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How does Berkeley expand the number of kids who can handle its difficult science and engineering classes?

• tfehring 5y ago
  That seems like a secondary concern and also mostly not Berkeley’s responsibility. The part that Berkeley is (or should be) responsible for is that the number of students who could get through its STEM coursework is orders of magnitude higher than the number it currently admits.
  • ryan93 5y ago
    Tens of thousands of kids are Berkeley engineering smart yet aren’t already attending good research universities?
    • tfehring 5y ago
      Tens of thousands of kids are Berkeley engineering smart but don't have the opportunity to attend Berkeley, either because they get turned down or because they (accurately) determine that they would likely be turned down and don't apply. I don't see a reason to shift the goalposts when "good" is fuzzy and subjective and long-tailed. Also, the number's probably more like hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions when you look internationally.
      • throwawaysea 5y ago
        This feels false on two counts. At the top engineering schools, a significant portion of the currently admitted students entering those majors end up dropping that major in their first year due to the difficulty. Berkeley’s computer science program is widely known for having a large culling early on. It doesn’t seem realistic to claim tens of thousands of other students who can’t get admitted today somehow have the necessary aptitude. Another issue is that the degree is valuable because it is selective and admits high quality students who will be high quality professionals as well. If a larger population is admitted because they can do the coursework but they are not quite at the same tier of capability, the value of that diploma will reduce.
        • tfehring 5y ago
          On your first point: the fact that there are false positives in the admission process doesn't imply that there are no false negatives. The dropout rate would presumably increase as they admitted more students, but I don't think it's plausible that the dropout rate for the marginal admitted student is 100%. On your second point: a Berkeley diploma signals that a graduate (1) is above some minimum (but still very high) threshold of competence, and (2) has a level of competence governed by some probability distribution that's above that minimum threshold. I assume that as Berkeley admitted more students, the minimum standard would stay the same but the average of that competence distribution would decrease toward that minimum. This is subjective and I'd understand if you disagree but that seems like a worthwhile tradeoff to me. I think there are pretty few jobs for which a bottom-of-their-class Berkeley CS grad is underqualified, and obviously those jobs have their own evaluation/screening processes on top of looking at the Berkeley diploma anyway. I suppose an employer looking for the "superstars" in the top 1% (by some immeasurable criteria) of their class at Berkeley would have to identify the top 0.1% instead (if we generously assume that Berkeley's current admissions process never turns down those students), but I'm less concerned about those dozens of students than about the tens of thousands more who could benefit from both a more rigorous curriculum and the ability to demonstrate to employers that they're above that minimum threshold.