I can’t imagine that’s correct. The UCs stress on their websites that the essays will NEVER be the reason you’re rejected (plagiarism aside), and the only thing an essay can possibly do is help, meaning maybe you’re borderline and your essay pushes you into the admit pile.
Relying on essays alone, 4.0s and people with exceptional leadership or ECs could be tossed aside because some random reader or two didn’t like an essay. And where does holistic fit in this? IMHO whoever told you that doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
The reason why a lot of people got rejected from UCSB mostly because they didn’t TAG. My brother was mad at me because I didn’t tag it. He got into ucsb with 3.65 GPA because he TAG-ed. I’m till so shocked about it because my counselor told me that when I tag I have to go to that school, that’s why I didn’t do it.
I think I did pretty good on my essays I sent it to many master and PHD guys from UC and they all said it was really good. They barely changed it
@Ohm888 I can’t say for certain but they were apart of admissions for UCSB. We do hear a lot of contradicting information though and a lot of the information that’s publicly available from the schools itself may be contradictory to their internal practices (Harvard). We will never truly know what goes on behind closed doors. Personally, I don’t know so I’ll leave it at that. You probably know more about this entire situation judging by how much you frequent this site.
@RyanLam Don’t beat yourself up too much. While it is true that you could’ve TAG’d to other UC’s for CS, you cannot TAG to UCSB for CS. There was a different reason you were rejected. I’m surprised they did not say specifically when you asked as I know others who got a direct answer. It’s all the past now though. You can try to appeal it if you feel you have a case, but don’t be too hung over it if not. You still have a chance with the other schools you’ve applied to!
Thanks so much dude!
Ucsb is not my first choice school (USC, ucsd, ucla) so im not gonna appeal because I never thought I will go to ucsb. I just shocked because my first decision I got rejected then I started losing hope u know…
@RyanLam I feel you man. It certainly can be really daunting considering you were almost certain you’d get in. Don’t fret though, you already did your part. All you can do now is wait and I’m certain you’ll be happy with the results to come! Best of luck!
Wow, I’m sure it was just because you applied for a difficult major. I got into UCSB a weekish ago for Financial Mathematics and Statistics. It isn’t my first choice either but it makes it a lot easier to wait on the others knowing you got at least one good school already in the bag. I got in with a 3.91 GPA so honestly, it must be a toss-up.
When schools say “the essay isn’t going to hurt” what they mean is, it’s not a necessary condition for admittance. Trying to explain to a CS audience… SQL is probably below lofty Computer Scientists but this might clarify it for you.
FROM ApplicantPool
WHERE ROW_NUMBER<=[#spaces available]
ORDER BY GPA, SAT, ACT DESC
My SQL is rusty so feel free to improve on this, but the point is that you’re going to get more rows than spaces available, right? Because a lot of GPA, SAT, and ACT scores will be the same.
ORDER BY MoneyAvailable, PityFactor, EssayScore DESC
So then you take the bottom five of those and go through with essays. That’s what they mean by “it won’t hurt you”. They mean it can hurt you… but focus on GPA because that hurts you first.
@kristinpete Congrats! I never said they don’t take them into consideration. I’m saying they don’t read them first and dump applications because they don’t like them.
@Ohm888 Thanks. It just seems to me that the schools take them into greater consideration than people on here are letting on.
I could understand receiving a poor set of essay questions from a high GPA student and feeling unsure about the applicant. I’ve worked with high GPA students in some of my classes who really weren’t as impressive as their GPA let on. GPA only says so much. Not to say that the OP is not impressive! If he were any other major, I’m sure he would have been accepted into UCSB. I do think, however, he should consider the strength of his essays in this case where thousands of CS applicants have virtually identical transcripts.
Essays indicate maturity, dedication, perseverance, and diversity…all important to the UCs. And some of those essays, even from high GPA students, lack all of those qualities. Many high GPA applicants are unable to properly piece together a paragraph…
@kristinpete I think, as most say, it is largely dependent on borderline, whether at the low-end or needing to diiferentiate top applicants. Four UCs don’t even read the essays as part of the transfer application process, according to the transfer matrix: Davis, Riverside, UCSB and UCSC.
I’ve heard of a few people up here who wrote only the first required essay, thinking the others weren’t needed and got in.
@kristinpete i think it really depends on the major. That is why you cannot TAG computer science for UCSB though. Many of my friends got into UCSB with around 3.3ish GPA and they told me their essays are trash.
@RyanLam Yes, I did say just previously, CS is difficult to get into and you would likely have made it in with a different major. However, I was saying in that comment that the essays are how they differentiate you from the many other CS applicants with nearly identical GPA. They are not going by GPA alone.