I think it is urban myth, but I have heard from several people, including some professional college counselors, that applying to multiple UCs may affect your chances at an individual UC. For example, if you apply to UCI UCD and UCR, you might get admitted to UCR, but not the others, since they admissions people have given you a UC option, even though it wasn’t the one you wanted. Whereas if you had only applied to UCD, you might have gotten in, since it was your only UC option. Is there any evidence that this practice takes place in admissions decisions?
There is no basis to this myth. Older son applied to 7 UC’s, got into 5. Younger son applied to 4 UC’s, got into 1. Niece applied to 3 UC’s, got into 0. Each UC will use a slightly different criteria for reviewing applications along with different essays readers, different perspectives on what constitutes good EC’s etc… There will always be a subjective parts of the UC application that no one can quantify, so some applicants get into UCLA not UCB, some get into UCB and not UCLA and some get into both. The best thing any applicant can do is apply broadly so there are many options in the end.
If the applicant is ELC eligible, they will have an option of a UC- usually UCM (not of their choice) if they are shutout and if there is room.
No.