They aren’t allowed to do AA, but still, are they truly race blind? Even if the AOs aren’t allowed to, and even try not to, it is hard to not subconsciously make judgements on an applicant’s last name or race, and think the same of them whether they are asian, white, black, or hispanic.
Do you think that UCs are truly race blind?
How can one answer that? Is it possible that subconsciously - i.e. nobody knows they are doing it, even themselves - people are doing this? How could you ever tell?
I could be wrong but I think I remember reading that they look at the zip code of the applicant. A lot of information about you can be gathered from a zip code (likelihood of race, affluency, etc.).
I live in a zip code that has everything: Section 8 housing, affluent houses “on the hill”, middle income families, senior housing, and, because the area was originally rural, small family farms. I don’t think zip codes can tell you everything that’s there.
Although we’re Hispanic/Native American, you can’t tell that by our last name.
Did our kids get into every UC? No. Could they tell what race we were? I don’t know how they would until they received the high school transcripts, after their acceptances and SIR’s.
And in my family, any judgements based on last name would be inaccurate. My last name is common to two very differently viewed groups, while my DHs last name completely hides one half of his parental background, not to mention his upbringing, which might be considered URM.
(As an aside, I recently received a marketing mailing that made an in correct assumption about my background, presumably based on my last name, and the included form was in a language I neither read nor speak. However, the accompanying letter was in two languages, one on either side, one of which is English. In retrospect, based on the state I live in, I should be more surprised that this is the first time.)
Yes, as near as makes no difference. And no, they aren’t checking out zip codes to ferret out ethnicity.
As is so often the case, quantification is your friend. Look at the admissions data the UC system releases. Look how stats based they are. Very very little wriggle room for sneaking in racist calls.
OP, you are so sure that the dice are stacked against you because of your gender, race and zip code. Your certainty that you have a harder race to run than anybody else colors almost every post you make. But you are mistaken.
You want to “win” one of the hardest games at the very highest level- and at that is just hard. Olympics level hard. All the energy you are putting into these posts to fight a mirage is not only wasted, but it is adding extra rocks to your backpack. What you want to do- CS at the best school in the US- is a heavy enough lift without worrying about whether somebody else might have more advantages than you do. Those include being a male, in a top school with plenty of the essential resources (food, shelter, internet access). 100% there are kids across town who have just as much potential as you do, but do not have all those advantages.
any school with subjectivity in their admission process probably has some unconscious bias.
you can use that tool to see admit rate by campus and ethnicity.