(I’m from CA) I agree. I would consider myself a competitive applicant, but I definitely dropped the ball when it comes to creating my college application list. I applied to every UC and while I was lucky with my UC decisions,
Rejected: UCLA, WL: UC San Diego, Accepted: UC Merced, UC Riverside, UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz, UC Davis, UC Irvine, UC Berkeley
I really didn’t need to apply to UC Merced or UC Riverside which were simply wasted application money
My out of state school list has too many reach schools. Waitlisted at UNC Chapel Hill and UChicago. Waiting on Stanford, NYU, Columbia, Cornell, UPenn, and Harvard.
I honestly picked out of state schools based on prestige so if I did get into any of them I would have to do extensive research into whether I even actually like the school or if me attending is financially plausible. Now its just a waiting game for me and I am grateful I have secured an acceptance at Berkeley since I would have been disappointed to attend UC Irvine after taking such rigorous courses and ECs for 4 years.
None of my kids decided to apply to any UC’s. The only two they had looked at were UCB and UCLA and were close to doing UCB and ultimately passed. I don’t understand the whole thing there and how someone could be accepted to a lower one and a high one like UCB but none of the others, or just all over the place like yours seem to be. Like UCB is the golden ticket, yet UCLA rejects you. Crazy, right?
My son has a lot of friends here that applied to ASU as a safety because they would give them a ton of money and be in their honors program. When you’re in an honors program somewhere you get treated a lot better and it’s a better quality of student than in some of the regular classes in a school that may be easy to get into. But ASU actually has a decent engineering program, and it just happens to be easy to get into. One of those kids wound up getting into Rice ED, so it worked out for him. As stated earlier, my son’s safety was Miami, OH. He also knew he would get into UIUC for at least their Pre-Engineering program at a minimum which he did and if desperate would go there. But he isn’t. The acceptances have been slow and a crappy process tbh.
Cornell has a good number of CA students, but traveling there is hard. My daughter flew for a family function last year and literally spend about 36 hours of the weekend in LA then flew back and it messed up her whole body clock etc. Probably shouldn’t have come but really wanted to. Even from here, Chicago, Cornell is a two flight trip unless one goes to Syracuse. Cornell however, is still my son’s top choice so at least they can go together if it works out and having 2 in the same place is better than having 3 of mine at different schools. But if it’s meant to be great, if not, he has some good options. Hopefully it works out for everyone.
Yeah, the UC system admissions is a little strange. However, unfortunately because the schools evaluate students differently and some lower schools reject while higher ones accept or waitlist, it has many students unhappy with their decisions crying yield protection or affirmative action. The latter being the most disrespectful in my opinion.
The UCs do not communicate with one another on who they will accept, WL, or reject and yield protection is not used by the UCs. In particular I have seen upset parents claiming that UC Berkley accepted more low stat students so they could yield protect which is completely false and diminishes the achievements of those accepted.
And of course, affirmative action is not used by the UC systems and has been banned in California for 24 years.
I think across the board, many California, UC applicants failed to correctly identify which schools were their safety schools with many claiming UC Santa Barbara was a safety and being upset when they were rejected. The number of UC applicants greatly increased this year and many students underestimated how competitive admissions across the nation are becoming.
Are any other students who got a likely letter still just nervously awaiting for April 6th. Like I still can’t believe I got one and I just wanna see the application status to make sure it wasn’t a mistake.
One thing that stinks with the likely letters is if you’re actually committing to Cornell, or received more than one likely letter, you can’t just decline one of the schools now and it’s sort of like a wasted spot they’re giving out. I was telling my husband this earlier. I’ve seen some of the same people with multiple likely letters or college decisions but until they’re official they can’t do anything.
You’d also think with likely letters they were essentially done with their process so just over a week and this part of it will finally end.
It is as if anyone never receive results, but indeed accepted. What is the concern here.
I don’t think it helps us even you decline other college today, compared to in April.
Good point but at this point it is probably way too late. Some Ivies have already sent letters out saying they’re done with their whole application process and just waiting until Ivy Day.
I also think some people just want that official admit and honestly can’t blame them.
I just realized our chances are almost nil when I found out Cornell is need aware for international students. I was hanging out for this one though Got interviewed at Cornell and Stanford (both need aware) and no interview whatsoever at Harvard and Princeton (need blind). Heartbreaking reality.
Got interviewed at Cornell and Stanford (both need aware) and no interview whatsoever at Harvard and Princeton (need blind). Heartbreaking reality. 