Is this headline misleading? From reading the article, Berkeley is pausing authorizations for Course Credit CPT, which enables international students on visa’s to work in exchange for credits to complete their degree program. It doesn’t outright ban work experience if it is an “integral part of an established curriculum”.
The headline reads like Berkeley is suspending authorization of international students workers in general, but this actually seems like a relatively narrow restriction?
The new directive requires that the course requires the internship. Most programs (especially CS/economics etc) dont. This effectively removed any pathway for international cs students interning. It’s far from a narrow restriction
That is not true. It does not restrict anyone from applying for OPT and pursue one or more internships. Given your other comment, it is pretty obvious you are not super familiar with the details of CPT vs OPT.
We wouldn’t want someone to work in the US under the guise of a student visa, after all. It’s not like the current richest man in the world didn’t start his journey that way.
> Some comtext 36% of Berkeley students now from PRC (China), another 11% India. Big growth in last 15 years:
Chinese students are fine, because many do in fact return to China after graduation. Why work as H1B in America when you already earn US$100k back home? Much higher quality of life in China compared to $500K in SF/Bay/NYC. They don't really care about CPT.
Indian students though, well, they tend to be a problem for the usual reasons, as documented on multiple continents (Canada, China, Australia, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, UK, France, Netherlands, America, ...)
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."
How is using CPT for a summer internship circumventing program pf study? To get CPT, the experience has to related to your degree, not just a random job. And you can only do it in over school breaks
> 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...
University objectives of making a diverse student body (an objective I basically agree with!) make this tricky and futzy (but not impossible IMO! You can always do something a bit hybrid), but I really feel like if some US university just decided to go to an entrance exam model they'd probably instantly have a cohort of students that would be _much_ easier to onboard into university materials.
Biggest problem is you'd need to make the entrance exams _actually tough_. Like "basically nobody who takes it gets an A". The objective is to rank students between each other, after all! It doesn't matter if the top scorer only has a 70% or something.
Every argument against standardized testing in this kind of thing seems to boil down to "test results are heavily correlated to socio-economic status". But... every other form of university entrance criteria process is even more correlated, right? All those extracurriculars aren't free after all.
The sooner Cal cleans its act up, the better. College admissions IS zero-sum and it's absolutely harmful for the students rejected and those enrolled to accept unqualified candidates.
Concerning [5], the article says he was rejected at UC Santa Barbara. Haven't checked in a while, but I believe UCSB historically accepts 40-50% of first time applicants. The schools were not using SAT scores at the time, and UC has banned race considerations in admissions for nearly 30 years. Surely there's more to this story.
Coincidentally, I just checked law school rankings in CA. In my day (mid 90's), Boalt Hall was at the very top, and most kids were told don't even bother trying for it. Now it's not in the top 15 in the nation and latest USNR has it third in CA behind Stanford and UCLA.
“Some students are five to eight years behind in mathematics. Office hours that should be spent discussing integrals instead become lessons on fractions and basic algebra you would expect students to learn in middle school,” wrote Zvezdelina Stankova, of UC Berkeley, in an op-ed piece on Saturday for the San Francisco Standard.
Stankova — who rose through the mathematics world to earn a PhD from Harvard after being born in communist Bulgaria — described the admissions process as “less like careful evaluation and more like chance.”
> 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
How does that relate to Berkeley?
> 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
What's the point here? Whatever happened with that person, there are many more Berkeley applicants who have exceptional records.
(There must be more to the story - neither citation says why he was rejected. To the degree there is discrimination, I expect it would be against borderline applicants and not exceptional ones.)
When I did my CPT more than a decade ago in an age before the current admissions policies, I had to ensure that the place I was going to work at was a good fit for what I was studying, and there needed to be a written explanation of why it would directly benefit my studies. And it was no joke, I couldn't do an internship for a role not directly in my field of study.
Either Berkeley isn't doing things right, or this is a shakedown. International students are the biggest money-spinners for universities (to the detriment of everything else at this point, from what I hear), and ICE is going for the jugular.
> International students are the biggest money-spinners for universities
That is exactly the problem.
Stanford University owns 7 private jets for “administrative use”. The fuck?
Perhaps cut the free money from international students, then universities can finally focus on producing research, or god forbid, and educating students.
So, this is not about OPT, but CPT. Many from various schools have abused CPT; so, they want to put to close that loophole. Some real ones get affected by this because of others' actions.
SO..you are saying the admin is acting because this country abused benefits. And you are not blaming the admin for stopping OPT from said country but everyone else. Do you see the problem?
Maybe its about the same admin that is killing Americans in the name of immigration and trying to get rid of the same pathway that same admin took to bring a whole family over[0] -- they just didnt want to get political so avoided naming them
why even bother with this "you know what I mean" stuff? if you're going to say things like this have the conviction to say it straight. you come off as a bigot AND a coward this way.
Is this headline misleading? From reading the article, Berkeley is pausing authorizations for Course Credit CPT, which enables international students on visa’s to work in exchange for credits to complete their degree program. It doesn’t outright ban work experience if it is an “integral part of an established curriculum”.
The headline reads like Berkeley is suspending authorization of international students workers in general, but this actually seems like a relatively narrow restriction?
The new directive requires that the course requires the internship. Most programs (especially CS/economics etc) dont. This effectively removed any pathway for international cs students interning. It’s far from a narrow restriction
That is not true. It does not restrict anyone from applying for OPT and pursue one or more internships. Given your other comment, it is pretty obvious you are not super familiar with the details of CPT vs OPT.
We wouldn’t want someone to work in the US under the guise of a student visa, after all. It’s not like the current richest man in the world didn’t start his journey that way.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/28/us/elon-musk-immigration-wash...
Some comtext 36% of Berkeley students now from PRC (China), another 11% India. Big growth in last 15 years:
https://internationaloffice.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files...
> Some comtext 36% of Berkeley students now from PRC (China), another 11% India. Big growth in last 15 years:
Chinese students are fine, because many do in fact return to China after graduation. Why work as H1B in America when you already earn US$100k back home? Much higher quality of life in China compared to $500K in SF/Bay/NYC. They don't really care about CPT.
Indian students though, well, they tend to be a problem for the usual reasons, as documented on multiple continents (Canada, China, Australia, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, UK, France, Netherlands, America, ...)
Of the international students at Berkeley, 36% are from China and 11% from India. Very big difference.
The majority of these kids go back home after getting accused of being CCP agents and are then accused of being puppets of the west back home.
They mostly are loyal to the USA and that's why they come here.
It's colossally stupid to spit in their faces like this.
Totally embarrassing
And at best misleading, if not outright false.
As someone that went to community college...
I'm pretty sure that the kids getting admitted to Berkeley actually are the best and the brightest. we should absolutely be welcoming them.
what are we even doing here?
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."
How is using CPT for a summer internship circumventing program pf study? To get CPT, the experience has to related to your degree, not just a random job. And you can only do it in over school breaks
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How prevalent is that kind of abuse? Quantify it. I am sketpical.
4 replies →
> 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...
University objectives of making a diverse student body (an objective I basically agree with!) make this tricky and futzy (but not impossible IMO! You can always do something a bit hybrid), but I really feel like if some US university just decided to go to an entrance exam model they'd probably instantly have a cohort of students that would be _much_ easier to onboard into university materials.
Biggest problem is you'd need to make the entrance exams _actually tough_. Like "basically nobody who takes it gets an A". The objective is to rank students between each other, after all! It doesn't matter if the top scorer only has a 70% or something.
Every argument against standardized testing in this kind of thing seems to boil down to "test results are heavily correlated to socio-economic status". But... every other form of university entrance criteria process is even more correlated, right? All those extracurriculars aren't free after all.
3 replies →
This is basically exclusively for the Humanities students at Cal. Majority of the STEM ones all came in with the calculus sequence finished already.
Another big issue is that many of these under-prepared students came from the same Bay Area 'under-represented' feeder schools: https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2026/uc-acceptance-rate...
The sooner Cal cleans its act up, the better. College admissions IS zero-sum and it's absolutely harmful for the students rejected and those enrolled to accept unqualified candidates.
Concerning [5], the article says he was rejected at UC Santa Barbara. Haven't checked in a while, but I believe UCSB historically accepts 40-50% of first time applicants. The schools were not using SAT scores at the time, and UC has banned race considerations in admissions for nearly 30 years. Surely there's more to this story.
1 reply →
I can make any point by cherrypicking whatever data I want.
3 replies →
Coincidentally, I just checked law school rankings in CA. In my day (mid 90's), Boalt Hall was at the very top, and most kids were told don't even bother trying for it. Now it's not in the top 15 in the nation and latest USNR has it third in CA behind Stanford and UCLA.
“Some students are five to eight years behind in mathematics. Office hours that should be spent discussing integrals instead become lessons on fractions and basic algebra you would expect students to learn in middle school,” wrote Zvezdelina Stankova, of UC Berkeley, in an op-ed piece on Saturday for the San Francisco Standard.
Stankova — who rose through the mathematics world to earn a PhD from Harvard after being born in communist Bulgaria — described the admissions process as “less like careful evaluation and more like chance.”
Hmmm ... lots of NY Post stuff.
> 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
How does that relate to Berkeley?
> 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
What's the point here? Whatever happened with that person, there are many more Berkeley applicants who have exceptional records.
(There must be more to the story - neither citation says why he was rejected. To the degree there is discrimination, I expect it would be against borderline applicants and not exceptional ones.)
1 reply →
When I did my CPT more than a decade ago in an age before the current admissions policies, I had to ensure that the place I was going to work at was a good fit for what I was studying, and there needed to be a written explanation of why it would directly benefit my studies. And it was no joke, I couldn't do an internship for a role not directly in my field of study.
Either Berkeley isn't doing things right, or this is a shakedown. International students are the biggest money-spinners for universities (to the detriment of everything else at this point, from what I hear), and ICE is going for the jugular.
> International students are the biggest money-spinners for universities
That is exactly the problem.
Stanford University owns 7 private jets for “administrative use”. The fuck?
Perhaps cut the free money from international students, then universities can finally focus on producing research, or god forbid, and educating students.
So, this is not about OPT, but CPT. Many from various schools have abused CPT; so, they want to put to close that loophole. Some real ones get affected by this because of others' actions.
Cruelty is the point.
What is cruel about this?
> Cruelty is the point.
Tell that to immigrants being cruel to other immigrants, even in America.
Couple of countries people are famous for this.
This is sad.
Sad for the rest of us immigrants, not so much for the thousands who ruined it for everyone by bringing their whole families through H1B loop holes.
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> This is sad.
Why?
International students are still allowed to study in America.
They just need to return to India after graduation.
If they wish to immigrate to America, there are different visa pathways for that.
Why are Americans so focused on helping other companies get ahead, rather than trying to brain drain their best and brightest?
1 reply →
This comment misrepresents what the cancelled program does.
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SO..you are saying the admin is acting because this country abused benefits. And you are not blaming the admin for stopping OPT from said country but everyone else. Do you see the problem?
.
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Wait, why can’t you explicitly say who you’re talking about again?
Maybe its about the same admin that is killing Americans in the name of immigration and trying to get rid of the same pathway that same admin took to bring a whole family over[0] -- they just didnt want to get political so avoided naming them
[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43256318
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why even bother with this "you know what I mean" stuff? if you're going to say things like this have the conviction to say it straight. you come off as a bigot AND a coward this way.