<p>Reading through the decision, waitlisted and rejection threads really has me puzzling. It makes no sense. Stellar candidates have been rejected and weaker applicants accepted. No clear pattern is evident in terms of ECs, etc. </p>
<p>It is heartbreaking to see so many unbelievable kids left hanging. I find myself struggling to understand how the system could be so...capricious. I am wondering: even with so many applicants, is it possible that they chose to emphasize the personal statements at UCSD this year? That is a theme that seems to emerge as I read thru the threads. </p>
<p>I was always under the impression that UCSD was a powerfully stat-driven
school. Our son has great stats (2300 SAT, 4.1 UC gpa/4.3W, Eagle Scout) and was accepted. But many similar kids (or with slightly lower SAT/higher gpa) were denied. </p>
<p>Our son's essay was superb--better than his 2300 SAT. He worked on it for almost a month and spent over 30 hours editing that single page of narrative (not kidding!). I've rarely encountered a more beautiful, succinct and perfect window into a person's soul. </p>
<p>So, I wonder: did they pay special attention to the essays this year? Perhaps use them to make some crucial cuts? Would never have expected a huge UC to take this approach, but something strange is going on--that's for sure.</p>
<p>I think its because the admission officers expect those kids who have stellar stats to go into a better school, like probably UCLA or higher. </p>
<p>Sent from my PC36100 using CC</p>
<p>^^^Maybe so. Sad if that’s the case at UCs these days. Some of the stellar stat/rejected kids are from San Diego. Those kids ought to be a perfect ‘fit.’ For families, the local UC can be an important financial lifeline. That should trump a school’s concerns about yield.</p>
<p>Yeah I kinda do agree with you because I think it’s kind of unfair that those students with amazing stats got rejected. I mean what if ucsd was their number one choice and worked so hard during their high school years. </p>
<p>Sent from my PC36100 using CC</p>
<p>^^^I’m sure that’s the case for some. </p>
<p>Apologies for the typo in the thread title. Fixed it, but it only corrected at top of this post thread and not on big thread list. That’s what I get for doing all CC stuff from my iPhone!</p>
<p>Considering how large the applicant pool is for a public undergraduate institution like UCSD, I would be really surprised if there was any kind of yield protect strategy going on here. Particularly due to the fact that the UC fee waiver all but guarantees that most Cal/UCLA students will be cross-applying to UCSD as well.</p>
<p>There are some signs that UCSD has been slightly less stuck to the numbers this year (having moved away from the point system to a ‘holistic’ approach), but most of the rejections and waitlists have been weak in one or more areas (low UC GPA, mediocre SAT I / II, limited EC, OOS, etc). There are some surprising ones, but sometimes there are factors that weren’t listed in the posting that had an impact or the self-assessment of EC/PS strength was improper. </p>
<p>Basically, I’d caution future applicants against overreacting too much to apparent outliers in the decision threads. With over forty-five thousand applicants, the process will be mostly numbers based (this includes quantifiable measurements of EC like hours involved).</p>
<p>in switching to the holistic approach, there are definitely kinks that UCSD encounters. Sometimes, the kinks lead to a very strong applicant being rejected or waitlisted. You never truly know what the applicants will be favored ad for what reason. But, I do believe that yield plays a contributing factor. If the applicant is stellar, there is a limited chance that he may attend the school. Why give the spot to an applicant who will go to another school and not give the spot to someone else? At least, that’s the reason I told myself when I was rejected to UCI despite acceptance at every other UC (minus Berkeley since i didn’t bother applying).</p>
<p>I think a part of it is how you phrase your application and your personal statement. I was not a particularly strong applicant in terms of GPA (3.6 weighted) but I had an average SAT (2180) and extremely strong ECs. Knowing that my GPA would limit my chances, I paid specific attention to how I worded everything on my application, making sure to paint my achievements in the best light. I didn’t spend much time on my personal statement but I had it proofread by 6 different individuals. I think that the stellar applicants that you mention trusted their stats to the point where they spent less time on personal statement or wording on the application. </p>
<p>It’s hard to see precisely what separates a person who is admitted/waitlisted/rejected and it’s important not to get to hung up on it. Whatever happens, happens. I wanted desperately to attend UCI and when I received the notification that I was rejected, I was devastated. But, in the end, I’m glad that I chose to attend UCSD.</p>
<p>The point of a personal statement is to override the scores and gpa. Not saying that they are not important, but everyone will have the same scores and same gpa, and the personal statement is what makes a student stand out (obviously). An UC Berkeley admissions representative came to our school and spoke to the seniors earlier in the year, emphasizing that they are no longer considering the SATs to be a huge factor in the application and instead will be concentrating more on the personal statement.</p>
<p>I find it quite nice that the UCs are recognizing the fact that scores and numbers don’t exactly describe an applicant’s ability to work hard and be successful, and I’m glad to know that especially, for example, under privileged students who couldn’t get standardized test prep, resulting in low scores, still have a chance for the UCs from a stellar essay.</p>
<p>My point was primarily that the numbers on a lot of these rejections and waitlists are far from auto-admit stats. Schools dealing with this many applicants will have indexes to create pools of students that are shoo-ins, ice-cube-chance-in-hell, and so on. Only a small portion of the applicant pool will ever get that comprehensive evaluation where the personal statement plays a significant role in rendering a decision. I read through a public disclosure report by Cal admissions a few years ago and their holistic system operates almost exactly this way. </p>
<p>There will always be weirdness in that borderline pool of candidates, so I definitely agree that the personal statement can play a significant role for this band of students within the index. Regardless, I’m with you guys in the the numbers-tell-an-incomplete-story wagon. I’m just not convinced undergraduate admissions departments dealing with tens of thousands of applications are doing any sort of yield protecting on big number candidates due to weak softs. It would be far too hard to separate the ‘unlikely to matriculate’ from possible Regents scholar attendee, and the potential yield boost is minuscule.</p>
<p>I am quite surprised as well. Here is the link to the review process
[Application</a> Review Process - Freshmen](<a href=“http://ucsd.edu/prospective-students/freshmen/eval-process.html]Application”>http://ucsd.edu/prospective-students/freshmen/eval-process.html)</p>
<p>Some factors could be
- lower unweighted GPA
- rigor of classes
- impacted major</p>
<p>And then the subjective factors of personal statement
[University</a> of California - Personal statement](<a href=“http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/how-to-apply/personal-statement/index.html]University”>http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/how-to-apply/personal-statement/index.html)</p>
<p>So if someone is on the fence and/or perhaps geographically closer to another UC area (low yield/over matched) that may have been some factor? I really wonder if the UCs do take other UC acceptances into account. If you do a search on UC acceptances, there are a ton of people who will get rejected UCSD and accepted UCLA or rejected both and accepted UC-Berkeley.
I am starting to think, geographic distances and knowing where else the candidate has been offered, may play a certain factor.</p>