Accepted at Georgia Tech, UCSD, waitlisted at Caltech. How did I get waitlisted from UCSB?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Santa Barbara
1

I know UC admissions are a crapshoot but is engineering really this competitive? Do the UCs really care about one factor that these other schools don’t? Do they have a number of acceptable students higher than the number of slots for the major then pick who gets in at random?

I’m not too disappointed as I probably wouldn’t have attended anyways but I think my application was really strong compared to some other people I’ve seen who were accepted.

Stats:
Objective:[ul]
[]SAT I (breakdown): 2230 (790M 760W 700 CR)
[]ACT: 34 composite
[]SAT II: 790 math II 760 physics
[]Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.85 unweighted
[]UC GPA: Didn’t calculate
[]Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): Not reported
[]Senior Year Course Load: AP Calc BC, AP Lit, AP Physics C Mechanics, Research Project (school requirement), Spanish III
[]Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): Nope
[/ul]Subjective:[ul]
[]Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): Student council president, MUN president, varsity track
[]Job/Work Experience: Got a job fixing computers over summer, tutoring middle schoolers in chemistry and math
[]Volunteer/Community service: Not much
[]Personal Statement: About my summer research, I think it was good. Very similar to the one that got me into Georgia Tech.
[/ul]Other:[ul]
[]Applied for Financial Aid?: No
[]Intended Major: Mechanical Engineering
[]State (if domestic applicant): Oregon
[]School Type: Private
[]Gender: Male
[]Income Bracket: >$200k
[li]Hooks (URM, first generation college, research, etc.): Two month research program at UCLA (HSSRP), engineering program the summer before, [/ul][/li]
I’m really confused so if someone could share some insight that would be helpful. UC can’t consider your ethnicity so it can’t be an affirmative action thing. Both my parents have grad degrees and make a good amount of money, maybe it’s that?

2

A possibility?: Since OOS applicants are in a separate pool, maybe there are more OOS that apply to Santa Barbara than San Diego?? or possibly Santa Barbara has a much smaller number of OOS slots. I saw someone else on here post something similar - rejected at SB, but accepted at other ‘higher’ UCs and they were also OOS

3

I’ve been curious about this, too. I was accepted at UCD and UCSB but waitlisted at UCSC, which surprised me. I can’t figure out what their judgement is based off of.

4

I have no idea. My stats aren’t that far off of yours (3.92 UW), ECs about the same (track, football and mainly music) I’m OOS, only submitted ACTs, and a few 5s on AP exams. I didn’t get into Mechanical Engineering but into L&S Undeclared (will choose Physics) and admit to Honors. Similar demographic income, male, and not URM. After going through the whole application process, I think it’s a c*rap shoot. Don’t sweat SB, GA tech is an awesome school

5

Admissions are unpredictable. I was waitlisted at Gtech with a high gpa and a 2340 on the Sat,with great essays and Ecs +published research and also founded an organization that doubled attendance at medical camps in my state. I received a likely from ucla though. Literally every qualified person in my school was rejected by ucsb. They probably want a high yield rate