Our son starts high school in the fall, and the idea of applying to college is already starting to stress us out. When I talk with people who went to a UC school in the 90s, we all agree there is no way we'd get in today. I don't know how getting in to a taxpayer-funded public school became so difficult and competitive. My wife sent me this article a few weeks ago.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-04-12/covid-college-admissions-season-brings-rejection-heartbreak

I can take some guesses. We're about 40 Million residents, likely more with undocumented immigrants. Asian and Indian American families put a high priority on education, and the UC has chosen to bring in foreign students to pad their budgets (high out of state fees). We built one new campus and expanded a few.

An acquaintance's son applied to 18 schools! Some families are choosing more reasonable options in out of state public schools.

I think most of those guesses are anecdotal. But I do feel like many multi-generational California kids will opt for an out-of-state school, and never move back. My inlaws live outside of Boulder, CO, and CU and Colorado School of Mines are both looking pretty good right now.

This article is 3 years old, but it shows how the UC schools are addressing the issue of people being pissed off that after paying taxes for 18 years for public universities, their kids aren't getting accepted.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristenmoon/2018/11/15/uc-admissions-why-being-an-out-of-state-student-might-just-work-in-your-favor/?sh=a71743b527bd

Also, many kids might get admitted to the UC system, but how many really want to go to UC Merced?

I'm not sad to see the tests go because they didn't really measure aptitude, they measured test prep skills. The main proprietor of tests, The College Board, is technically a non-profit, but doesn't act like one as they pay their executives millions. The circular scam is that they also sell test-prep materials and the tests are designed to favor people who bought their materials. It also turns out, they were selling students personal info, and had gotten in bed with the Confucius Institute, which it appeared was a mechanism for the Workers Party to spy on American students. There were claims that the tests were racist--I'm not so sure that the questions themselves were (although there were activists who wanted it to offer an African American Vernacular English version), but based on the price point and accessibility of prep materials, it did favor students and schools with more resources. I believe UC is talking about building their own test. If they do, time will tell if it has any validity or reliability, though the skeptic in me worries that UC would get into the prep material publishing business as a profit venture and just repeat the cycle.

I'm not sad to see the tests go because they didn't really measure aptitude, they measured test prep skills. — fugawe09

100%. It isn't really about racism, it's about money. If you can take multiple test prep classes and have all the resources at your fingertips (and at the far extreme, cheat), it's hard to argue it's a fair system. I definitely don't have the answers. But it's tough to hear people suggesting to send your kid to the lowest performing HS so they have a better chance of being a shining star. As opposed to going to a better school with more resources and opportunities, but then not looking good when you didn't take all 10 AP classes, play 3 sports and 5 instruments, etc. to stand out.

From the LA Times article I posted above:
"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 offered twice as many."

My friends in academia say its a way to slow Asian students representation while increasing Latino and Black enrollment. They'vd been after this for years. So a kid with an SAT in the 90th percentile from Lowell HS will be bypassed got a student with average or no SAT scores from Stockton.

My understanding was that test prep didn't give students huge improvements in their scores.

Again, I think you need to replace race with money. Most families at Lowell have more money than a family in Compton, regardless of race. The task is to include underserved communities and allow them a foot in the door, regardless of race, with a limited number of seats. The question is, where is the line that gets drawn between affluent kids that have better grades and test better compared to kids who don't have as many opportunities?

I think you're both right. It is about money, but money is deeply correlated with zip code, school quality, family living situation, immigration status, and yes, race. You can't put your finger on the scale to adjust for one without causing impacts to the others, whether that is incidental or an intentional agenda. The challenge that admissions officers face is discerning who has potential and how much... in essence has the kid from a well resourced school already peaked with less remaining potential than someone with a less exemplary pedigree. The premise of a UC education is teaching people how to ask the questions for which an answer does not yet exist rather than memorizing what is already known. It isn't easy to objectively measure the former, so they rely on predictors like the latter. The crime of course is that late bloomers are overlooked because this is all decided sophomore and junior year, while some other students with all the positive predictors in place flame out after discovering liquor and the opposite sex in the dorms.

Movie is spot on about international students - between 2000 and 2020 the number system wide climbed from 3000 to 29,000. Over 25,000 of them are from mainland China. We have indeed auctioned off seats to Beijing, who is willing to pay MSRP, to balance the budget and subsidize domestic underrepresented groups.

I thought our premise was educating the top 8% of high school graduates, and preparing them to do research.

If we're bring in above average students to compete with exceptional classmates, I think we know what we'll get - more social justice and mass communications majors, and more dropouts. Dr. Thomas Sowell and Dr. Walter Williams (both black) have written on the topic - the students who could excel at San Jose State are recruited to MIT or Berkeley, and often flunk out.

I don't think we disagree in premise. But my point is it's maybe not so easy to define what the "top 8%" is if the standardized tests are crooked and grades aren't so standardized from school to school. Indeed I have seen what you describe, students get recruited beyond their preparation and go down in flames. I should say I don't believe intellect is guided by race but preparation is often guided by economics. We would likely be better off as a society if we intervened much earlier in life on the socio-economic things rather than wait for big disparities to develop and then try to apply some even-the-odds overlay to admissions and hiring.

It is about money, but money is deeply correlated with zip code, school quality, family living situation, immigration status, and yes, race. — fugawe09

Bingo.

When certain races are more likely to have money, they're more likely to have resources (money) to invest (both in terms of money directly but also moving to specific areas to get their kids into specific schools) into their kids, thereby giving them a better chance of performing better on standardized tests. When you reward those people, it just trickles down and the wheel never stops.

And I say this as someone who could be described, completely accurately, as a privileged white man.

It's not just money, but PC politics won't allow that discussion. Professor John Ogbu of UC Berkeley offered unique research and analysis. He was an anthropologist not a SJW, and first pioneered the phenomena of black students not living up to expectations in Washington DC for fear of "acting white" (oppositional culture).

"His most recent book, "Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb: A Study of Academic Disengagement" (Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers, 2003) also drew widespread attention. Concerned parents and other members of the middle-class black community in Shaker Heights, Ohio, invited Ogbu there to help them understand why some black students in their highly regarded suburban school system were "disengaged" from academic work and performed less well than their white counterparts. He concluded that the black students' own cultural attitudes hindered academic achievement and that these attitudes are too often neglected."

I believe this study concluded that African American students spent less time studying that their counterparts, and their parents delegated responsibility for their education to the school system. I also believe when his study was published, he was called an Uncle Tom.

Originally from Nigeria, he distinguished between voluntary and involuntary immigrants (like Dr. Sowell). While raising 4 children, his wife achieved her Masters and PhD from Berkeley in public health.

https://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/08/26_ogbu.shtml

Having married parents is another advantage regardless of income.

Just another data point, I was above average at my public HS. I had about a 3.7, maybe a 1250 on my SATs, nothing spectacular to get in to Davis in 1995. I was recruited by Dr. Kouba for some special calculus program (which I still don't know how he found me, or why). The first two quarters of the 21 series math I think I got maybe a C+ or B- and maybe a B- or B, while most of the other kids got As. I was one of two kids out of 40 who hadn't taken calculus in HS. Then we took 21C in the spring. I got an A-, and many of the HS valedictorians struggled. I quickly realized that it was the first time of the year they were seeing something new. While I was busting my ass, they were all taking a refresher course for two quarters.

I guess my point is that there is no way I'd get in to Davis today. But from my personal experience, were those kids from Lowell and other more prominent schools better than me? At some level, probably. But does that mean I shouldn't have been given a chance to compete on a level playing field? Of course not. And that's the internal struggle I have. Our son is the white kid with all of the advantages now, and unless he's the top of his class at his private HS, he probably wouldn't get in to Davis if he applies in three years, even though on paper he'll be much more prepared/qualified than I was.

Movie is spot on about international students - between 2000 and 2020 the number system wide climbed from 3000 to 29,000. Over 25,000 of them are from mainland China. We have indeed auctioned off seats to Beijing, who is willing to pay MSRP, to balance the budget and subsidize domestic underrepresented groups. — fugawe09

Do you have an article or data to back that up? I'm always trying to find that information. The claim gets made a lot, but I can never seem to find the numbers anywhere.

edit - This is an older article, but reiterates what I already knew. If you make the basic qualifications, you can go to UC Merced. Except only 10% of the kids that met the basic criteria and were offered a spot at Merced took the option back in 2015.

https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-me-ln-uc-admit-20150702-story.html

Sure! Here is the UC interactive dashboard on admissions. If you go up a level in the infocenter, there are other dashboards on a variety of topics. I took another look and I did misspeak - currently about 28,000 undergrad international (12% of total), of which 18,000 are from PRC. About 15,000 grad international (26%), of which 7,000 are from PRC. Still a mass expansion of international from 2000 (2% and 16%) with the bulk during 2009-2015. Domestic out-of-state also doubled.
https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/fall-enrollment-glance

Better, or more adequately prepared? Who knows, we may have adjusted and competed. No AP classes decades before.

The parents and peer group often drive motivations. In the Bay Area, many Asian and Indian students (many voluntary immigrants) take chemistry or calculus in the summer at the JC, to get a leg up on securing an A grade in their high school classes. Same groups often have huge, private Saturday classes inside local schools - classes in Mandarin, music, math.

There is a large and growing Black and Latino middle class. In California the junior college is a perfect place to take basic courses and prove yourself.

.
Interesting article on the subject

https://jonathanturley.org/2021/05/31/will-eliminating-standard-tests-really-reduce-racial-disparities-in-education/