This column is the latest in a series of articles, “Emptying the Nest,” about parenting in the final years of high school. Read the previous article, About mourning the last day of school, here.
My children exist in part because of the UC system.
Governor Pat Brown’s higher education master plan, designed to ensure every high school graduate in the state has a chance to attend college, helped my father-in-law convince his wife they should move from their small hometown in Indiana to planned Lakewood Community.
Of course, there were a million factors that led to me meeting my husband of 26 years. But one thing is for sure: None of this would have happened if he had stayed in Indiana.
So I have many reasons to be grateful for the UC system. I try to remember these reasons as our family faces the stomach-churning experience of trying to be accepted for the third and final time.
As millions of parents and students know, the college admissions process has become increasingly scary. Gone are the days of my youth, when, after a reasonable assessment of one’s budget and student abilities, you could apply to several schools, both in-state and out-of-state – including mandatory “coverage” scope” and “safety”—and are expected to be accepted.
Now, research is a years-long process that requires spreadsheets containing tuition and potential aid, acceptance rates (in general and students’ preferred fields of study), and housing availability and costs.
According to U.S. News & World Report, over the past 20 years, tuition and fees at state universities have increased by more than 100% overall, not adjusting for inflation — tuition and fees at public universities in the state have increased by about $133. %.
Forget some college applications. Now, most counselors recommend that students apply to at least 10 and have several safeties. As for those colleges that “reach”, even for California graduates, that now includes most California colleges.
I know many people whose children attended even the most popular members of the system—UCLA (acceptance rate: 9%), UC Berkeley (11.6%), UC San Diego ( 26.8%), University of California, Irvine (28.8%), University of California, Santa Barbara (32.9%).
But I know there are many more people, years later, who are still baffled by the fact that their 4+ kid, captain of the volleyball team/student body president/founder of a thriving nonprofit, wasn’t even called Be on the waiting list.
When it comes to how, even ifcan enter most UCs. The most experienced high school guidance counselors and private college counselors advise high-achieving California students not to expect to get into the California college of their choice unless that choice includes Riverside (76 percent) or Merced (91 percent).
Both schools are good schools if they have strong programs in your child’s area of interest. But in the case of my third child, they didn’t.
After watching her high-achieving older sibling receive multiple UC rejection letters while being admitted to out-of-state colleges on scholarship — my son was accepted to UC Davis but chose the University of Missouri — I The youngest child initially vowed to bypass the entire traumatic experience. But then she realized that the best school for her chosen major was mostly the University of California. So she applied to five of those schools, as well as two California state schools, one of which accepted only 34% of applicants.
The time she spent pitching her work to everyone—writing essays, putting together a portfolio, and getting letters of recommendation—had essentially turned into a part-time job. She already has that, along with all the extracurriculars needed to prove that she will be an asset to any college willing to accept our tens of thousands of dollars in tuition, room, and fees.
She also applied to many out-of-state and private colleges, which we couldn’t afford without significant aid. When did $70,000 a year become the norm?
But all her top choices are UC, so hopefully that’s the case. She has a high GPA, good AP scores, and a true passion for her desired field of study. What’s more, growing outrage over high rejection rates for California applicants has forced UC to cap out-of-state students at 18 percent on most of its campuses and try to expand its collective student body.
This year, the University of California enrolled its largest and most diverse freshman class ever, with a 4.3 percent increase in the number of California first-year students, according to Teresa Watanabe of The Times. University of California officials hope to add another 3,600 students next year, although budget shortfalls may make that impossible even if tuition increases are proposed.
Still, the fact remains that for a generation, the institutional beacon that drew my husband’s family and thousands of other families like them to California was little more than a dream for most.
The University of California was originally intended to be a center of research, providing higher education to the top 12.5% of recent graduates in the state; Colorado State University will provide broader learning opportunities to the top 33.3%. The state’s population has more than doubled since 1960 and the gap in high school education has grown, making such simple math impossible.
But for families who invest their tax dollars into the state, sending their children who meet UC’s historical standards to the campus that best aligns with their educational priorities shouldn’t require the years of planning and ordering people that getting to MIT does Worrying about getting into an Ivy League school.
For a state experiencing its first major population decline in decades, increasing enrollment should be a top priority. UC should develop more three-year programs like British universities and offer more off-campus semesters, both abroad and domestic, and work to ensure graduation in four years.
If creating new campuses or expanding old ones is still too expensive, perhaps the state should focus on building the program and reputation of California State University. Under the master plan, only the University of California is allowed to award doctorates, a sign of research focus and prestige. But in 2005, CSU began offering these courses in some programs; two years ago, that number expanded.
Caltech, San Diego State, and Long Beach State are already on many “best of” lists, but with 20 other campuses within the California system, maybe it’s time for California to rethink its master plan and focus less on hierarchy and more on Ensure fewer campuses where ambitious and qualified high school graduates are forced to leave the state in search of a college of their choice that will admit them.
Just as important, our collective view of college needs to change. Although I continue to browse them, all of these “best” lists do more harm than good, reinforcing the idea that the lower the admissions rate and the higher the price, the better the school. But this is not always the case.
After my father-in-law used the UC system to coax his family to the Golden State, all three of their children took full advantage, attending Long Beach State, San Francisco State, UC Irvine, and Cal State over the years Los Angeles campus. My husband was accepted to Berkeley, but ultimately chose San Francisco State because of its writing program—the system at the time was less hierarchical and there was more movement between campuses.
In our house, the final round of applications has been sent out. Now comes the agonizing wait (just in time for Christmas!) and I tell my kid again that if a college doesn’t want her, it’s their loss, not hers. But since she is the first of my children who actually wants to stay in California, I do hope California will allow her.
