Funnily enough if you go to community college in California, you can do something called the Transfer Admission Guarantee (TAG) that guarantees you admission into any UC except for LA and Berkeley. The UC system is required to increase the amount of in-state low-income students they accept due to agreements with the state and programs like these are crucial to that.

TAG is usually quite simple to qualify for. You just need 30 semester credits and to maintain a GPA ranging from 2.0 to 3.5 depending on the program you're applying for.

How is this related to being "welcome" or not? Of course they are very welcome to study. They are simply not encouraged to circumvent their program of study and go to work under the guise of "CPT."

> I'm pretty sure that the kids getting admitted to Berkeley actually are the best and the brightest.

Are they?

* UC-Berkeley math prof says she has to teach fractions to calculus students because standards have fallen so far. [1] [2] [3] [4]

* "I teach calculus at Berkeley. Some of my students can’t do middle school math" [1] [2] [3] [4]

* Bay Area high school grad rejected by 16 colleges hired by Google -- Zhong had a 3.97 unweighted and 4.42 weighted GPA, scored 1590 out of 1600 on the SAT's [5]

* Star California student rejected by 16 colleges, hired by Google, gets legal win in racial discrimination suit [6]

Seems like the best and the brightest are being rejected and suing over it, with receipts...

[1] https://nypost.com/2026/08/16/us-news/uc-berkeley-math-prof-...

[2] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-05-27/uc-math-...

[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizdoestone/2026/08/24/when-str...

[4] https://sfstandard.com/opinion/2026/08/15/uc-berkeley-sat-te...

[5] https://abc7news.com/post/stanley-zhong-college-rejected-tee...

[6] https://nypost.com/2026/08/30/us-news/california-student-sta...