Talk:University of California, Santa Barbara

CCS - unique among STEM programs within the UC system includes a hard requirement for 3 letters of rec
Not even Berkeley, UCLA, nor any other campus makes this a hard requirement for admission to top-line degree programs in STEM via college of letters and arts or college of engineering (which would cover the undergrad STEM degrees that are most competitive and prestigious at the bachelors level). Of course, competitiveness with application means that this is a defacto "soft requirement" that people have historically treated as a requirement, but the distinction is still valid. Completely seprately: Carol Greider's Nobel Price in physiology represents an example of a UC educated UNDERGRAD who went on to receive a nobel prize. indeed, not just a UC bachelor.... but a *modern* UC bachelor, as opposed to the many many examples of famous name brand scientists who did "Zero to Phd in 6 years" over the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. We speak now of a 1980s- era bachelors, a timeframe in which the curricula and even the organizational management of the departments had modernized. This is still a rarity despit the dump truck loads of graduates from the UC system in the intervening years.67.165.123.62 (talk) 04:16, 23 August 2023 (UTC)