Kia Makarechi
Right now, more than 10,000 high school seniors are debating whether or not they are Bruins.
Of the 12,098 high school seniors admitted entrance into UCLA (out of the 55,675 who applied), approximately 4,650 are expected to choose Westwood as their home for a quartet of years or more.
At the end of the day, why would the new admits ““ with an average GPA resting at a lofty 4.36 ““ choose our school over other schools that are doubtlessly courting them? Is Southern California’s sun-kissed oasis really worth sacrificing the seemingly career-defining institutions of the Ivy League?
Yes and no.
UCLA can be taxing. It would be false to say that school here is a breeze (except if you’re a history student); regardless of the attention you pay to your academics here, you will seldom feel as though you are 100 percent on top of things.
Take, for example, the high school seniors who enjoy literature immensely. In high school, these students were also the editors-in-chief of their newspapers. The first time they take two literature courses in one quarter at UCLA, they’ll find themselves saddled with a 300-plus page novel per class per week.
If you are looking for an undergraduate experience characterized more by sitting around and feeling important, a university as large as ours will not placate these sensibilities. But if you are looking for a challenge that will teach you not only thermodynamics and post-modern literature but also the self-awareness that academic and extracurricular busyness invariably bring, then you are ready to be a Bruin.
Life at UCLA is truly a gift, but it comes with a weighty dose of academic integrity. And it should.
Compare this with the likes of Harvard, where a 1996 study found that 46 percent of undergraduates earned A’s, and 82 percent graduated with honors (compared with Harvard’s 1966 A-rate of 22 percent).
Life at an “elite” private institution is no longer necessarily the reputable exercise it used to be. Befuddled by the massive amount of money required for an Ivy League or equivalent university, a culture of malaise has set in; as professor of history Harvey Mansfield wrote in a 2001 piece for The Chronicle of Higher Education, “People often criticize elementary and secondary schools for demanding too little of students, … but at Harvard, the supposed pinnacle of American education, professors are quite satisfied to bestow outlandishly high grades upon students.”
Hand-holding has been a rising trend in private institutions for decades, but it is one that is essentially impossible in a university as large and robust as ours. At UCLA, you earn your keep.
That’s not to say that our Westwood campus is wrought with nasty professors or hypercompetitive students. UCLA may not hold your hand and grant you grades you did little to earn, but it will give the students who truly wish to succeed everything they need to do so.
Freshman cluster courses offer a three-quarter acclimation to university life through top faculty who understand that their eager students are adjusting. Academics in the Commons provides extensive, exceptional assistance through everything from tutors to writing coaches located smack in the middle of the dorm community. The Center for Women and Men offers workshops on everything from dealing with conflict to picking a compatible partner. The John Wooden Center boasts an enormous fitness complex where students can either exercise on their own or take part in a litany of courses from spinning to Muay Thai to Capoeira. The UCLA Film and Television Archive is the largest of any university in the world.
This campus is bursting with opportunity, but you must be willing to invest yourself in it. Life here will be a challenge draped over the backdrop of an idealized location, an energetic student body and an endless array of cultural, political, artistic and professional clubs and organizations.
It is true, on an oversimplified numerical level, that a private university graduate is more of a branded rarity than a UCLA grad. But as employers realize that their snazzy new interns or associates have never really been busy, never had to work for their earning, we will see a decline in the rosy image currently perpetuated by the nation’s most expensive universities.
And while certain smaller schools may offer more extensive caretaking, UCLA offers something more: an opportunity to elevate yourself.
Deciding whether or not powder blue would look good on you? E-mail Makarechi at kmakarechi@media.ucla.edu.