BERKELEY -- More than 3,000 incoming students received a rousing welcome at the University of California, Berkeley, on Monday afternoon. Besides the Cal Marching Band, there was praise from Chancellor Robert Berdahl and some pithy advice from the student body president.
But whatever you do, don't call them "freshmen." The estimated 3,640 fresh, new faces that began welcome week -- the week before classes begin -- are first-year students. Well, most of them.

Frosh, sophomores, juniors, seniors -- these are not terms in common use at California's most prestigious public university.

Berdahl explains that it's partly because only 50 percent of students graduate in four years. "About 85 percent graduate in six years," he said. "They take time out; they drop out, they come back."

The traditional rankings just don't hold at Berkeley, he said.

Associated Students President Kris Cuaresma-Primm adds that as many as half of the new students fresh out of high school come to Berkeley with college credits earned in AP, or advanced placement, courses. "Although they're in their first year at UC Berkeley, they may actually be almost a sophomore or even a junior," Cuaresma-Primm said.

"And there are those of us, like me, who came in on the 'dumb jock program.' We may have been here four years, but we're still juniors. So that's why we don't think of ourselves as freshmen or whatever."

Cuaresma-Primm, who was elected student body president last spring, says he's a "sixth-year" senior. "I came on a wrestling scholarship," he said.

Addressing students, Berdahl noted that the incoming first-year class is the strongest academically in the history of the university. The class has the highest grade point average, the highest SAT scores, and the highest number of college-prep courses taken.

"Seventy-two percent of you have one or more parents born outside the United States. That's an incredible statistic," Berdahl said.

Later, Vice Chancellor Genaro Padilla, said in an interview that preliminary statistics indicate the number of students of Latino-Hispanic ethnic backgrounds has risen again this year. Numbers of African Americans remain steady, he said.

Cuaresma-Primm told the assembled new students that Berkeley indeed is a special place. "Elements were discovered here," he said. "The co-founder of Apple Computer (Steve Wozniak), the one and only Beaver of 'Leave It To Beaver' (Jerry Mathers), and the original Incredible Hulk (Bill Bixby) ... were all UC Berkeley graduates," Cuaresma-Primm said.

The experience at Cal may change you, he added. "How many of you have attended an anti-war rally? How many have seen a naked 60-year-old hippie? An animal rights protest?

"You may see all of that on the way to your next class," he said. "Let me be honest with you. I don't know how they got me up here in this suit. ... Sign up for your free football season tickets, and vote no on Prop. 54. And who knows, you might be the next Naked Guy at Cal. We haven't had one for a long time.

"Or join a fraternity or the track team. Just remember, each of you can make history," Cuaresma-Primm said.