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.
> 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.
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, ...)
Other countries are too small to matter. Muslim countries have small representation in American universities. Although Muslims might be next after the current wave of Indian-hate.
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
Reading the article it explicitly says if CPT is designed as part of your program of study that you need to complete to satisfy the degree requirements, they are fine. They just won't approve it for optional internships. That's what Optional Practical Training is explicitly intended for, Optional.
And no, to be clear, you are totally mistaken about "school break" thing. In fact, you have to be enrolled in credits to get CPT, not on a full break (this is in no way a new rule.)
I ask because I did not use the term "abuse," as that's subjective. Circumvent was picked precisely because it was a clear run around the intent of the program, without the value judgement.
The keyword is "Day 1 CPT" if you want to learn about the abuse.
Certain colleges basically knowingly wink wink and allow incoming students to go immediately work under 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...
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.
> 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.
Yeah I did the French engineering school exams, I got a looooot of nasty grades in some of the test banks.
I was in the American school system up until HS and then moved to France. The _way_ stricter grading compared to what I had in the US was very hard to get used to.
One thing that I did witness while studying for the engineering school exams (which is a whole two year affair) was seeing a lot of people who were very used to being the top of their class and getting good grades flame out, because they had already been working super hard in high school to keep their grades up.
I think there's a good chunk of "straight A students" who might struggle with the hit to their ego in that environment. But it was helpful and humbling to me.
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.
With enough researcher degrees of freedom, you can make the data appear to support almost any reasonable story, sure. But that's not what's going on here - unless you have a pointed issue with the methodology, which if so, please state.
My guess is that you're just repeating something to dismiss something you agree with, and misunderstand the quote you're using.
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.
48 comments:
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.
> 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.
It's obvious that OPT will be banned next.
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.
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, ...)
Other countries are too small to matter. Muslim countries have small representation in American universities. Although Muslims might be next after the current wave of Indian-hate.
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
Reading the article it explicitly says if CPT is designed as part of your program of study that you need to complete to satisfy the degree requirements, they are fine. They just won't approve it for optional internships. That's what Optional Practical Training is explicitly intended for, Optional.
And no, to be clear, you are totally mistaken about "school break" thing. In fact, you have to be enrolled in credits to get CPT, not on a full break (this is in no way a new rule.)
How prevalent is that kind of abuse? Quantify it. I am sketpical.
Not sure what you mean by "abuse" or what you are skeptical of? Please clarify what stats are you looking for?
You said "They are simply not encouraged to circumvent their program of study and go to work under the guise of "CPT.""
This implies that you are familiar with the system and aware of how it's abused, so presumably you can provide some evidence.
I wasn't aware of any during my time there, but my personal experience doesn't necessarily mean it didn't/hasn't happened.
I ask because I did not use the term "abuse," as that's subjective. Circumvent was picked precisely because it was a clear run around the intent of the program, without the value judgement.
The keyword is "Day 1 CPT" if you want to learn about the abuse.
Certain colleges basically knowingly wink wink and allow incoming students to go immediately work under CPT.
Elon Musk, for one. Maybe not the same program but came as a j1 student visa then promptly left to work on startups.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/28/us/elon-musk-immigration-wash...
> 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.
> 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.
Plenty of other countries already do it this way
Yeah I did the French engineering school exams, I got a looooot of nasty grades in some of the test banks.
I was in the American school system up until HS and then moved to France. The _way_ stricter grading compared to what I had in the US was very hard to get used to.
One thing that I did witness while studying for the engineering school exams (which is a whole two year affair) was seeing a lot of people who were very used to being the top of their class and getting good grades flame out, because they had already been working super hard in high school to keep their grades up.
I think there's a good chunk of "straight A students" who might struggle with the hit to their ego in that environment. But it was helpful and humbling to me.
I would support this wholeheartedly. In fact, make the exams blind. No name or info on the exam. Completely fair and level ground for all!
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.
They “banned” them. This lawsuit contends they don’t actually stop using them. Thats the basis of the claims. Read it
I can make any point by cherrypicking whatever data I want.
With enough researcher degrees of freedom, you can make the data appear to support almost any reasonable story, sure. But that's not what's going on here - unless you have a pointed issue with the methodology, which if so, please state.
My guess is that you're just repeating something to dismiss something you agree with, and misunderstand the quote you're using.
Please do.
> I can make any point by cherrypicking whatever data I want.
Nobody cares if you cherrypick.
What matters: America (quite frankly, the entire world) is becoming more anti-immigration.
If you are an immigrant, I hope you have a good plan.
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.)
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.
.
> 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?
This comment misrepresents what the cancelled program does.
> This comment misrepresents what the cancelled programs does.
It prevents international students from internships at companies while still enrolled in university.
Unless you have a different definition of the word “student visa”?
Perhaps you meant “F-1 green card” visa?
Can you elaborate?
How do you think it is being misrepresented?