I brought this upon myself.

I just got waitlisted by U Chicago, U Penn, UCSD, UCLA, UC Davis, U Mich, and a whole lot of other schools, plus I got outright rejected by Harvey Mudd. It’s kind of embarrassing, because both my parents graduated from the top engineering school in China, and my brother got into UC Berkeley on a scholarship into the EECS program, so I’m kinda the one bad egg. In case anyone’s wondering, I have a 3.82 unweighted and a 4.3-ish weighted, 5’s on Calc AB and BC, Lang, CS, Chem, Chinese, and a 4 on APUSH, 35 on ACT. I’m an eagle scout and did FRC for three years, but I guess I kinda half-assed all of the above and it showed in my essays. What surprises me and kind of worries me is that I don’t really feel anything about the rejections, partially because it’s pretty much my fault. Henley was right: I am the captain of my soul, it just turns out that I’m mostly content to let the currents to the heavy lifting for me. I have no idea what to do next. Unlike before, I’ve mostly just felt apathetic these past few month.

How were you already waitlisted by Penn? They haven’t released regular decisions yet.

All of those places have rejected umpteen other students with your stats too. This is what happens when admissions are selective. Some students just get horribly unlucky in the process.

Did you apply to any safeties that offered automatic admission for your stats?
Did you apply to any pretty darn safe places that have accepted every applicant from your high school with your stats in the past few years?

@GnocchiB - He probably applied ED.

@DanielWhite444 - Did you get into any safety or match schools? Any chance you can take a gap year and do something to tie in with your interests and make you a more compelling candidate? (Besides spending more time and giving greater care to your essays and how you present yourself).

Also, your apathy and the lack of care you put into your applications makes you sound as though you might be a tad depressed. Do you have someone you can talk to?

There are many kids who try and fail to live up to their older siblings’ achievements. This is not a healthy thing to build your life around. You need to set your own goals.

What do you do next? Well, hopefully you applied wisely and you should have a very good group of colleges from which to choose from. Go to the college you get into that is the best financial, academic, social etc. fit and take it from there. You did well in HS despite your saying you “half-assed it” so imagine what you can achieve if you give your all to your college experience.

You may have a chance to be admitted from the UC waitlist. Are you an ELC? If yes, you may be admitted to UC Riverside or Merced.

Did you also apply to any safeties? If not, then there appear to be three possibilities: Hope you get in off the waitlist somewhere, quickly send off an application to a safety that is still accepting applications, or take a gap year.

There is nothing wrong with taking a gap year, particularly if you can think of something useful to do during your gap year. Sometimes working for a year can be a strong motivator for a smart but under-motivated student.

What does that have to do with the price of eggs?

1/ do you have safeties? Or would you rather take a Gap year than attend your safeties?
2/ in May, there’ll be a list of colleges that miscalculated yield. If your common app is ready to go, all you have to do is immediately email the rep whose name appears on the list to check on any restrictions and express interest, then send your app - there are always really good colleges on the list and those places are snapped up.
3/ yes it’s crushing to your ego. Right now you must feel terrible. Try to read andison’s story on this website.

I can guess the topic of your essay. PM me if you prefer. But that is what affected your chances of admission.

Everyone above has given great advice, but you yourself nailed it, you see where you could have applied more in your essays. A painful life lesson, but you are young and smart as heck to have at least gotten waitlisted to those UC schools.
So you FIGHT back.It may mean a detour from the path you had hoped to be on this fall, choose an alternative local school to kick butt at and transfer/ or who knows? You might be accepted from a waitlist. This is one bump in the road to what is called adulthood.

Use this experience to get to the next level in school, and whatever lies ahead in the rest of your young life.Nothing worthwhile should ever be done half a$$ed.
As a parent of a girl who this week had a waitlist ( Davis) and 2 rejections ( UCLA & UCSD) I send you hugs and well wishes for your next step.

@DadTwoGirls, in CA, another option is going the CC route to a UC.

Lots of UC’s with guaranteed transfer agreements.

To the OP: Remember that it isn’t where you begin that counts but where you end up.
As we don’t live in a repressive totalitarian country or in a war-torn chaotic society or are desperately poor simply worrying about getting enough food to survive, we all can be masters of our destiny by controlling what we can control to reach a goal and it’s up to you to decide whether you want to take that opportunity or not.

Do NOT go to a CC in California with a 35 ACT !

@Publisher, I personally believe it’s about where you end up.

A co-worker of mine was a math major at Cal who started at a CA CC. Don’t know what her ACT was, but to be able to hack Cal as a math major, later on get a fin math masters from USC, and even teach math at Stanford for a few years, she can’t be too dumb.

I agree with @LoveTheBard. You do sound a bit depressed. Maybe take a gap year if you don’t get in and regroup yourself. Nothing wrong with taking some time for yourself and taking a deep breath. You only have to be you. Not your sibling or parent. When you find your own passion, things will fall into place.

@PurpleTitan - There’s nothing wrong with doing CC and transferring if that is all that is available or all that the family can afford.

This is a different situation. OP is clearly capable of achieving at very high level and clearly would have been an excellent candidate for top schools. Regrettably, for one reason or another (depression?, self-sabotage?, apathy?) chose not to present himself in the best light and didn’t get the results that one might have anticipated given his accomplishments.

In addition to the CC option (which I don’t think is a particularly good one – he is likely to be bored, frustrated, and disengaged there), his choices are: 1) Hope he gets in off a waitlist. @DanielWhite444 – have you sent any LOCIs? Perhaps you can write a convincing statement to mitigate your lackluster application. Can either you or your GC talk to any of the Adcoms to get some feedback on your application?; 2) Hope he gets into a safety/match school (assuming he has one); 3) Wait until May and see where there may be spots at any schools (I know Beloit was among the schools accepting applications in May); 4) Take a gap year, do something meaningful and reapply as an older and wiser applicant that has overcome whatever held him back this application season.

I do think that OP needs to think about what is making his so apathetic and has caused him underachieve to the extent he did. Hopefully, he can manage to do whatever he need to do get himself to a level of interest and achievement that is commensurate with his abilities.

A 35 act is worth A LOT of scholarship money whixh would be lost if he goes to cc. There’s a lot that can be done beside CC, even if CC’s in California are good (that’s not the problem) to figure out where op can go. If no choice is good enough then cc-> if is a possible pathway but I think the May NACAC list and gapbyears with a better list (while op tries to figure out why the apathy/self sabotage) would be better.

@DanielWhite444: You were only rejected by one school. Contact the schools which waitlisted you & let them know that you have not been accepted elsewhere & that you would like to be admitted from the waitlist.

@MYOS1634 : Please consider the advice offered by the above poster.

Consider taking a gap year if you need to.

Post on CC with your stats & desired major in order to get a list of schools.

@DanielWhite444 - Another thing to keep in mind regarding CCs. As @MYOS1634 correctly points out, in addition to forfeiting the potential for some merit awards based on your ACT scores and GPA, if your intention is to attend a UC, you will not be able to transfer there until your junior year. You can enter the UCs as either a freshman or as a Junior; you cannot just take one or two CC classes and later apply to a UC as a freshman or sophomore.

Also, I would be happy to look at your application and give you some feedback, help strengthen your essays, and generally figure out what went wrong. Just pm me.