<p>So I've heard back from all my colleges now and to be honest I'm fairly disappointed in myself. I hoped I'd get in to most if not all of the UCs and maybe an out of state school or two if I got lucky, but my results have been relatively lackluster. I'm aware that many of the schools I applied to are excellent and extremely tough to get in to, but please bear with me for a moment.</p>
<p>My stats:</p>
<p>GPA (unweighted): ~3.8
GPA (weighted): ~4.2
SAT Reasoning: 2240
SAT Subject Tests: 790 Bio M, 790 USH, 760 Math II
ACT Composite: 35
AP Exams: 4 Euro, 4 USH, 5 Stats, 5 Bio, 5 Calc AB, taking Psych and BC this year</p>
<p>ECs:
Varsity Parliamentary Debate
Boy Scout for ~8 years (Life rank)
Dance for ~11 years
Piano for ~7 years (Nationally Distinguished member of music guild)
Guitar for ~5 years
Job at Kumon for the past year
~150 volunteer hours serving food at temple
~50 volunteer hours at local senior center
~80 volunteer hours as a summer camp counselor
Attended National Youth Leadership Training</p>
<p>I had fairly decent essays and recommendations as far as I'm aware.</p>
<p>My results for the most part:
UCD: WL (waitlisted)
UCI: WL
UCSB: Got in
UCSD: Got in, will likely attend
UCLA: Rejected
UCB: Rejected
UOP: Got in
USC: Rejected
Tulane: WL
CMU: WL
WUSTL: WL
Cornell: Rejected
Columbia: Rejected
Harvey Mudd: Rejected
Yale: Rejected
Stanford: Rejected</p>
<p>Again, I know most of these are very good schools and I feel bad saying this but honestly I feel like I should've gotten in to some of these schools, like UCD, UCI, Tulane, and maybe been competitive at UCLA and UCB. Regardless, what's done is done and I'm sure I'll be happy wherever I choose to go. However, I'd really like to know what I did wrong so hopefully my sibling can learn from it. If anyone could provide input, that would be excellent! Thanks in advance, CC members.</p>
<p>BTW I'm posting this from a friends account.</p>
<p>I mean its not too surprising. Bio majors are competitive even for davis and irvine. Ur ecs and stats were good/avg for top 20s and cal and ucla. So its not too surprising that u got rejected.
But ucsd is great for bio…maybe even better than ucla or cornell
Sent from my LS670 using CC</p>
<p>You did NOTHING wrong.
Your stat is very impressive.
It is really surprising that UCI and UCD did not take you - did you egg their schools or what?
Cal and UCLA are dicey (~90,000, ~100,000 applicants respectively this year).</p>
<p>To tell you the truth, now I am worry about my younger D chances at UC next year.</p>
<p>Other info:
UCSD is a very rigorous school in a beautiful setting.
My boss went to UCSD and got his PhD at Stanford (years ago - we are old farts).
Two of my wife’s colleagues’ kids went to UCSD a few years ago.
One was in neuroscience and he is now doing graduate degree at Johns Hopkins (ah, beautiful/tranquil Baltimore).
The other did BioChem at UCSD, he is now getting a law degree at George Washington (yes, we need another lawyer in this country).</p>
<p>Seems like you have excellent stats and interesting ECs. UCSD Without seeing your whole application, it’s impossible to say what happened. However, UCSD is a great school, and hard to get into. I don’t think you should beat yourself up with the results. </p>
<p>FWIW, my D got into UCD and was waitlisted at UCSB. Go figure.</p>
<p>I can’t comment on the state schools but for the privates you had two categories:
lottery schools (5), super selectives(3). What are the admit rates at those non-Ivy schools? 28, 27, 18 %. Those are not good odds! You got waitlisted at those three so perhaps if you applied to 10 schools in that range you could get a few, but…
While your stats are good enough to get into any of them, so are the majority of other applicants.
So the only mistake you made (and those advising you) was NOT applying to schools that are one notch down in selectivity. Something where your odds are higher…</p>
<p>Yep, getting into a dream school would’ve certainly been sweet. But there are a lot worse fates than having to go to university in La Jolla. Congrats, go forward and don’t look back.</p>
<p>You are clearly bright and have the potential to suceed anywhere. Unfortunately on the national level so do lots of other kids, more than the very selective schools can accept. So while academically you look great, your ECs are not that strong compared to what many other kids have done. </p>
<p>And there are also the essays and recs. UCs don’t take recs but other schools do. Did you ask your teachers if they would write strong letters, or did you just assume those that agreed to write letters for you would write strongly positive ones? Did you have a counselor or someone else review your essays?</p>