Talk:University of California/Archive 2

Washington Monthly rankings incorrect?
The Washington Monthly rankings in the "Campuses and rankings" section don't seem to match the actual numbers in the cited page (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/rankings_2010/national_university_rank.php). Could someone check this? It seems that Irvine, Davis, Riverside, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz Washington Monthly rankings are incorrect. 67.124.89.241 (talk) 03:32, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Average SAT scores
The average SAT scores listed are from all accepted applicants of each the campuses and not the averages of enrolled freshmen. I don't think this is an accurate measure since not all accepted applicants, of say UC Riverside, ended up going there. Many of them probably had it as their safety and ended up going to UCLA, Berkeley or Irvine. Similarly, many applicants to Berkeley may have ended going to Harvard or Stanford. This measure is very misleading. Most campuses list average SAT scores of enrolled freshmen and they are consistently about 50 points lower than ones currently listed. I will be updating with these figures as I can find them from each of the campuses.--Seaprt (talk) 07:13, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately, from what i've seen, you haven't been able to give the writing score for UCSD, leaving a huge gap in the way you've listed things. I'm reverting back to the old method until you can find, and cite, the writing score for UCSD. Xenfreak (talk) 02:30, 10 January 2012 (UTC)


 * EDIT

also, it seems, you missed the the heading for the section which is "freshman ADMISSION profiles fall 2011" and not freshman enrolled. Xenfreak (talk) 02:40, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Just fixed a ton of typos
A lot of people don't seem to understand that when one uses initials, like UC, UCSD, UCSF, etc., the definite article is not used. That is, it's not "the UC," it's just UC. However, if UC is used as an adjective to a noun that takes a definite article, then the article must be used. Hence, "the UC system" or "the UC Regents." This is not rocket science, people. --Coolcaesar (talk) 07:58, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Update Enrolled Freshman Profile?
Shouldn't it be updated with the 2013 numbers? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.187.167.234 (talk) 04:02, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Enrolled freshman profile
This section is a pathetic mess. 17 citations for one statement is ridiculous. Even if they're all links to relevant web pages (they're not) it's nearly impossible to tell which particular link verifies which data point (they should go in the cell whose data they're verifying). Furthermore, are the ACT/SAT/GPA numbers means, medians or something else? I tried to figure it out for myself but I don't have the time to dig through 17 citations to find which one I need. This section is an embarrassment and editors of this page should fix it posthaste. 67.164.156.42 (talk) 07:41, 11 August 2013 (UTC)


 * The reason for so many citations is because each one is verifying each GPA, SAT or ACT and number of applications of the 9 campuses. There's not one sole website that has all of this collective data (or that accurately presents it I should say - because the main UC website does present it, just not the same information that the individual campuses will report). Quite honestly, there's nothing really wrong with the citations. They aren't blocking anything, taking up more room, or hard to navigate around. Just click on the link and it takes you directly to them.

What I might suggest, however, is adding an extra column in the table, like how we see in the California State University admissions table, for each campus and we can divide the citations that way.


 * I agree; good idea: specific information will be much easier to verify.Contributor321 (talk) 18:44, 18 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Would anybody take issue with changing the "% California Residents" column to a Reference column for each individual campus? The % CA Resident isn't something that is vital to have in the table, to be honest. And if we add another column in the table, it will widen it and presumably reformat the page.


 * I vote to leave the "% California Residents" column in for 2 reasons. First, the declining % of CA residents at some CA taxpayer-funded institutions of higher learning is currently a contentious issue.  Seeing which universities have what % of CA residents is informative.  Second, when I look at the table there is a lot of white space to the right of it.  I inserted a test column and fit in 60 characters before there was a format issue (the largest "References" entry in the CSU table has 12 characters), so a "References" column here will easily fit.  (By the way, to whoever wrote the preceding comment, please sign your comments so editors know who they are responding to.  Signing is easy: just type in ~ four times (the tilde sign is to the left of 1 on my keyboard, and probably yours too)).  Contributor321 (talk) 01:10, 19 October 2013 (UTC)


 * It's been two weeks since my last comment on the subject so, if no one has any serious objections during the next two weeks, I'm going to go ahead and add a References column sometime in the middle of November.Contributor321 (talk) 23:30, 2 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm all for this!Uwatch310 (talk) 00:12, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Berkeley Campus
Would it be too much to ask to add the Berkeley link back to the top of the page??

Because the above is indeed true (the Berkeley campus was the University of California and is still often referred to as such by many people), and Berkeley's athletics and student groups still go by this name ([University of] California Golden Bears, University of California Marching Band, University of California Rally Committee, etc) I believe restoring the above link would help alleviate confusion. --CASportsFan (talk) 19:27, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Can you cite any references for this? I have not once heard anyone refer to the campus as the University of California. Jay Gatsby(talk) 19:50, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
 * It is certainly true historically. There was only "University of California" until UCLA was founded in 1914, so sources older than that will almost certainly be referring to Berkeley. Growing up in the Bay Area in the 50s and 60s, and attending UCSC in the late 60s, the use of "UC" or the "University of California" in print ususally meant "UC Berkeley" unless the context made clear that the discussion was about the whole UC system, as in a "The University of California and the California State Colleges ..." or in University publications. "UC," "University of California," "California," and "Cal" always meant the Berkeley campus with regard to sports coverage, whether "Bears" or "Golden Bears" was included or not..--Hjal (talk) 22:13, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Modern usage is different from that used more than half a century ago. Nevertheless, I can see how having the navigation link would be helpful. --Jay Gatsby(talk) 00:36, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm glad that you agree. It would have been hard to think of Jay Gatsby as a recentist.--Hjal (talk) 07:43, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * He is anything but! It's my favorite book, by the way. Thank you for all the information and for taking the time to write about your experience. --Jay Gatsby(talk) 19:31, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Try going to their website: calbears.com:"California Golden Bears - The University of California Official Athletic Site." Maybe you could visit the website of the Associated Students of the University of California, University of California Rally Committee , University of California Marching Band , etc. You obviously don't live in the state of California or follow Pac-10 athletics . . . all athletic venues are all clearly marked with the words: University of California. You can also look at the wikipedia page on the History of the University of California, Berkeley. --CASportsFan (talk) 07:10, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * None of these is actually a reference to UC Berkeley itself, but rather to an organization which operates within the campus. Moreover, the names of these organizations are historical artifacts from when the campus was known originally as University of California. No one today under the age of 60 would refer to the campus itself as the University of California (maybe as Cal, Berkeley, or UC Berkeley, but not U of C) and anyone who still does would be greeted with quizzical looks begging the question "Which campus within the system do you mean?"


 * Nevertheless, I appreciate the fact the UC Berkeley was originally named University of California and was referred to as such for a significant amount of time, so I'll leave the navigation link alone. --Jay Gatsby(talk) 19:31, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I still believe that the hatlink to UCB is appropriate, but it might be that text other than "Not to be confused with its formerly synonymous first campus..." would be better. Perhaps something like "Historical and casual references to UC or U of C might be referring to UCB."
 * I agree that the hatnote is appropriate as I do hear references to Berkeley as just the "University of California". Either wording works for me. Bahooka (talk) 19:56, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
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Poor customer service and low alumni rates of donations
An editor is insisting that information asserting that UC institutions have reputations for poor customer service remain in this article. I object because the only sources cited for the information are from 2001 and 1990 so this information is at best poorly sourced and at worst woefully outdated (and may be overstated, too, since only two sources are cited).

It's even more problematic now that the same editor has added a 2011 article describing relatively low rates of alumni donations with the editor - not the source - connecting the lower rates of giving to the perceptions of poor customer service. This is not only original research it's very poorly conducted original research since it an article from 1990 and an article from 2001 to explain behavior in 2011.

The assertions may be true but they're very, very poorly sourced. The material must be removed unless additional sources can be found that are more timely and speak directly to these issues. ElKevbo (talk) 22:15, 15 December 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree with the points ElKevbo has made, and am especially troubled by the use of 1990 and 2001 articles to come to a conclusion about 2011 donations, not to mention that there's a huge difference between correlation and causation. The content, as is, does not belong in the article. Contributor321 (talk) 01:56, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I respectfully disagree but will refrain from reinserting that content while I search for additional sources that directly support causation as to this point. The sense of impersonal alienation between UC students and the UC bureaucracy has been extensively documented over the years, especially with regard to the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley; an example is this article. It is also well-known that this leads to low alumni loyalty and low donations, but I'll continue to look for better sources that articulate that point in depth.  --Coolcaesar (talk) 03:53, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

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Please create a list of inventions by the University of California
The article says "UC researchers and faculty are responsible for 1,745 inventions, which have led to the creation of 934 startups, and UC currently controls over 12,200 active patents" -> could you please create a new section or article for a list of these inventions? For this also see the lists of other Universities' (researchers') discoveries and inventions at Category:Lists of inventions or discoveries.

--Fixuture (talk) 13:02, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

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Numbers don't add up in Academic section on inventions
Currently reads: "As of 2016, UC researchers and faculty are responsible for 1,745 inventions, which have led to the creation of 934 startups, and UC controls over 12,200 active patents. On average, UC researchers create five new inventions per day."

The source (https://web.archive.org/web/20161111062209/http://universityofcalifornia.edu/sites/default/files/uc-at-a-glance-oct-2016.pdf) is a little ambiguous, but seems to suggest 1,745 inventions in 2016, not 1,745 inventions total.

Mayawagon (talk) 14:30, 28 November 2018 (UTC) mayawagon

I updated this in the article Mayawagon (talk) 19:28, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Brochure language
The following is brochure language:

... responsible for nearly US$50 billion per year of economic impact.

And the problem here is that I don't even know what it means. Revenues? Probably not, because a large chunk of the funding is probably public sector and donations. Total expenditures? Perhaps. Total expenditures plus endowment revenues? That would be a ridiculous aggregate, but unfortunately, both of those sub-terms are impact-ish in the eyes of your average PR department (even at an august university, where they ought to know better).

So how about an encyclopedic figure that naturally translates to something people directly comprehend? &mdash; MaxEnt 16:44, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Inaccurate drafting by someone who has not read the sources cited
I am objecting to this paragraph:

The University of California was founded on March 23, 1868, and operated temporarily in Oakland before moving to its new campus in Berkeley in 1873.[5][6] In March 1951, the University of California began its reorganization, and in 1952 it became separated as a "university system" from the University of California, Berkeley, with Robert Gordon Sproul being the first system-wide President and Clark Kerr being the first Chancellor of UC Berkeley. [7][8][9][10][11]

Whomever wrote this has not actually read the first volume of Clark Kerr's memoir The Blue and the Gold in full. Kerr is very clear in his memoirs that the 1951 reorganization plan was an incoherent train wreck that left him and Raymond Allen (first chancellor of UCLA) in an extremely awkward position because of how President Sproul and the northern Regents were reluctant to surrender power to the chancellors. The compromise that they fumbled towards was that Allen ended up with some autonomy at UCLA but Kerr was essentially a glorified provost at Berkeley while Sproul and his allies retained control of the business side of most of the university. It was not until Kerr finally became President that he was able to coax the Regents towards implementing true decentralization from 1957 to 1960, in which Berkeley finally stopped micromanaging UCLA and the other off-site locations and most chains of command were rerouted downwards to the chancellors and away from the President. Thus, it is grossly inaccurate to characterize the university as becoming a university system in 1952, when Kerr, the person most responsible for UC's decentralization, was careful to characterize it as happening from 1957 to 1960. That entire paragraph needs to be pulled out until I can get to a library and get the page cites for that information. (I read Kerr's book many years ago but I can only see about 30 pages from it on Google Books.) --Coolcaesar (talk) 04:39, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

Pay scales
These may need to be updated, or accompanied by some clarification about the disparity between scale salary bands vs. actual compensation levels. From firsthand experience, my SO (married, I do our taxes) was paid just under $115,000 in their first year at one of the less prestigious UC campuses, with no signing bonus - just straight salary. The point of this anecdotal story is not that it's worthy of being a source datapoint (it's not), but that it seems to be fairly common. Look up the actual pay of UC faculty (easy to do, it's all on public record) and you will find find many professors' compensation is well above the salary bands listed in the table for their year and position. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:5171:170:D833:8361:2BC5:72AD (talk) 18:55, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Proposed revision to paragraph on Hastings College of the Law and Toland Medical College
The paragraph on Hastings College of the Law and Toland Medical College is a grossly inaccurate mess that needs to be revised and supported with citations to reliable sources. When I have the time, I am proposing to revise the paragraph so it accurately discusses Section 8 of the Organic Act and then explains how efforts to implement that section went awry in various ways, resulting in the messy situation today with UC Hastings College of the Law and UCSF operating independently of each other in the same city. (Although Hastings does contract with UCSF to borrow certain services like UC Police.) --Coolcaesar (talk) 21:12, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Cal Poly Pomona is a tangent
I'm planning to pull that out because this article is way too long as is. We should be focusing on what became the UC system today, not properties that wandered in and out. --Coolcaesar (talk) 17:44, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Language, referring to the individual UC's as "campuses"
The individual UC's in the UC system are universities in their own right and should NOT be called "campuses" - a "campus" is merely a physical location, and while every UC does of course have  main campus (and several of them have more than one campus! so how can a campus have campuses? e.g., the Davis campus's Sacramento campus - this makes no sense!). This is a fairly large mistake, and I suspect it has something to do with the UC system being often referred to as the "university of california", so this has led to outside scholars or journalists assuming it to be one university rather than a system of many universities. Firejuggler86 (talk) 02:28, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Well one issue is it seems like the UC system itself calls each UC a campus. []. But you are right, some UC's having main campuses and other campuses is confusing. I think it could be changed unless someone has a good reason to keep it as is. Wikiman5676 (talk) 03:40, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
 * WP policy is to follow established common usage. See WP:NOT and WP:V.  It sounds like you haven't bothered to actually read the Wikipedia article you're talking about or study the official UC web sites like the UCOP Web site.
 * As the article already explains (in passages I added with citations to Clark Kerr's memoirs), UC is "one university with pluralistic decision-making." Kerr himself repeatedly and consistently refers to the UC campuses in his memoirs.  It is kind of confusing for UC to apply the term "campus" to locations that have full operational independence from Berkeley as well as branch locations, but that's the way UC has always operated for many decades. Kerr, of course, is the namesake of the Clark Kerr Campus at Berkeley and Kerr Halls at multiple UC campuses.  --Coolcaesar (talk) 16:06, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Odd changes to images on 17 July 2021
User:Filetime changed almost all the campus images in the article on 17 July 2021.

The only changes that were clearly an improvement are the photos for UCLA, Merced, and Riverside. The other new photos are worse than what they replaced. I'm wondering if Filetime has visited any UC campuses. (I have visited all 10 campuses in person, plus Hastings.)

Here is what is wrong with the new photos:


 * Berkeley: Much of the subject of the photo is obscured by tree branches.
 * Davis: The Mondavi Center (the old photo) is usually considered to be more attractive and more representative of the campus.
 * Irvine: The composition is mediocre. A photo that shows only corners of two different buildings and a plaza in between looks like the photographer couldn't decide what is the subject. It would be better to pick a photo that focuses on only one building (like the old photo).
 * San Diego: The Geisel Library was portrayed in shadow, which is why someone else has already replaced that photo with a better one.
 * Santa Barbara: The photo was shot too early in the morning (shadows are too deep and obvious) and has severe lens distortion. It's also taken at an unattractive angle within the campus that highlights its notoriously confusing layout.  The old photo (which I took) was shot in mid-morning at a distance without lens distortion and from the campus lagoon (the campus's best side).
 * Santa Cruz: The photo was shot way too early or late (either dusk or dawn), so it's very hard to see anything. It's also unclear how a bridge is illustrative of the campus.

Any objections before I revert Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz back to the old photos? --Coolcaesar (talk) 16:54, 20 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Seeing no objections after an entire month, I will proceed. --Coolcaesar (talk) 09:12, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 24 August 2021 and 17 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): TruthWithin&LightWithout.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 12:06, 17 January 2022 (UTC)