<p>How do they decide who gets the spots? If there are 16,000 applicants accepted..</p>
<p>Do they do it by the first students to submit their SIR's?</p>
<p>Before they sent out acceptances, they calculated how many students they expect to attend. They figure that out of the 16,000 accepted, many of them will choose other schools, leaving around 4,000 students who choose to attend.</p>
<p>There are years and years of application/admission rate data that they can use to predict how many students out of the accepted pool will actually enroll. While 16000 people are accepted, it’s highly likely that only 4000 will attend. It’s all predetermined. So no, there’s no need for first-come-first-serve :)</p>
<p>I see thanks for the replies.</p>
<p>What would happen if, theoretically, almost all sent in their SIR and went to UCSD? Or any school for that matter. Admissions would be like crappppp. haha</p>
<p>This risk is borne by essentially every college in the country, with the possible exception of Harvard which is the only school that has an almost perfect yield. Every other one, from the most prestigious downwards, needs to ‘overbook’ with acceptances in order to have enough registered students in the Fall.</p>
<p>The more interesting possibility is over enrollment – say 5200 accept. That will play havoc with housing, course capacity etc. A few years ago, an urban university had 10% over enrollment. They had to buy a high rise hotel and convert it into dorms in a hurry.</p>
<p>Wanted to add – this year there is a greater degree of uncertainty because of the economic crises both in private schools and public schools. No one is sure of the yields this year. Will be fun to watch it play out.</p>