California State Publications March 2006: Fill & Download for Free

Thanks for asking.Dr. Shailesh J Mehta is one of the most renowned alumni of IIT Bombay, in whose honour the B School, Shailesh J Mehta School of Management, was founded. He currently is the Managing General Partner at Granite Hill Capital Partners LLC, US. Dr. Mehta is a Board memebr to 8 Organisations across 13 different industries.This is from the school's website:"Dr. Shailesh J Mehta, a distinguished alumnus of IIT Bombay and a venture capitalist based in US was the chairman of the board and the CEO of Providian Financial Corporation, a Fortune 500 company and the fifth largest bank card issuer in USA. He has also served on the boards of Mastercard Inc., CIRRUS and many other organizations. He was appointed by Governor of California to the California State University Board of Trustees."A video of him sharing his thoughts on philanthropy:You can find his biography here as one of the Guest speakers at the PanIIT meet. http://iit.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Shailesh-Mehta.pdfFor the inquisitive ones, here is the long read, Bloomberg describes him as follows:"Dr. Shailesh J. Mehta, Ph.D., serves as the Managing General Partner at Granite Hill Capital Partners, LLC.Dr. Mehta serves as the President and Chief Operating Officer of Commonwealth General Corporation since 1994.He serves as the President and Chief Operating Officer of Capital Holdings.He served as Partner of Indian Operations at Washington Mutual Card Services (now Providian Financial Corporation).He served as a Venture Partner at Clearstone Venture Partners. Prior to that, he served as General Partner at Invesco Private Capital.He served as an Advisor of Indecomm Holdings, Inc. He also worked at WestBridge Capital I, L.P. as Operating General Partner where he invested in India and served on the boards of FirstSource and Indecomm.He is also former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Providian Financial which he built from a small team into a Fortune 300 company and left in 2000.He served as Managing Partner of Strategic Initiatives at Max Life Insurance Company Limited. He served as the Chief Executive Officer of Providian Financial Corporation from 1989 to November 2001.He joined the founding team of First Deposit Corporation in 1986. Previously, he served as an Executive Vice President at Ameritrust Corporation (now KeyCorp).He served as an Advisor of Sequoia Capital India.He founded SJM School of Management at IIT-Bombay.He served as the Chairman of Firstsource Solutions Limited from July 2010 to December 3, 2012. He served as the Chairman of the Board of Providian Financial Corporation from May 1988 to October 2001.He serves as a Member of Advisory Board at Tremus, Inc.He has been a Director of Safari Industries India Ltd. since April 2007, PayPal, Inc. since February 2001. and AccountNow Inc. since April 4, 2006.He has been a Director of Commonwealth General Corporation since 1994. Dr. Mehta is also on the board of AccountNow.He served on the board of many private and public companies like Hanover Direct, Providian Financial, U.S. Board of MasterCard International, Emagia Inc., Emagia Corporation, First Ring Inc., Indecomm, Inc., Hanover Direct Inc., and Cirrus, Inc.He served as an Independent Director of Firstsource Solutions Limited since December 3, 2012 until March 30, 2015.Dr. Mehta has been an Independent & Non Executive Director of Manappuram Finance Limited since August 17, 2009.He serves as a Director at Aptus Value Housing Finance India Limited.He served as an Additional Director of Arch Pharmalabs Ltd., from December 9, 2010 to March 30, 2013.He is the Founder of Shailesh J. Mehta and Kalpa S. Mehta Charitable Foundation.He served as a Trustee of California State Universities and the Asian Art Museum.Dr. Mehta holds a Bachelor of Technology in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, and holds a masters degree in Science in Operations Research from Case Western Reserve University.He holds a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Operation Research and Human Letters from the California State University and in Operation Research and Computer Science from Case Western Reserve University."

I have insight! This scenario almost identically played out for me back in 2006! Only differences were that I was/am a California (Los Angeles suburbs) resident and my intended Berkeley major was ChemE.So, it's March 2006 and like most college-bound kids, I'm reallyyy worried about my future. The UCLA, UCSD and UCSB rejections come in quick succession mid-month. Two agonizingly tense weeks later, the UC Berkeley College of Chemistry acceptance arrives! Wait, wait, WTF? I ask myself. My high school counselor can’t understand it either so she contacts a close friend who works in admissions at UCLA to gain some perspcective into their processes.Essentially, for those in-state students applying to multiple UCs, admissions officers are hoping to make the most educated decision as to where you will inevitably wind up. Spots are limited after all and they don't want to offer you one knowing full well you aren't going to take it!We were told that they use a sophisticated (read: complicated) algorithm/scoring system/personality matrix to better make their decisions based on all of the inputs provided: grades, class rank, class size, test scores, academic rigor, extracuriculars, socioeconomic status, parent education levels, zip code, etc. As mentioned in another response, UCLA is indeed more focused on the numbers while Berkeley is more interested in the whole person. I was extremely fortunate to have a lot of great experiences outside of the classroom growing up: sports, community theater, school productions, oodles of community service, church, various leadership positions, etc. I'm gay and a type 1 diabetic (“So diverse!”) If you take solid numbers like I had and mix them with that kind of background, you are most likely a match for Berkeley, who is essentially hunting for us Ivy League and Stanford rejects, haha. No shame in my game: thirteen applications (7 Ivies, Duke, Stanford, Northwestern, 4 UCs) and only one acceptance - Berkeley.Remember, these schools are not making these decisions in a vacuum — they are making them while fully aware of where else you've applied and what you are mostly likely to take. Elite private schools are known to coordinate and broker with elite high school counselors to ensure they only pick people who are most likely accept their offers (“Take Johnny at Yale. His dad went there. Reject him at Harvard. Take Lilly at Harvard. That's her number one. Reject her at Yale.”) We shouldn't be at all surprised that an elite public university system operates its admission processes with similar logic.For context, I was salutatorian of my 330 person class at an average (6/10) public school with a 2260 SAT score, 700+ on 3 SAT IIs and 4’s & 5’s on 9 AP exams. My valedictorian with a year of JV tennis as his only extracurricular was denied from Berkeley and UCSD but was accepted to and attended UCLA. He is a sweet, brilliant guy who comes from a poorer immigrant family. Going to UCLA was absolutely perfect for him because he could save money by living at home and commuting. Here's the kicker: the guy ranked third in our class received blanket acceptances to UCLA, UCSB, UCSD, UCI and Berkeley. He had zero extracurriculars and was really worried about his chances. What happened? He is your basic middle class white kid egghead type that every UC wants but with no discernible personality type to help them narrow down a school for him. He attended Berkeley and I swear I never once saw him in my four years there, haha.My arrogant and insecure seventeen year old self couldn't make sense of it all! With 20/20 hindsight, I had “Cal Bear or bust” written all over me, my valedictorian was perfect for UCLA and the guy in 3rd was going to be just fine academically anywhere. And so, eleven years ago, those are how our acceptances played out.In sum, beyond just blind luck, they probably thought your friend was best suited for Berkeley and by way of rejections to UCLA and UCSD, they made the decision for him. He should be flattered! It's a major accomplishment and I sincerely hope he has a great time at Cal!

I don’t believe there have been “28 mass shootings from Jan. 1 to Feb. 5.” You see, this is another episode of SCAAAARY NUMBERS! where the actual facts are apparently not bad enough to frighten the general public into panicking and not thinking.For example in 2009 the website MomLogic put out a story:Gun Accidents Kill 500 Kids Each YearAdvice every parent needs to hear about firearm safety.This week, an 8-year-old boy accidentally shot and killed his 2-year-old sister in California."It's a tragic case of a sibling who picked up a firearm, thinking it was a toy, pointed it at his sister and discharged one round from the firearm, striking her in the head," said Vacaville Police Sgt. Charlie Spruill.But these aren't freak accidents. More than 500 children die annually from accidental gunshots. Some shoot themselves, while others kill friends or siblings after discovering a gun.Here are more scary stats: Americans own 200 million firearms, and 35 percent of homes contain at least one gun. Last year, a study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that more than 1.7 million children live in homes with loaded and unlocked guns.There's more, but this is enough.The part I've emphasized in bold? It's a lie.It's a blatant, bold-faced lie.It's also not an isolated incident. It's not even uncommon. For example, I have more than once pointed to a March 2000 Salon article by Jean Hanff Korelitz, What a few good women can do (still available on the site, you'll note) where she states in no uncertain terms:And what about the more than 4,000 children who die in gun-related accidents each year? That's 11 kids a day. And we're not talking about crimes, or intentional shootings. We're talking -- or not talking enough -- about accidents.Korelitz says it's 4,000 a year. Ten years later, Momlogic says it's 500.Why aren't we celebrating the eight-fold reduction in accidental gunshot deaths of children?Because they're lying to you. Remember, they're The Other Side.So what are the real numbers? Well, let's go back to the first excerpt where Momlogic's piece states:Last year, a study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that more than 1.7 million children live in homes with loaded and unlocked guns.Wow. 1.7 million potential accidental gunshot deaths, each and every day. But I repeat this line to illustrate that the writer of the Momlogic piece is aware of the Centers for Disease Control. This might lead one to believe that the author could be aware of the CDC's WISQARS tools. The Momlogic piece insists that the accidental death toll is 500 children a year. Let's stipulate that "accident" means "unintentional," and "children" are legally defined as seventeen years old or less. How many children died of accidental gunshot in 2006?One hundred and two. (102!)That's a factor of FIVE fewer than the headline states.Well! What about 2005? 1272004? 105.2003? 102.2002?!? 115.What about when Ms. Korelitz was decrying the "fact" that we "weren't talking enough" about the "more than 4,000 children who die in gun-related accidents each year"?Here's the available CDC data (you trust the .gov, right?) tabulated from 1990 up through 2006:2006: 1022005: 1272004: 1052003: 1022002: 1152001: 1252000: 1501999: 1581998: 2071997: 2471996: 2721995: 3301994: 4031993: 3921992: 3781991: 4191990: 417Not 4,000. Not 500. Two hundred seventy-two in 1996 (four years before Ms. Korelitz wrote her piece) and 102 in 2006 (four years before the Momlogic piece).Two questions:Each and every one of those deaths is a tragedy for the family or families involved. Why aren't the actual numbers ever enough for our opponents? Why must they inflate them?And why aren't we CELEBRATING a four-fold reduction in the accidental gunshot deaths of children over the past twenty years even as well over 60 million new guns have entered circulation during that same period? Remember: supposedly there are 1.7 MILLION households with loaded, unsecured firearms in them that children could be exposed to. I'd say that an annual accidental gunshot death toll of 102 is damned near miraculously small, especially given the fact that 509 children under the age of five died of accidental drowning in 2006 alone.One more: Why hasn't Salon or Ms. Korelitz ever published a retraction of her absurd assertion? (Never mind. That last one was rhetorical.)So pardon me if I take extraordinary claims with a grain of salt the size of the Rock of Gibraltar.