Yeah Rowling’s mind has snapped. Not surprising tbh, the rollercoaster ride of single mom on welfare → multi-billionaire with everyone telling you you’re a creative genius → everyone screaming at you about being a TERF and telling you all your new novels suck is a ride that is going to give anyone some mental whiplash.
I want to put a spotlight on Agatha Christie, who not only invented the concept of a Mary Sue self-insert character decades before the actual Mary Sue but also she did it in a fun and self-effacing way.
Yeah, when billionaires go internet brain it’s never pretty see also Musk, Elon. I guess they have no one in their highly curated social circle who dares tell them how insane they look.
When you have that much money your social network tends to fill up with people that want some of that money. Of course they’re going to enable the billionaire’s worst behavior at every turn to curry favor - that’s a great way to siphon off some of the money for yourself. The market works!
Wait, wat? It’s that easy?
How about transferring from lesser UC to Berkeley or UCLA? Is that equally easy?
The way the system works now is that you can get guaranteed admission to all of the UCs except Berkeley, UCLA, and UCSD. It’s called the Transfer Admission Guarantee (TAG) program. Each UC has its own specific requirements, and some exclude some majors. I know the GPA requirement is higher in some cases (just looked and UCSB is 3.4). But even without the guarantee you get preferential treatment to transfer to Berkeley, UCLA, and UCSD.
My kid was initially enthusiastic about the “work hard and in two years you go to Berkeley” plan, but now that all of their friends are making plans to go to exciting schools in cool places they don’t want to go to community college. They have an outside shot at getting into UC Davis or Santa Cruz, a pretty good shot at Riverside, and I think Merced would be a lock. It will be interesting to see what will happen if they only get into Merced, and have to choose between that, a Cal State (probably Chico), and community college.
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So how easy is it to transfer from Merced to Berkeley? Will a 3.0 get it done?
I don’t believe it’s as easy. My oldest kid transfered from cc and started at Berkeley last year. My youngest kid will transfer from cc to some UC next year.
That’s awesome! Congrats to bro (that’s her, right?).
So sounds like if the prize is Berkeley, you’re better off at CC than lesser UC. Is that right?
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Doing a year or two of community college and transferring to a university is honestly a great move and maybe should be the default play for most families.
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I wouldn’t say “lesser UC” (especially since my youngest may choose UCSC even though I think she has all As and will probably get into any UC she applies to), but yeah, if you want the most prestigious school to graduate from you are better off doing CC than one of the lower ranked schools (though they are all extremely good/essentially the same education in general).
I went to community college at SBCC before transferring to UCSB, and my first year I lived in dorms in Isla Vista with SBCC/UCSB students. I’d definitely recommend it to anyone interested.
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My eldest did a year at an expensive private school that, despite a lot of aid, took me a while to pay off. It was good for her though at that age. Very small school. Lots of attention. Now she’s absolutely fine mixed in with 30k other people.
Interesting. I’m sure you’re correct about the quality of education. I meant less prestigious.
Are all As enough to get into Cal? To hear people tell it, that sounds like a minimum requirement. And then on top of that you have to do some other special shit.
My eldest did have some special shit, but I think her GPA was like 3.7. She wasn’t really expecting to get in, but I think it’s not surprising as a transfer from cc. From HS you do need like 4.0+ and lots of stuff. (I went to Cal - from HS - but it wasn’t really like that back in the day)
Two kids next door to us got into Cal from HS - and they were like 4.0+ and sports and eagle scouts and jobs and all kinds of stuff - very type A.
That is correct.
My thinking is that when you’re taking the intro classes freshman year, the quality of education you get from a big-sticker-price school is only marginally better than you’d get at a community college. How much better can they teach calc 101? Do a year or two of community college then transfer to a fancy school and get a degree and no one will ever be the wiser.
That is definitely true. But when you’re 17 and dying to get away from home and all your friends are off to New York and London, going to CC and working doesn’t sound super appealing.
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I think the teachers are just as good on average at cc as Uni for intro classes, but the pace of the classes and the competition is lower and if you go to cc, you need to be ready to up your game if you want the same grades. The actual education might be better at cc because the faster pace and competition isn’t always good for learning.
And I think the small not nearly as prestigious private school did at least offer a better education than either, if you are the type to take advantage of the small classes and much better access to professors.
My corollary to this is that you probably get even better intro college class education from an AP class at a good high school. Half the reason is that you actually have to show up to class. Also class size will probably be smaller.