trusted. There is no AP biology or AP chemistry at his school so it isn't like someone will figure out no one is learning. He will probably get admitted to a top UC but he has vocalized having doubts about how he is going to graduate college because he says he hasn't really learned much in high school.

This self-awareness is important. Too many kids in his situation didn’t know how unprepared they’re and ended up getting burned pretty bad in a top college.

[Anonymous]

California parents sound remarkably like entitled DMV parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:this is why so many californians head east to schools...they don't want to deal with an equity driven approach to admissions. a top student at lynwood knows this, hence why so many lynwood grads are found at ivy pluses, non UC t20 and t50

The east coast schools are also equity driven. The advantage west coast kids have on the east is geographic diversity

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:this is why so many californians head east to schools...they don't want to deal with an equity driven approach to admissions. a top student at lynwood knows this, hence why so many lynwood grads are found at ivy pluses, non UC t20 and t50

We have friends whos kids got into Cornell and Rice but not the top UCs. They both said they would have preferred their kid had gotten into one of the top UCs and stayed instate. The kids do apply.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The better schools the student went to the better their SAT scores should be. The better the grades should be in the top classes.

If you’ve got two students, one went to a broken down city high school and one went to expensive private school, and they have the same GPA, the same SAT scores, same ECs, the student who went to a failing overcrowded school would be the better candidate.

UC schools don’t use test scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What if they do 9th-11th at a strong school and then transfer to a weak school?

Won’t work. Has to be at least two years. System actually works to discourage those moves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:this is why so many californians head east to schools...they don't want to deal with an equity driven approach to admissions. a top student at lynwood knows this, hence why so many lynwood grads are found at ivy pluses, non UC t20 and t50

I think that you mean Lynnbrook, Lynwood isn’t a very good school district. And, few Lynnbrook grads go to T20 though many try. Mostly they try to go to a top UC. About 75% of the class each year applies to UCB and about 14% get in.

14% of 75% (~10%) or 14% of the whole class? That’s actually a high percentage. Together with UCLA, that takes care of 20-30% students, which is A LOT! UMD used to take 20-30% kids from a good/decent high school in MoCo and it shrank to 10% last year. And UMD is no Cal or UCLA, but in the same league as UC Davis and a couple other mid-ranking UCs!

UCLA generally takes about 10% and there is a lot of dual admits. 14% is a good result because if you aren’t ELC your odds drop a great deal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:this is why so many californians head east to schools...they don't want to deal with an equity driven approach to admissions. a top student at lynwood knows this, hence why so many lynwood grads are found at ivy pluses, non UC t20 and t50

We have friends whos kids got into Cornell and Rice but not the top UCs. They both said they would have preferred their kid had gotten into one of the top UCs and stayed instate. The kids do apply.

Asian kids apply. Kids from the public schools as well. UMC white kids mostly head to privates if they go to a good private high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The better schools the student went to the better their SAT scores should be. The better the grades should be in the top classes.

If you’ve got two students, one went to a broken down city high school and one went to expensive private school, and they have the same GPA, the same SAT scores, same ECs, the student who went to a failing overcrowded school would be the better candidate.

UC schools don’t use test scores.

And even if they’re not test blind, they would likely admit the one from a failing high school who has a much lower SAT score and much less rigor (assuming both have similar unweighted GPAs).

[Anonymous]

Nothing is wrong how the UC's choose their students. UCSD shows us that while mistakes can happen, the primary driver of the UC should be to help marginalized groups succeed in college. The UC's do need more funding as they are navigating a large shortfall and California's budget deficit is unsustainable.

[Anonymous]

May not be same OOS. My DD goes to UCLA from a top NJ private school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UC's are explicit in how they assess applicants. It isn't just about who has the absolute highest GPA. There are 13 areas they are look into including:

Quality of the academic performance relative to the educational opportunities available in the student’s high school

Identification by UC as ranking in the top 9 percent of the student’s high school class (eligible in the local context, or ELC)

Academic accomplishments in light of a student’s life experiences and special circumstances, including but not limited to: disabilities, low family income, first generation to attend college, need to work, disadvantaged social or educational environment, difficult personal and family situations or circumstances, refugee status or veteran status

Location of a student’s secondary school and residence

UC's are intended to serve the entire state, not just affluent areas. Anyone can transfer into a low performing school and then boost their chances of going to a top UC. Families rarely do this because the trade off isn't worth it.

My son was waitlisted for UC San Diego, which was his top choice. Am I bitter about it? No. He went to a high ranking high school that was really competitive. Most of the students had parents who had at least a college degree, while many had graduate or professional degrees. There was a specialized STEM program that was pretty amazing. He was at a really long medical appointment with a specialist and the doctor came in and saw the lab write up he was working on. She was amazed and couldn't believe he had that opportunity because she said it was something that she did in college because few high schools have that type of lab equipment and it was an advanced technique. A resident came into the room and was also surprised (and luckily helped my son finish his homework!).

He got into all the next lower ranked UC's - Irvine, Davis, Santa Barbara so he had plenty of choices. He is at one of them and is loving it. He has done really well his first three semesters in all his pre-med classes because he was so well prepared. It is a great environment for him and he doesn't find it as cut throat as going to a competitive high school. Meanwhile good friends who did slightly better and are at UCSD and UC Berkeley in pre-med really do not like how the classes are curved and they are competing against the very tippy top students. So in the end he has ended up with a better college GPA, got into a lab, has a better social life.

His younger sibling goes to a public school that is really low ranked but has a good sports program he participates in. He has classes with long term substitutes who often know nothing about the subject, many teachers are brand new teachers, the school looks physically run down, there are fights and limited honors/AP classes. Teachers just turn on videos instead of teaching, look away when kids spend all class periods on their phones, and do nothing when half the class cheats. His honors chemistry class did a lot of coloring pages. The labs were cancelled because the teacher said too many kids were out of control and couldn't be trusted. There is no AP biology or AP chemistry at his school so it isn't like someone will figure out no one is learning. He will probably get admitted to a top UC but he has vocalized having doubts about how he is going to graduate college because he says he hasn't really learned much in high school.

This is crazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nothing is wrong how the UC's choose their students. UCSD shows us that while mistakes can happen, the primary driver of the UC should be to help marginalized groups succeed in college. The UC's do need more funding as they are navigating a large shortfall and California's budget deficit is unsustainable.

Stop stealing tax payers' money

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:May not be same OOS. My DD goes to UCLA from a top NJ private school.

Makes sense. Top UCs are a very opaque process for top Bay Area and LA metro kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nothing is wrong how the UC's choose their students. UCSD shows us that while mistakes can happen, the primary driver of the UC should be to help marginalized groups succeed in college. The UC's do need more funding as they are navigating a large shortfall and California's budget deficit is unsustainable.

That’s what their community colleges are for! It’s such a mismatch of resources to have a top college teach kids elementary/middle school math.