The path of admission and study at the University of California through the eyes of parents

“... I will show a vase circling in space along with a fan and fruit, cauliflower, a bird, a glass, a bottle from which the contents are poured, and a knife opposite the window, and outside the window there will be an endless sea surface covered with swell, when I put out my hand, holding the horn of a rhinoceros in my fingers - all this will mean that I decided and began to comprehend space-time by contemplating levitation, which destroys entropy "- Salvador Dali

It is not about Dali's painting "Living still life", but about the general concept of how to put the puzzle of life to enter and study in a California university. As it turned out, the task itself is not so trivial and requires a detailed analysis at each stage of the preparation process for entering a university and the study itself.

Path of admission to university in the USA (our family's option)

The task is: to get the maximum education for the minimum money, find a high-paying job immediately after graduating from the university, finish the university without debt.



Conditions: middle class, immigrants, no connections and legacy, large family living in California.



The interests of the child in secondary school: robots, mathematics, history, economics, politics



Admission planning:



1. General planning from the 4th grade (emphasis on the program of advanced mathematics), in-depth from the 8th grade.



2. In the 8th they decided on a specialty (major). The child wanted a major in robotics, preferably at MIT. We compiled a list of the best robotics programs, determined the cost of training, compared the initial and middle career earnings in robotics and Computer Science (CS), the requirements for graduate and post graduate education for career growth, and the financial capabilities of parents.



The analysis easily persuaded the child to start studying CS and, with a strong interest in robotics to obtain a bachelor's degree in CS, continue his graduate and post graduate education in the field of robotics at Carnegie Melon.



3. Compiled a list of requirements for admission to University California (UC) and a couple of top private schools. We made a strategic schedule for 4 years in high school, a list of desirable activities and clubs.



Cost / Benefit Analysis



In 10th grade, a list of specific schools for admission was made.



Requirements: a prestigious Computer Science (CS) program, the opportunity to get a second major in economics (the child turned out to be more of a mathematician / humanities specialist than an engineer with a soldering iron in his hand), the opportunity to get internships, proximity to employers, the total cost is not higher than at UC , preferably much lower.

1. We compiled a list of the 25 most prestigious CS programs (not universities) in the United States, used all possible ratings for this.
2. Net Price Calculator, Caltech admission officer, MIT Caltech, 13.
3. , , , , , accelerated program honors program, 5 , , scholarships merit-based, open source , , rate my professor, career fairs, .
4. , admission officers , . . № 1 (). , UCLA, .

1. . 2 . : , science. ACT, SAT Math II, SAT Physics , , . SAT , . SAT .
2. Exam schedule. ACT in September 11th grade and February 11th grade, preSAT in October 11th grade, SAT Physics in October 11th grade and June 11th grade, SAT Math II in December 11th grade and May 11th grade.
3. The child prepared for all the exams himself. An essay tutor was hired for 1 hour for the exam after getting a low ACT in September and 2 hours for college writing criticism. The rate is $ 125 per hour.
4. In the summer after grade 11, the child wrote endless essays and filled out questionnaires for universities.

Results



Out of 13 universities, 7 accepted, including Berkeley. Gave one Scholarship 20 thousand for 4 years as Regent Scholar. The cost was within the limits of our maximum in 5 universities, far beyond our capabilities in one university, and the cheapest was Berkeley due to living at home.



Errors

• , ACT 3- . , ACT - , . , 19 32.
• Early Decision (ED) . . ED — legacy admission. , , (!) . , . , , , . Regular Decision (RD). .
• . , : , , , GPA , .
• SAT Presidential Scholar, $2,500 , . , scholarship.

When you have decided on the university, you must decide on the major (specialty). The rules in the UC system are such that for a specialty it is necessary to pass the selection and prove that the student is suitable for the chosen specialty and received a passing score in the subjects handed over to the specialty.



It looks something like this: for each specialty there are courses, usually from three to five, which must be passed with an average score above a certain value. For each specialization, this process is detailed and can take from one to two years of study before a student can be accepted into the specialization.



Take the Berkeley University CS specialization as an example. The requirements are to pass three courses CS 61A, CS 61B, CS 70 with an average score above 3.3 (B +)



By this link you can familiarize yourself with the courses:

• cs61a.org - 61A
• fa20.datastructur.es - 61V
• www.eecs70.org - 70

It is better to take one course from the list per semester, so as not to lower the overall GPA, which is influenced by many factors and, most importantly, a catastrophic lack of time. Tasks are usually set every week for all subjects and the time of delivery is also every week. It is very difficult in these conditions to plan everything in time. The student studies practically in permanent time trouble.



There are strategies that can ease this time pressure:

1. Not all classes require an assessment. You can declare “pass / no pass” for non-core subjects, that is, simply “pass”
2. Not all homework needs to be completed. Often in the course it is assumed that you can skip several homework, usually two.
3. , . .
4. . .
5. .

The specifics of the American school



The American school is 12 years old and often the last three years at school, students take college-level classes, they are called the Advance Program (AP). Universities of the UC system count these AP classes, which often shortens the period of study by a whole year if a student took, for example, 8 or 9 AP classes at school.



In order to obtain a bachelor's degree, certain requirements must be met. In addition to the prescribed courses in specialization (major), you must also pass basic (breadth) courses like American History, English, etc. with an overall GPA above 2.



Payment for tuition and accommodation



Let's take the example of Berkeley





For residents of the state of California, the tuition fee per year is $ 14,254, followed by expenses where the main share is occupied by hostel accommodation. There is a calculator on the university website that shows, depending on the family's income, how tuition fees decrease.



All universities in the USA have something like this where you can calculate what the expected tuition fees are and how you can get financial assistance while studying at this university ... In general, how financial assistance for students in the USA is arranged is just a separate topic.



What a homework / project looks like on Computer Science



During my studies there were several projects that hooked me as a professional. In this paragraph I will try to outline what these projects are and why I paid attention to them.



Project Spark Machine Learning



The project itself was based on real data in the amount of 4GB provided by Yelp as part of their project https://www.yelp.com/dataset



The idea was quite simple using spark to develop a Bayesian model to determine the left reviews in terms of the dependence of the review score business from the words used in the review.



The fact that at that time there was a gaming computer with 12 core processors at home made life much easier, and each run on Yelp data took about 20 minutes. At the university, computers were weaker and there the run lasted up to two hours. Given the one week homework limit, it helped a lot.



On an ordinary poppy, it was unrealistic to wait for the result. It should be noted that poppy in some way has become a training standard for CS in US universities.



Security



project The project was based on finding and fixing holes in the original code of an application written in python. The python code itself was made available to the student. As far as I remember, almost all the holes according to the OWASP classification were present in the project.



Machine Learning Project



Here, apparently, it is necessary to say separately today this is the top-ranked course in Berkeley. All homework assignments are micro competitions at kaggle.com. The course involves more than 850 people; if you look at the first homework assignments, about 700 people reached the end of the course.



A homework assignment usually sounded like this, without using libraries and frameworks, to write code in python that implements ML Classification, followed by the name of the classification like: Decision Tree, Random Forest, etc.



What you need to pay attention to during training







I would like to say - "Citizens, be vigilant !!!"

1. Since in an American university it is assumed that the student makes his own schedule, you must have at least a schedule two semesters ahead. It is very good to understand which course follows another, it often happens that the courses have an internal hierarchy and often, in order to take a certain course, you have to take several other courses.
2. - . . . — , .
3. 
   
   

   “ —
   
   ...”

   
   
   
   • - home work party, , .
   • .
   • .
   
   
   

This article completes a series of articles on studying in the United States from elementary school to graduation.



The educational system in the United States: Junior and Secondary Schools - what and how are they taught? Part 1

The educational system in the USA: High school grades 9-12 - what and how are they taught? Part 2