My brother got rejected from every school he applied to even with a 4.0 GPA?

My brother has a 4.0 GPA, with the 60 unit requirement. He completed all general education, and all supplementary classes for each of the schools he applied to (UCLA, UC Berkeley, UCSD, UC Irvine) for the Psychology major.

He was rejected from all 4 schools. He called the admissions office of each school to try to file appeals, but so far the appeals have been rejected. I happen to know people who got into UCSD AND UCI without their general ed completed, and with somewhat average GPAs. Why they would reject a student with a 4.0 and all courses they want completed makes no sense to me.

I am going to be applying in the fall, and now I am very worried because I have a worse GPA than him (and for engineering). If he cant get accepted with a perfect GPA how can I?

They didn’t like his essay? Also, psychology is a popular major on many campuses, so its admissions standards may be higher on campuses where it is at capacity.

In his case, he should have applied more widely, since he obviously did not have any safeties (granted, transfer admission data is harder to find, so determining safeties reliably is more difficult).

In your case, you may want to apply more widely than he did.

Yeah I told him to apply to more schools but he thought that with a 4.0 he would get into one of the four. I guess he was wrong.

Ill definitely try to apply to like 10 schools at least. My transcript is not that great and my gpa is only around 3.40, but hopefully applying to 10 schools will be enough to get into at least one.

Did he TAG for Irvine? If he met the units and GPA requirements he should have been admitted.

What race is he?

^^UCs don’t consider race by law. They may consider socioeconomic factors.

He should have applied to more, it seems he should find a place but the fact is there are just more students than seats. Riverside is supposed to be good for Psych. However it is more difficult to get a place in engineering, I think. At least it is for freshman.

There is a transfer forum. But I’m baffle why he was rejected at all.

I just checked the UC Irvine TAG criteria and the minimum GPA is 3.4, so your brother met that. Essay would not be required. So, I don’t understand how he didn’t get into Irvine.

http://www.admissions.uci.edu/applicants/tag.html

I just helped a family friend with his transfer applications from community college. He did UC Davis TAG but also applied to Berkeley, UCLA and UCSD. He also had a 4.0, excellent EC’s and wrote good essays for the non-TAG schools. He was accepted at UCLA and UCSD. Choose UCSD, where he was offered a Regent’s scholarship.

The fact he didn’t get into any suggests there’s more to this story - He either doesn’t really have a 4.0 or didn’t take the required courses.

Tell him to apply to more schools.

This essentially happened to me last year as well. I was rejected to practically every school I applied to. UCLA, UCB, and I even thought CSULB might be a more realistic school for me, but they rejected me as well. I was offered a Regents scholarship to UCLA (not for UCSD), so I did indeed have a 4.0 since it seems like UCLA only ever offers those to students with a perfect GPA. I did get a spring grade request from USC as I was still completing my necessary math, but I would up with a B, my GPA dropped to 3.93, and I was rejected.

I applied to the same schools again this year and I’ve had better luck despite having a worse GPA and overall not taking on as many “challenging” classes as I did last year. I got into UCLA and still have my fingers crossed for USC.

Anyway, it would certainly seem like everyone that has a perfect GPA gets accepted, but it doesn’t always happen that way.

It wasn’t the non-TAG schools I was disputing. But if he met the class requirements and had a 4.0 GPA, as the poster stated, then he could TAG Irvine. Usually, a student is missing one or more required classes, even if they have the GPA and enough total units. If he is missing a required course, no UC will accept him.

Something else is up.

Did his personal statement make sense? Did he at least have some ECs?

Also, http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/uc-transfers/

I suspect he has not given you the complete story. I would imagine psych is pretty impacted but even so Irvine and San Diego should be easy acceptances for him.

As others have suggested, I’m guessing you don’t have the complete story. Few people get into every school to which they apply, but with a 4.0 and the well established articulation path from a CCC to a UC, it seems like he should have gotten into at least 1, if these facts are correct. Perhaps he doesn’t actually have a 4.0 or is actually missing some prerequisite course.