Did UCSD pick acceptances randomly this year or what?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - San Diego
1

<p>Could someone please tell me what you think my point total is? Because from my calculations, it seems to be above the minimum. Also whats the phone number if you want to go over your app with someone on the phone?</p>

<p>*GPA- UW- 3.52, Weighted: 3.83
Pretty tough schedule. Max honors classes freshman, sophomore year, junior senior a little easier
*SAT-2190 (Math-770, Writing-720, CR-700)
*SAT 2's - Math2-800, Biology (taken freshman year) - 760
*AP scores: Bio-5, Statistics-5, Psychology-5</p>

<p>EC's
*Cross country (10, 11,)- lettered 11th grade, went to NCS.
*Track (9, 10, 11, 12) - lettered 11th, went to MOC's, and NCS. Won most improved in 10th
*Center for kids with special needs (6th grade,7,8,9,10,11,12) - won volunteer of the year award, have 300+ hours from this place.
*Piano since sixth grade.
*creativity competition 10,11,12). Team captain 10th, qualified for worlds (2nd at states), not competing but historian of club 12th.
*Senior buddy, helping freshmen adjust to highschool (summer after 10th)
*Internships at childrens website company(summer after 10th)
*Volunteer at local hospital (10th summer, 11, 12)
*Interned at a hospital. (summer after 12th). Learned how to take blood, blood pressure, basic eye checkups, properly dilate an eye, pulse, weight, watched eye surgeries, do basic diagnosis of easy eye problems (cataracts, terigiums, etc.)</p>

<p>In total I have about 550 service hours, and 300 hours work experience (I counted that internship which I did for nonprof as work experience)</p>

<p>Classes outside of school:
*Class with atdp summer after 9th
*AP biology with atdp (berkeley) summer after 10th
*Chemistry at community college 12th</p>

<p>Essays:
*Everyone who read them thought they were good. I did recycle an essay I was using for my first choice, but it was a good essay and applicable to the prompt. </p>

<p>Other
* State: CA
* School Type: Public (super competitive)
* Ethnicity: Asian
* Gender: F
* Hooks :none</p>

<p>Whyyyy did i get rejected. I've honestly been crying after getting rejected from berkeley, LA and SD too. What did I do wrong? Why dont they want me? :(</p>

2

<p>I know how you feel! well You have better stats than me but not by much and SD was my match/ dream school and got rejected too :frowning: But I know a friend that had better stats than you did, our school is super competitive too and he got rejected from la, berk, and sd and he was looking at sd as a backup school. I think all thet UC’s were pretty random in their decisions this year but especially ucsd. I know like 3 or 4 people in my school who got accepted to la and/or berk and got rejected/waitlisted at sd. sigh rejections suck so much!</p>

3

<p>I feel like they went the low income route. I got waitlisted for ucsd and i had similar stats as you did except for i have no work experience but i have a lot of leadership. There were kids at my school who got in with 1300 sat and 3.4 uc gpa. With little to no ECs i think they felt sorry for a lot of people and gave acceptances to mainly minority, low income, first generation kids who can create a sob story in their essays… (im sorry for being rude im just dissapointed that i didnt get in)…i also think u mifht not have gotten in because they look at GPA more than anything.</p>

4

<p>UC San Diego switched to holistic review this year. What seems to have happened is that a high GPA can no longer make up for mediocre test scores, and vice versa. I do not have ELC, but I got into UCSD, whereas two people at my school who do have ELC were not accepted. I believe it’s because my test scores were higher.</p>

<p>As for the ridiculous outliers others speak of, I have not experienced any at my school. Everyone who was accepted to UCLA was accepted to UCSD, and I was the only one rejected to UCLA and accepted to UCSD this year. No one with under a 4.0 UC GPA or 2000 SAT/30 ACT was accepted to either UCLA or UCSD. Just my personal experience, which I believe proves that decisions were not random; there must have just been some extenuating circumstances at your high schools (or mine was coincidentally fair.)</p>

5

<p>^but how does that explain my situation? I have high test scores, and high everything but GPA.</p>

6

<p>I don’t know; I’m not an admissions officer. My best guess is that your GPA was viewed as too low. I know someone with amazing ECs, around a 4.18 UC GPA and ELC, but only okay test scores who was rejected.</p>

<p>If you really want to know, call them on Monday and ask. I believe they’ve been telling people where they were lacking. You can always appeal if you think it was outrageously unfair; other than that, we can’t tell you much else.</p>

7

<p>Does anyone know the number? I called and was bounced around about 10 times, then got cut off. Then i had to do it all over again. Spent about 2 hours on the phone…</p>

8

<p>You expected admissions people to be fielding calls on a Saturday night?</p>

9

<p>Honestly, UC’s heavily emphasize GPA and yours is below their average. Also, you took what the school might have considered “easy” AP’s and you didn’t have any special hardships. On top of all this, UCSD had a record number of applicants this year, so it was especially hard to get admitted.</p>

<p>I understand that it feels like the end of the world right now, but as long as you’re motivated, hard working, and push yourself to pursue good opportunities you will be successful. College “prestige” will only get you so far. As long as you develop your skills and learn how to present yourself you can be successful. Furthermore, I’m assuming you got into Davis, Santa Barbara and/or Irvine (which are all very good, respected schools full of intelligent people and lots of opportunities), so definitely go check them out if you haven’t already. Also, if you’re planning to go to grad school, if you perform better than your competition you can go to a really well-known institution. If you want to be pre-med, TONS of people at LA, Berkeley and SD want to be doctors so the competition’s pretty tough. You might be able to reach the same goal with less effort at other schools.</p>

<p>Also, the UC’s don’t partake in affirmative action (hence there are few URMs here), so don’t be angry about that.</p>

10

<p>^ no i took decent AP’s. Bio, chem, stat, psych, english, lit. self studying euro and lang this year but that obv wasnt on there.</p>

11

<p>Admissions is so random. Your stats are really good and applicable to LA, SD, and Berkeley. A great amount of people at my school got into berkeley and la…and sd, a lot with SATS < 2000, they didnt even take challenging APs…just worked for a 3.8+ and a lot of ECs. It truly is bewildering</p>

12

<p>is there someone i can go over this with on the phone? Anyone have the number to talk to a live person?</p>

13

<p>If you feel so strongly, you should appeal…may be to all three UCs. There is nothing to lose on your part other than your time and energy. The most they can say is no but you never know…it might just get you somewhere. Please do report back.</p>

14

<p>^definitely try appealing, may I ask what major you applied to?</p>

15

<p>I applied the bio major.
However, if it was because of my GPA, chances are it wont help anyways. Plus I got into another college that I really like, so i think i would rather go there. I’m just really really depressed that im not even good enough for these three UC’s</p>

16

<p>Accepted: UCLA, UCSD (Regents?), UCD (ELC), UCB (Spring) among other privates</p>

<p>SAT: 1830 (from best sitting)
UW: 3.77 or 3.8
W: 4.5
Hispanic Female</p>

<p>Think about your essays. Essays are what really get you in at these places now (especially UCB) since applicants with perfect or near perfect stats are all starting to look the same in a huge applicant pool of 50,000+. Also, they do judge you within your school’s context.
My school may not offer as many AP’s as a private but I took all the ones available to me and I ranked top 1% in a class of 780 students.
I also have a lot of volunteer hours which I heard UCLA really likes…</p>

17

<p>Maybe they think you focused to much on your ECs than your grades? You should do two years in a California Community College and get a over a 3.5 and you will be guaranteed into UCSD in two short years (plus it will save you a ton of money)</p>

18

<p>I think your volunteer hours are fishy.
850/3=283 hours a year (9,10 and 11 grade)
If you are in any sport, there is no time to volunteer.
So you could volunteer only durring summer and Sundays, minus holidays.
In 9 and 10 grade you cant volunteer more than 4 hours a day.
Example:
If you work all summer (2 months) = 60 days (everyday)
60 x 4 = 240
so 43 hours needs to be done during school year.</p>

<p>When I count my volunteer hours, I didn’t count preparation.
I was v-ce president of one of club.
I spend 2 hours every week for that club, but my mentor said that I can’t count that.
I count only special events (real number of hours - like all day volunteering during marathons or walks)</p>

19

<p>-Ok so you had a lot of extracurriculars but none of them seem that special( which is probably important for holistic review).
Your gpa is actually pretty low…and there is no “hardship to explain it”. I would say that you SAT is better than average so this tells me that you are probably smart.
Therefore the fact that the reviewer thinks you are smart and yet your grades are pretty low make you come off as “lazy”. I’m not saying that you are, probably you are extremely hardworking( based off of your extracurriculars) but the combination of low grades/high sat makes it seem like you are.

  • Also I don’t see very many awards/ achievements
    Therefore your application makes you a decent applicant but you want to be an excellent applicant to be sure of acceptance.</p>
20

<p>It is hard to figure out what is going on with UC admission this year, I mean UCB, UCLA and UCSD. A lot of students with high stats got reject… for some reason? For those who got admitted to the school they want… congratulation. For those who got rejected, I know it is very hard to accept it but it is not the end of the world yet. Find the school that best fit your ability, school that you can enjoy while studying there. </p>

<p>Most of the time, you have to wait for two or three quarters to see your ability in college environment; after taking several classes and final exams. The grade will show your ability. For those students who are surprisingly got admitted to UCB, UCLA, UCSD must watch out. College is not high school any more. Professor does not care which high school you came from, how much extra activities you did, your family income… all the factors ( non-academic) that admission office considered for admission</p>