On testing from The Economist

[rzberrymom]

49 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

Do you have a hook of some sorts?

Is the hook an elite private school?

I thought I saw that mentioned in another thread but may have that wrong.

[Roadrunner]

16 minutes ago, rzberrymom said:

Is the hook an elite private school?

I thought I saw that mentioned in another thread but may have that wrong.

Yes, that counts. Some schools are great feeder schools, like Harvard Westlake. A kid from there with equivalent kid from my high school doesn’t have a same chance. Absolutely it’s a hook!

[gstharr]

1 hour ago, Roadrunner said:

Do you have a hook of some sorts?

We are watching all sorts of superstars with NMF and off the charts transcripts not having much results unless they have a hook. 

No real hook, but he is a top student at a well known feeder school. Probably helped more that he has 10 years in a top tier math circle, and a slightly  possible golf walk-on. But he did nothing to be recruited (no ncaa clearance) and did not suggest he would play college ball.

[Eos]

On 3/15/2023 at 4:02 PM, Roadrunner said:

how anybody could ever be conservatory ready without significant resources is mind boggling. 

So this was us with dd26.  We held fundraisers, she wrote to local philanthropists asking for money, she applied for every festival's scholarships, we ran up credit card debt.  We always arrived in the junkiest cars and had the most beater rental instruments.  In the end it panned out because she was given a full ride at conservatory but it was challenging. We were also able to let one of us do all the driving and the other hold the home together - our most significant resource was having a parent who could get in the car and go, with enough money for gas.

[SanDiegoMom]

On 3/22/2023 at 12:15 PM, gstharr said:

No real hook, but he is a top student at a well known feeder school. Probably helped more that he has 10 years in a top tier math circle, and a slightly  possible golf walk-on. But he did nothing to be recruited (no ncaa clearance) and did not suggest he would play college ball.

This combo seems to be the most "successful" after by the highly sought after schools - spiky in two areas (music and academic subject area, sports and academic subject area, etc).  We have a student from our school headed to Caltech, and he was the president of the very large Robotics team and Captain of the Varsity tennis team (who tend to do very well).  Plus he's super nice, so that's a bonus:)  We are very happy for him.

My son is not super spiky, but has very solid academics (will have Diff EQ in senior year, and 11-12 APs), some minor leadership in his academic extracurriculars and recreational exercise.  So we are hoping that he will get into Engineering at a UC, especially as we have the Calvet waiver for free tuition. 

 

[gstharr]

51 minutes ago, SanDiegoMom said:

My son is not super spiky, but has very solid academics (will have Diff EQ in senior year, and 11-12 APs), some minor leadership in his academic extracurriculars and recreational exercise.  So we are hoping that he will get into Engineering at a UC, especially as we have the Calvet waiver for free tuition. 

 

As I recall from your postings, your son is a heavy weight in math.  Has he considered the San Diego Math Circle. https://www.sdmathcircle.org/  It could be another activity for his app.  My son's circle always has one or two admits to MIT. 

[gstharr]

I had to look up Calvet.  I was not aware of this benefit for those who sacrificed greatly in service. 

[SanDiegoMom]

8 minutes ago, gstharr said:

I had to look up Calvet.  I was not aware of this benefit for those who sacrificed greatly in service. 

We feel over fortunate in many of the things that are available to us. The Calvet waiver is a huge benefit that is one of the best of its kind in the nation. 

[*LC]

I’m a native Californian, but I haven’t lived there since I was 2. That strange fact is just to explain I always read/remember weird facts from California college threads.

 Posting it for anyone who may have a kid interested in majoring in computer science in California.

I know from reading these boards for years there are two ways to study Computer Science (CS) at UC Berkeley. (It may apply at other California schools too, I don’t know.) I learned this when someone posted here years ago about their Berkeley CS student being Phi Beta Kappa, which is only open to top-students in liberal arts majors. (It stuck with me because my CS kid had graduated phi kappa phi not phi beta kappa from an engineering school in a different state.)

This is from its website under title two ways to study computer science at Berkeley.

“Be admitted to the Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences (EECS) major in the College of Engineering (COE) as a freshman. Admission to the COE, however, is extremely competitive. This option leads to a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree. This path is appropriate for people who want an engineering education.

1. Enter the College of Letters & Science (L&S) and, after successful completion of the courses required to declare with the minimum grade point average (GPA), petition to be admitted to the L&S Computer Science major. This path is appropriate for people who are interested in a broader education in the sciences and arts (such as double majoring in other L&S fields), and/or are not sure at the time of application that they can gain admission to EECS. This option leads to a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree.

There is no difference in the CS course content between the BS and BA programs. The difference is in what else you take: mainly engineering, or mainly humanities and social sciences. In particular, an interest in hardware suggests the EECS route; an interest in double majoring (for example, in math or cognitive science) suggests the L&S route.”

 

[Roadrunner]

L&S route to UCB CS just pretty closed. It’s now direct admit and number of seats available has been severely limited. 

[SanDiegoMom]

8 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

L&S route to UCB CS just pretty closed. It’s now direct admit and number of seats available has been severely limited. 

Thanks for adding.  I was wondering about that and assumed it would be just as difficult a path.  There is also a linguistics and computer science B.A. at UCLA. Not sure whether it's direct admit or not.

[Roadrunner]

1 hour ago, SanDiegoMom said:

Thanks for adding.  I was wondering about that and assumed it would be just as difficult a path.  There is also a linguistics and computer science B.A. at UCLA. Not sure whether it's direct admit or not.

My DS was admitted for math/computer science at UCSD. So that’s another one. 
 

I am not sure about UCLA. 
 

I heard UCB is only taking 100 kids this year into computer science under L&S. 

[Arcadia]

2 hours ago, *LC said:

I’m a native Californian, but I haven’t lived there since I was 2. That strange fact is just to explain I always read/remember weird facts from California college threads.

 

1. Enter the College of Letters & Science (L&S) and, after successful completion of the courses required to declare with the minimum grade point average (GPA), petition to be admitted to the L&S Computer Science major. This path is appropriate for people who are interested in a broader education in the sciences and arts (such as double majoring in other L&S fields), and/or are not sure at the time of application that they can gain admission to EECS. This option leads to a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree.

There is no difference in the CS course content between the BS and BA programs. The difference is in what else you take: mainly engineering, or mainly humanities and social sciences. In particular, an interest in hardware suggests the EECS route; an interest in double majoring (for example, in math or cognitive science) suggests the L&S route.”

 

That is why DS18 applied only to computer science in engineering school for all the UCs he applied to as freshman last year and as transfer this year. He suffers for humanities while DS17 drowns in humanities. Community college is a lifesaver for DS17 because class sizes are less than 30 for lectures/discussions/tutorials so he survived. Had a D for one and retook for an A. 
 

@SanDiegoMom@Roadrunner @kirstenhill

I think these replies should belong to the current impacted major thread though since the OP of that thread was asking about computer science. 

[Malam]

  

On 3/22/2023 at 1:27 PM, gstharr said:

But, I understand that NMSF on app is an indication to schools that are test blind, that the student most likely did very well on the  SAT.

Oooo, a potential backdoor, very interesting.

On 3/22/2023 at 6:15 AM, gstharr said:

The kids not aiming for the top Ucs don't worry about the AP exams because the scores have nothing to with overall class rank.  A few 'A's from any AP weighted classe gives them more than a 4.0 overall gpa  and places them in that magical 9% mandate.   The kids have been gaming this for a long time.

Aren't UC-approved honors courses also weighted out of 5.0 for California residents?

[SanDiegoMom]

2 hours ago, Malam said:

  

Aren't UC-approved honors courses also weighted out of 5.0 for California residents?

Yes, but it can be confusing. We have a lot of honors classes at the high school, but only one honors class gets the 1 point UC bump - honors principles of engineering.  Not every parent advising their kid knows this though. 

Edited March 26, 2023 by SanDiegoMom

[Roadrunner]

1 hour ago, SanDiegoMom said:

Yes, but it can be confusing. We have a lot of honors classes at the high school, but only one honors class gets the 1 point UC bump - honors principles of engineering.  Not every parent advising their kid knows this though. 

Whaaaat? I thought all honors courses got a  point bump and that’s why CA GPAs were so out of control. 

[gstharr]

My son's school.has an honor track.and an AP track

 Only AP track is weighted.

 

[Roadrunner]

6 minutes ago, gstharr said:

My son's school.has an honor track.and an AP track

 Only AP track is weighted.

 

I thought public schools weighted all the honors. You are in private so that’s different.

We (PSA) only weighted AP and DE. All normal and honors courses were treated the same. 
 

[daijobu]

7 hours ago, Malam said:

  

Oooo, a potential backdoor, very interesting.

 

I've lost it now, but there was a funny FB thread a while back on ways to tell colleges you have a high SAT score without telling them you have a high SAT score.  Something along the lines of:

"When I SAT at my desk in room 1510..."

[Roadrunner]

4 minutes ago, daijobu said:

I've lost it now, but there was a funny FB thread a while back on ways to tell colleges you have a high SAT score without telling them you have a high SAT score.  Something along the lines of:

"When I SAT at my desk in room 1510..."

We listed SET 

[SanDiegoMom]

4 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

Whaaaat? I thought all honors courses got a  point bump and that’s why CA GPAs were so out of control. 

“Honors courses are Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate Higher Level (IB HL) and designated Standard Level (IB SL) courses, UC-transferable college courses and UC-certified honors courses that appear on your school's course list.”

when you go to this search engine and put in the school, you can see which courses will get the point bump.  So a course might be honors, but only UC approved honors will show up. 

https://hs-articulation.ucop.edu/

 

 

 

 

Edited March 27, 2023 by SanDiegoMom