@Lseraphim2 to answer your question, my D was also denied by UCB (she didn’t apply to any other UCs other than Berkeley and SB).
Also, getting into the SoE is much more difficult than general admission.
I’m pretty sure it was her low Math SAT score that killed her admission. She took the SAT twice, scored 690 on math the first time and 750 the second time, but because of the way UC does SAT scores, they would have only used the 690.
http://www.admission.ucla.edu/faq/FR_Not_Adm.htm
I just read through this to see why I was denied, and looking back at my app, I noticed that I didn’t list courses as Honors that were actually Honors. I only listed the courses that were UC designated Honors (only my AP’s) as Honors. Does this make any difference? The classes that I marked as (NH) usually had Honors in the course title. Maybe it seemed to the admissions officers that my entire courseload was regular when I took the hardest course load possible. Anyone have insight into this?
If this is the case, I will appeal. Also, I would need to somehow inform Berkeley before they make their announcements.
@Lseraphim2: You self reported correctly since the UC’s only recognize UC approved Honors courses as Honors regardless of your HS’s designation for these classes.
@Gumbymom I meant that I only marked my AP classes as AP and I didn’t mark my UC-designated Honors courses as Honors. If that is the case, then how are they supposed to calculate my fully uncapped, weighted GPA correctly? They would have assumed my Honors classes were not Honors and of course I would get denied from every single UC.
Another question. Does UC just want you to mark all Honors and AP classes as Honors/AP or do they just want you to mark the 8 semesters of Honors and AP that are going to be used to calculate the UC GPA? I only marked the 8 classes that were going to be used in the capped UC GPA (10-11 grades) calculation as Honors/AP.
I am so sorry about your decisions, but do not take it personally. The problem is your major, CS is highly competitive and they don’t have enough spots for all the qualified candidates. Engineering is the same way. A few years ago I had a student with great grades and scores. He got turned down by every UC for mechanical engineering. Found out at UCSB, there were 1000 applicants for the 48 ME spots. CS is a tough major to get into at the UC’s.
Dear lord, I am so sorry! Surely there are other schools other than UC Davis and UCLA that will likely accept you, right?
The UC’s want you to mark all UC approved Honors/AP classes as Honors/AP on the application. If you did not do this, then you may have grounds for an appeal. Your best option is to submit a official transcript of all your classes and grades so far, so they can see which courses are Honors/AP.
I think I didn’t fill out my course list properly. How often do people get in through an appeal?
I do not have any numbers for the appeals accepted last year, but here are Stats for 2014 UC Davis:
608 appeals
7 admits
Not great chances but it is worth a try.
Don’t stress. A friend of mine applied to 5 schools, and got accepted by 4 of the 5. She has similar stats as you and got accepted into Virginia Tech’s Engineering program, but got denied by University of Georgia. No reason given. Makes no sense what so ever. You’ll get in to a good school, so no worries.
Did you apply to any other UCs besides Davis, LA, and Berkeley? Just another data point… my daughter last year (2015 season) was waitlisted at Davis with a 35 ACT (around 3.9 UW or 4.03 UC weighted gpa), rejected at Berkeley, didn’t apply to LA, but accepted at San Diego. We were surprised at the time as it seemed like San Diego had been considered more or less the 3rd-best UC, but it seemed like there were quite a large number of kids who got into one of Davis, San Diego, and Cal Poly and rejected/ waitlisted from the other 2. (btw she was applying for bio, not CS, but another overly popular major).
@washugrad I only applied to Davis, UCLA and Berkeley. I got into Cal Poly by the way.
I have seen so many people who were rejected by cal poly slo wishing they had been admitted. I’ve toured that school and was very impressed. I know lots of people who went there and they are highly sought after engineers after graduation. Have you seen the school? Remember, you only need one good school to admit you since you can only attend one school.
Wise words.
Also, the admissions criteria for the UC’s is sufficiently different enough from Chicago/MIT that it shouldn’t be surprising when someone gets in to one but not the other.
Which also tells you that it’s silly to base your self-worth on stuff like admissions results as who you are and what you do or will do may be significantly different from admissions criteria.
I’ve known amazingly successful people from SJSU, for instance.
This is the type of **** that scares me
@Lseraphim2 , this is the “curse” of holistic admissions for high stat applicants. Both of my kids (one had a 2340 SAT and was salutatorian; the other had a 2230 SAT/4.7 W GPA) got rejected from some schools where it seemed they should have been accepted. We never knew why, but it doesn’t matter now. They both ended up at great schools, and you will, too!
The UC schools place far more weight on GPA and far less on test scores than most people want to admit. If you look at the average UC-GPA for UCB or UCLA, it’s near 4.4. That means at least half of your classes for sophomore and junior year need to be AP or UC approved honors classes. That’s a tall order and usually means summer school before freshman year at our local HS so kids can get advanced to the higher level classes by year two. It’s a lot less holistic than appears at least according to our Naviance scattergrams.
Cal Poly is a fantastic school and a great bargain for in-state residents. It doesn’t have the hype and name recognition internationally/ nationally like Berkeley and UCLA, but you will get an excellent education there. If you poke around more at CC or amongst your high school friends, I’m sure you will find kids who got into Davis and not Cal Poly (and kids who thought Cal Poly was a sure thing who got rejected). I know it hurts to get rejected anywhere but you have at least one great option.
@gluttonforstress I have a hard time believing that the average UC GPA for freshman applicants at UCLA and Berkeley are 4.4. A lot of the admits are OOS, so only AP/HL IB courses count for the weighted grade, and a lot applicants from OOS that have UW GPAs in the 3.7-3.8 range got in and only a 2-3 APs got in. Even a lot of instate admits usually take only 3-4 APs in grades 10 thru 11, and assuming a rough estimate of 6 a-g classes per grade, 4.4 GPA is impossible to obtain, even with straight A’s. (I’m assuming no UC-certified honors courses were taken by those students in 10th and 11th grades, which is likely because it is very rare for Honors courses to receive the UC honors designation, at least at my CA high school. There’s definitely something fishy about the admissions data. Also, I looked at the admissions data for Berkeley, and it says that a majority of admits have 15+ honors courses, which means 7 AP classes. Admitted that post decisions on CC don’t have nearly that many AP scores.
In any case, most folks would have Cal Poly SLO at or above UC Davis for CS, and you can only attend one school.
Beyond HS, zero people will care how many admits you got or didn’t get.