Our son received the rejection letter upon logging into his ucla portal last evening.
UW: 3.89
W: 4.73 (ranked #3)
SAT: 2060
11 AP courses
2 summer college courses
Passed 5 AP tests with 4 or 5 (6 to go)
EC: Student Body Teasurer, varsity football, part of school philanthropy that spent a week in skid row helping homeless, National Honor Society, National Merit Scholarship semifinalist, young doctors club prez, scholars club
He (and we) we’re genuinely shocked. Especially after his buddy (3.5 W GPA and only 2 AP classes) was accepted.
He also applied to UC Berkeley. Can anyone offer some hopeful guidance? Likely urban legend, but I hear that applicants will be accepted to only ucla or ucb.
Tough pill to swallow since he did everything right and gave up a social life for high school in order to excel academically.
So sorry for the bad news. That legend is certainly not true. And a student I worked with last year was accepted to both. You simply can’t count on a UCLA acceptance. Even 10 years ago I was told admissions was quirky. To compare to another student makes no sense as someone else’s admission makes no relation to yours.Many students are not accepted and it is not a matter of qualifications, there simply isn’t room. You will never know why one student gets in and not another. The problem is being shocked by it, it should not have been expected. I guess the hindsight is to manage expectations. This year seems particularly brutal across the UC’s so far, you can take heart in that.
Thanks - that’s helpful and calming. It’s counterintuitive that all UCs wouldn’t report the same day - torturous.
You’re absolutely right about managing expectations. It’s a real regret for us and I just feel stupid for not doing so. All of his summer Stanford academic program peers applied there and we got caught up in the inertia of ucla acceptance as a given. Wish I had a time machine.
Still have UCB, USC, and Duke over the next few weeks. Please have positive thoughts for him. And, we are now managing expectations as you suggested - thanks 
We read that appeals only apply to new information not included in the application. The only thing that’s new is his membership in National Honor Society.
His SAT score is a little low for UCLA and Cal, and in the super-competitive world of college admissions at top-tier schools, that’s all it takes. Did he apply to any other UC’s?
Is there a downside to appealing , nothing to lose
The SAT score must have given you pause for thought, no? So you have no safety schools at all?
At risk of sounding entitled (we aren’t)…
Not sure if it’s relevant for an appeal, but the night before his SAT, he shattered his collarbone in a varsity high school game. He still took the SAT the next morning but was either doped up or in lots of pain. He improved in two areas but declined in the section taken when his meds wore off.
When he could have taken the make up, he had surgery and took several weeks to recover.
Does anyone have any insight of this would be relevant in an appeal?
He does have safety schools.
Not really. They deliberately let schools that tend to be less preferred by kids that get into multiple campuses announce first. The idea being the kid will be so excited that they got in, start to think of themselves actually attending that school, that when they hear from other campuses later they don’t completely discount the first school. Does it really work? Dunno, but its the bargain the UCs have agreed to.
If your son only applied to these 2 UCs, and you are a CA resident, then he will automatically be offered admission to Merced. See http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-uc-guarantee-20141225-story.html
Sorry that this is happening to your son! Hopefully things will be looking up soon. Thankfully, he has safety schools but of course it is disappointing to receive those rejections. As for appealing the SAT, you might have a case but I’m not sure. It may not change the decision since a very minute amount of appeals are won; you might want to ask the GC.
Wow that is a terrible SAT situation, he must be a beast to have taken the test under those conditions. I might have rescheduled right away but that is still a very good score.
Just sit tight and see how it works out. And do remember that he seems like he is set up for success wherever he attends.
So sorry your son is having this happen! While his stats are great, there are hundreds of other apps to these schools with similar stats. If his HS counselor had done a good job, he should have been aware of the competitive nature of the UC’s the past few years. It is hard sometimes to understand when someone with lower stats gains acceptance but you just never know what admissions are looking for- that person might have an unusual background or unique EC. If you look at the admissions threads for the top UC’s you will see your son is in good company- lots of high stats being rejected. He still has a chance at some great schools and UCB is still possible. I’m glad he has some safeties and hope he is interested in some of them. Good luck and keep us posted!
Remember that admission selectivity does vary by division or major. For example, at Berkeley, the College of Engineering is generally more selective than the College of Letters and Science, and different majors in the College of Engineering can have different admission selectivity.
Here is the summary of Berkeley decision that were posted on these forums last year:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/17249805/#Comment_17249805
- Some have suggested an appeal. While neither I nor anyone else can tell you your son’s chances with an appeal, I do know that he is 100% out if he doesn’t appeal. As SaphireNY suggested, what do you have to lose? If UCLA is your son’s #1 choice, it is worth a shot. I would not normally suggest an appeal but his numbers are strong enough that I would think it would not be immediately discarded. Lay out the numbers, his interest in the school, any extenuating circumstances and highlight his accomplishments during his senior year (new information). Can’t hurt.
- Your S’s story highlights that applicants should always “fish in different ponds” and not count on acceptance from any particular school (or any one tier of schools). Parents and applicants don’t have direct access to the admission process and so we are unfortunately left to read tea leaves as to why a kid was accepted/denied/waitlisted.
- As ucbalumnus stated, admission decisions often vary widely depending on the program/major. Too many parents just want to compare kid X to kid Y without taking into account the kid’s major. If S applied to a particularly popular major, that may have led to the unexpected result.
Hope the posters can point you in the right direction and good luck with the future decisions.
@Ljtjrose What qualifies as an extenuating circumstance? And do I need new achievement to appeal? I mean if I can write an appeal letter demonstrating my interest and passion, would it be even be considered or would it just be tossed away?
I want to be clear…I’m not an expert on UCLA appeals or anything like that. Most schools actually discourage appeals, but, in my opinion, that is largely because the admissions staffs don’t want to be inundated with appeals, which is perfectly understandable. In the OP’s case, I thought it might be worthwhile because UCLA appeared to be their son’s dream school AND he happened to have both SAT and GPA numbers that would put him in the top 1/2 of the class. My assumption is that there was something in the rest of the application that turned someone off (an issue with an essay or recommendation) but that’s complete speculation on my part. Anyway, my point is that if the numbers are there and the interest is substantial, then it can’t hurt to appeal (nothing ventured, nothing gained).
To answer your question, there is no magic definition of extenuating circumstances. Really, its more just a reasonable explanation as to something that may be considered a negative on an application. The problem is that a student usually does not know why he/she was not admitted and so the student may end up going into an issue that has nothing to do with his or her denial. Anyway, if you do decide to bring up a negative issue (whether in the application itself or in an appeal), the focus has to be on the issue or problem being in the past and that things are trending upward for the student. An admissions person doesn’t want to hear whining and they don’t want to hear bitching about another person or teacher. Its a fine line. Finally, if you do decide to get into extenuating circumstances in a letter, you have to treat it like another admissions essay. It has to be proof-read and pitch-perfect in both style and substance. Good luck.