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How your high school affects your chances of UC Admission

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Re: How your high school affects your chances of UC Admission

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s always been this way; previously we just had to play to the old white men’s biases.

Yeah, there’s really no way around it when you have more qualified students than slots, unless you just mark each applicant as qualified or not and run a lottery. But they do have to “craft a class” to some extent. An obvious example is athletic recruiting, but some schools are consciously thinking about populating other extracurriculars, like marching bands or orchestras. And you also don’t want a class that’s all c…

No they don’t “have” to do any of this as evidenced by the fact that the US is the only country where it happens. In most countries it would (rightly) be considered strange to care how good someone is at sports or marching band when evaluating their ability to study academic subjects (the actual purpose of a university).

Re: How your high school affects your chances of UC Admission

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should just make this explicit, like the UT system does. The top X% of students are admitted automatically from each school.

This seems terrible incentives. You are now in a purely adversarial relationship with your peers and hurting them helps you

It's not unusual for families to change their school district so their kid can play for a better sports program and of course it's extremely common for families to want to live in the best district for education quality, but maybe some are now incentivized to move into a district with lesser competition for the top spots.

Re: How your high school affects your chances of UC Admission

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should just make this explicit, like the UT system does. The top X% of students are admitted automatically from each school.

This seems terrible incentives. You are now in a purely adversarial relationship with your peers and hurting them helps you

Texan here. There’s still ways to get in if you don’t make the top X% of your class (the percentage is shrinking every year as the school climbs up the rankings and more people want to go… I think it’s near top-4% now? It used to be top 15% I recall), and many of those high achievers go onto other out of state schools, so it’s in the interest of UT system to offer automatic admission to the top achievers from across the state.

Just because the top X% is guaranteed admission, that does not mean all (or even most) of the school is from the top X%.

Re: How your high school affects your chances of UC Admission

#35

See: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-04-12/covid-co... Excerpts: UC admissions directors stressed that they evaluated students in the context of their own schools and communities to assess how much they challenged themselves and took advantage of available opportunities. A student who took all six AP classes offered at her school might be more impressive than the one who took six at a school that offere…

Honestly, I don't know how do you even compare students with different backgrounds against each other. That's why standardized testing is good - it gives everyone the same chance to excel.

> it gives everyone the same chance to excel.

How does the existence of standardized testing give everyone the same chance? As an extremely over-exaggerated example example, someone whose home study time is disrupted frequently by gunfire outside is probably not getting the same chance as someone who lives on a 20 acre estate with private tutors for every subject.

Re: How your high school affects your chances of UC Admission

#36

See: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-04-12/covid-co... Excerpts: UC admissions directors stressed that they evaluated students in the context of their own schools and communities to assess how much they challenged themselves and took advantage of available opportunities. A student who took all six AP classes offered at her school might be more impressive than the one who took six at a school that offere…

> A student who took all six AP classes offered at her school might be more impressive than the one who took six at a school that offered twice as many.

Damn, this is as stupid as it gets.

Re: How your high school affects your chances of UC Admission

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should just make this explicit, like the UT system does. The top X% of students are admitted automatically from each school.

This seems terrible incentives. You are now in a purely adversarial relationship with your peers and hurting them helps you

How much control can your classmates have over your own GPA? What percentage of 'control' over your GPA is up to you vs. your teachers, parents, classmates, and everyone else? I put those in order intentionally, as I think your classmates are below teachers and parents on the hierarchy.

Re: How your high school affects your chances of UC Admission

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, up until middle school send kids to the best school, then for high school move to an area with poor schools.

Maybe they can bring their resources with them too, and the poor schools can have things like lead paint remediation, honors classes, and extra curricular activities. I like this idea!

Resources are mainly property taxes. Unless they're building a new house whose value is significantly greater than the median for the area, families gaming the system aren't likely to have much of a lasting impact on the district.

Re: How your high school affects your chances of UC Admission

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should just make this explicit, like the UT system does. The top X% of students are admitted automatically from each school.

This seems terrible incentives. You are now in a purely adversarial relationship with your peers and hurting them helps you

This kind of competition happens in other areas of academic pursuits too. Is that strictly a bad thing?

The bad thing about UT's policy is that it encourages well-off students to move to a less-competitive school district (usually rural) in order to improve their chances.

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