Hope is not lost for wait listed UC Santa Cruz applicants.
After @sushiritto pointed out some of the UCSC wait list statistics above, I went through all the common data sets found on this page: Common Data Set (CDS)
UCSC does seem to heavily utilize the wait list to manage their enrollment (see question C2 in CDS).
Data is listed in this order:
Common Data Set year (CDS 20XX-XX)
Number of qualified applicants offered a place on the waiting list (Off)
Number accepting a place on the waiting list (Acc)
Number of wait-listed students admitted (Adm)
Calculated % of students admitted off waiting list (% Adm)
CDS 2020-21
Off: 16,484
Acc: 10,370
Adm: 8,870
% Adm: 86% (Highest admit rate off wait list.)
CDS 2019-20
Off: 12,859
Acc: 7,576
Adm: 4,676
% Adm: 62%
CDS 2018-19
Off: 12,504
Acc: 7,453
Adm: 149
% Adm: 2%
CDS 2017-18
Off: 10,378
Acc: 6,038
Adm: 2,236
% Adm: 37%
CDS 2016-17
Off: 9,983
Acc: 5,707
Adm: 4,097
% Adm: 72%
CDS 2015-16
Off: N/A
Acc: N/A
Adm: N/A
% Adm: N/A
CDS 2014-15
Off: 3,655
Acc: 1,320
Adm: 0
% Adm: 0% (Quote from report: “we didn’t need to utilize the waitlist”)
CDS 2013-14
Off: 2,573
Acc: N/A
Adm: 1,205
% Adm: Note that the number of students accepting a spot on the wait list is not listed, so the % admitted out of the students who accepted a spot is not calculable. However, 47% of the students offered a spot on the waiting list were eventually admitted.