Getting into UCLA is hard. Getting into these UCLA schools is harder

[Dave_Berry]

"UCLA is already a competitive university, with a first-year acceptance rate of 14% in 2018 – the same as Cornell’s that year.

For students applying to programs outside the College of Letters and Science, however, the bar can be even higher. Here’s a look at three of UCLA’s most selective schools: the School of Nursing, Samueli School of Engineering and the School of Theater, Film and Television.

Nursing

The nursing program has an acceptance rate of 2% for incoming freshmen. Although around 3,000 people applied for a spot this year, the university only admitted 51 freshmen and 11 transfers.

Nursing is probably more rigorous because at the end of the program, nursing students will take the National Council Licensure Examination and become registered to work as nurses immediately, said Valerie Espinosa, a third-year nursing student and president of the Nursing Students at UCLA." …

https://dailybruin.com/2019/09/19/getting-into-ucla-is-hard-getting-into-these-ucla-schools-is-harder/

[firmament2x]

Thank you Mr. Berry for topic-starting…

I had a few issues with the article mainly because of the implication that a lower acceptance rate implies a greater difficulty of gaining admittance – with respect to stats, especially – and a greater rigor. I don’t think rate tells the whole story as I hope to show if not flat-out prove. (Sorry, I’m multi-tasking again, so it might be disjointed.)

Nursing

[Bold #1]The nursing program has an acceptance rate of 2% for incoming freshmen. Although around 3,000 people applied for a spot this year, the university only admitted 51 freshmen and 11 transfers.

[Bold #2]Nursing is probably more rigorous because at the end of the program, nursing students will take the National Council Licensure Examination and become registered to work as nurses immediately, said Valerie Espinosa, a third-year nursing student and president of the Nursing Students at UCLA.

…

Getting into the program can be difficult. Most accepted students have demonstrated in their applications they have experience working in hospitals, although a few haven’t, Espinosa said.

…

After applying to UCLA, potential nursing students are sent a separate, supplementary application, which Espinosa said she discovered after hitting “submit” on the general application.

That application takes another week, Espinosa said, and asks questions specific to the nursing program.

Re, Bold #1, the nursing program is undoubtedly mostly a non-stat related, holistically based admissions with the essay holding the most weight as the article infers, but I would doubt that the admits into the program have stats comparable to the student body as a whole; i.e., the 3.89/3.93/4.45/1,410 as average-uwgpa/median-uwgpa/median-fully-wgpa/unsuperscored-median-SAT that the incoming freshmen had. I’m sure the program is looking for a passion for the profession as well as bed-side manner, which undoubtedly would not show up in stats.

Re, Bold #2, I wouldn’t consider the nursing program to be more rigorous than engineering, the life sciences, math, or other physical-science majors. There are certainly the chem 14 series, physiology, anatomy, and MIMG courses nursing students take in lower division, but it looks like the upper-division courses are mainly just clinical protocol courses that are probably easily graded. (I only saw one course on Bruinwalk that was relevant to now and it doled out all A’s and B’s.) And the competitive factor would be just a tiny fraction of what the the life-sciences majors experience who are seeking med, pharm, and dental school admittances.

Engineering

The Samueli School of Engineering is notoriously difficult to get into, with acceptance rates for some majors in the school dipping below 10%. But when she applied, Sydney Chang, a third-year materials science student, said she wasn’t overly stressed.

If she didn’t get in, she’d go to a community college first, she said.

“Community college isn’t a bad place to go,” she said. “(But the process) I think it was relatively easy. Just fill out the application, submit it and hope for the best.”

[Bold #1]The most difficult engineering program to get into in 2018 was computer engineering, with an acceptance rate of 6%.

Aerospace engineering [had] the next lowest [rate], at 7.6%. Computer science had an 8.2% acceptance rate, and students applying to the engineering school undeclared were accepted at a rate of 9.5%.

Because the programs are so selective, the lucky few who get in almost always have high test scores, high GPAs and participate in lots of extracurriculars, Chang said. Some have already pursued internships and even research, she added.

[Bold #2] Although most majors are difficult to get into, a few are easier, including materials engineering, which saw 33.1% of its 357 total applicants accepted in 2018.

[Bold #3]Of the nearly 4,000 students who ultimately enrolled in UCLA’s engineering school in 2018, 1,052 were female and 404 were minorities.

The largest disproportion came in electrical engineering, whose 2018 incoming class was only 15% female. Bioengineering had the most even distribution, with an incoming class that was 48% women.

The application process is the same as it is for the College of Letters and Science, though the college is generally less selective.

Re, Bold #1, this is because the Computer E program is a nascent major and was established (more likely re-established) in 2017-18. So there’s Computer Science (software), Computer Science and Engineering (both hardware and software), and Computer Engineering (hardware).

Re, Bold #2:

Materials would seemingly be the easiest E major to which to gain entry, and the MatEs would probably have the lowest stats as frosh, though still incredibly high as a general standard. But the rate of acceptance doesn’t tell the whole story with respect to stats, per the following.

The admissions data for Electrical and Chemical Engineering were as follows for 2018-19 for the freshman class:

……………………………. Apps……Acc…….Rate……SIR….Enroll
Chemical Engineering…1,115….…272……24.4%…70…… 67
Electrical Engineering…1,517…… 318….…21.0%…147…… 140

To show that acceptance rate can be misleading with respect to stats, here are acceptance rates and the 25th /75th percentile grades (I believe “the middle 50%” is a misnomer) as enrollee transfers to UCLA for the E majors:

E Major……………Acc Rate…………25th…………75th………Notes
Aerospace E…………14%…3.89……….4.00………
Bioengineering…11%…3.90……….4.00………
Chemical E……………20%…3.87……….3.96………
Civil E………………18%…3.85 ……….3.92………
Computer Science…8%…3.90……….4.00………
Computer E……………14%…3.70……….3.97………
CS & E…………………21%…3.87………4.00………
Electrical E……………19%…3.80………3.93………
Materials E………………9%…3.73………3.88………Est, Masked grades < 10 enrolled
Mechanical E……………8%…3.80………3.95

The MatEs here do have the lowest stats but they also had the second-lowest acceptance rate.

There is some diminution of stats for ChemE and EE majors, I’m sure because of the attrition to Berkeley’s programs. But otherwise their ~ 20% acceptance rate is not a hindrance to high stats.

This doesn’t prove conclusively that a higher acceptance rate does not imply lower stats, but this appears to be the case, with respect to UCLA’s engineering school, because of the self-selection factor. A person with a 3.5 gpa typically is going to self-eliminate him- or herself from applying to the E school.

Re, Bold #3: There were a total of 3,924 undergraduate engineering students, with 924 first-years and 224 transfers, or 1,148 new students. Her wording sounded like she might have meant nearly 4,000 new students.

The Hollywood Reporter ranks UCLA’s Theater, Film and Television School in the top-five film schools in the U.S. That might be why it has an acceptance rate of 4%.

TFT houses Theatre and Television/Film, and I believe that the admittance rate for film majors is even lower, maybe ~ 2% as it only accepts around 15 into the program each year. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong about the rate of acceptance.