The Dream Acceptance Goes Awry

My heart was racing as I walked with my son, Andy, down Telegraph Avenue to the University of California at Berkeley, where I was a student in the ‘60s. Andy had been accepted to Berkeley and five other universities and was deciding where to enroll.

I was flooded with emotion as we passed spots that triggered memories: the library where I was studying when a friend burst in to tell me President John F. Kennedy had been shot; Sproul Plaza, where I first marched in a civil-rights demonstration; Eshleman Hall, where I spent nights writing stories for the Daily Cal; and the Terrace, where I met the brown-eyed history major wearing a corduroy jacket with elbow patches who became my first lover.

I was hoping my son would pick up the excitement, the heady sense of expectancy in the eucalyptus-scented air. As we crossed Sproul Plaza, two young women on a hunger strike were crouched inside a cage, speaking over a bullhorn about cruelty to animals. Other students were waving signs protesting “genocide in Burundi.” I struggled to assume a neutral air, for fear that any enthusiasm would prompt my son to reject the school out of filial contrariness.

I needn’t have worried. His reaction to Berkeley was swift--and had nothing to do with me. His passion is computer science, and when he learned about the draconian rules by which students are allowed to enter the major, he cut short our visit and fled.

We had arranged to sit in on a class, and afterward, we met the professor and walked with him to Soda Hall, the computer-science building. As we walked, he complained that students today are different from when he was an undergraduate. “They’re not passionately engaged with the critique of society,” he insisted. “A lot of them just want to study computer science so they’ll get rich.”

When we sat in his office, he cut to the chase. He said computer science was an “impacted major,” so there was no guarantee Andy could study it. The word “impacted” suggests teeth trapped under bone, but it’s academic-speak for a major so popular, there aren’t enough teachers to accommodate everyone who wants it.

Computer science is “impacted” at almost every major university, but Berkeley’s policy is particularly harsh. It requires students to take preliminary classes and then, after two years, apply to the major. Only 50% are accepted. “We rank everyone according to technical grade-point average, count down from the top and when we reach our limit, that’s it.” In the previous year, he said, “You needed a 3.7 to be assured a place. So you’d better have a second choice.”

My son stared at him. “There’s nothing else I want to do.”

“Then you’re taking a risk.”

“I’ve wanted to work with computers since I was 5,” Andy said.

The professor began talking about “gamesmanship” and strategies for keeping the grade point high. I wondered how he expected students to be “passionately engaged with the critique of society” when they had to obsess about their grades. There was a Catch-22: By the time my son finds out if he is accepted to the major, it will be too late to apply to transfer to another school.

The professor folded his hands over his stomach. “My advice is, don’t think about all this. If you’re supposed to be in the major, you’ll get in. Don’t worry.”

Ha! That’s like saying, don’t think about the elephant in the room.

When we walked out of Soda Hall, my son was depressed. I tried to assure him that he would make the cut, but he said he didn’t want to spend his first years at college with a sword hanging over him. I had to agree. Every student admitted to Berkeley is bright and ambitious, and, as my son put it, “You’d be sitting in computer class knowing one out of every two people is not going to make it.”

You would also select classes because you thought you could get A’s in them. When I was at Berkeley, some of the most inspiring courses were ones I feared would be difficult but were taught by professors who made the material sing. One course was French intellectual history, for which I had no preparation. Another was in the symphonies of Beethoven--a year in which we read the orchestral scores as we listened to each movement. I couldn’t read music, but by the end of the year I’d acquired an intimacy with the symphonies that has stayed with me. I ended up earning As in both, but I wouldn’t have taken either if my sole concern had been grades.

My son was angry as we drove to the airport. “They’re discouraging the people who are most committed--the ones who are not doing this for money but who love the subject and won’t accept a substitute.”

He also felt cheated. The college application process had been long, brutal and dehumanizing. For four years, he’d taken the most challenging AP courses, lived with stress while cramming for the SATs and running a computer consulting business he’d started at age 12. He finished with a 4.4 grade average and SAT scores that were impressive, but he was not accepted by his two top college choices. He saw several other students who had lower grades and scores being admitted because their parents had connections or made donations.

But the University of California was influence blind. The admissions department looked at grades and scores--and that was it. They did not ask for or read letters of recommendation and discouraged calls from powerful alumni.

My son was thrilled when he received the fat acceptance packet from Berkeley and three other UC campuses, one of which offered him a chancellor’s scholarship. He was leaning toward Berkeley--until that visit. After he’d worked hard and pushed himself to his limits, he was told he still hadn’t made the grade and would have to beat out half his colleagues.

Other universities have responded to the problem of the impacted major in a more humane way. UCLA, UC San Diego and the University of Illinois, whose computer-science program is rated among the top five in the country, require entering freshmen to apply in computer science. They’re screened and accepted or rejected as freshmen, so they know where they stand coming in.

After visiting five campuses, my son chose UC San Diego, where he’d secured a place in the intensely competitive computer-science department and was warmly encouraged by the professors he met. It did not hurt that he could see the ocean from the dorm windows and that there were kayaks in the hall and wetsuits hanging from the balconies.

I’m disappointed he won’t have the experience of going to Berkeley, and I’m certain it’s Berkeley’s loss as well. While it’s too late for my son, the administration should rethink its policy so the school can continue to attract dedicated students unwilling to give up their passion.