<p>OT…but I wonder if the the UCs are at all need-aware for OOS students. </p>
<p>I don’t think so. I’ve seen plenty of posts here and elsewhere where students are accepted to UCB EECS, have need and get very little to zero aid and wonder if it is ‘worth it’ to borrow 200K. UCLA admissions are not predictable, they are quirky, or some may say very holistic.</p>
<p>And yes you can check the box for as many UC as you like but you have to pay a fee for each one.</p>
<p>I don’t think so. I’ve seen plenty of posts here and elsewhere where students are accepted to UCB EECS, have need and get very little to zero aid and wonder if it is ‘worth it’ to borrow 200K. UCLA admissions are not predictable. But all the high stats instate students I know get in both schools.</p>
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<p>Nope. And the UC’s even offer need-based aid to OOS’ers, but only up to a point: UC will not provide aid to cover the OOS portion of the tuition/fees.</p>
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<p>In theory a fee is required, but waivers are available for the first 4 schools. Plug in the reported Pell grants claimed at the UC, and it is easy to guesstimate how often this happens, and how many quad applications exist. Or you could always play with the unuplicated applications.</p>
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<p>And so are you if you believe that the Naviance information of Choate represents anything more than a small and mostly irrelevant pixel on the screen of the UC system. After all, what is the ROI for a Choatie on settling for a public university on the left coast? </p>
<p>There is a world of difference between how OOS students from a small elite boarding school with historical ties to other elite schools and your typical California students are perceived. To clarify this point, think yield and revealed preferences. In simple terms, there is little interest to admit students who have obvious better options than a MASSIVELY overpriced public school system. What is that called again? Oh yeah, that Tufts deal! </p>
<p>Just because a school is classified as safety does not indicate that it is mediocre. Moreover, UCLA is one of the best universities in the world. Also, other universities that are public like UMich are still public, yet so prestigious none even cares to know if they are public.</p>
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<p>A student should have in his/her application list either a 100% sure thing safety school, or at least three or so almost-safety schools (95-99% chance), to minimize the risk of a shutout. Note that this applies to affordability – if you don’t know that you can afford it, it is not a safety for you.</p>
<p>Having only one almost-safety and no sure thing safeties does risk a shutout, since sometimes students incorrectly estimate the chance of admission, or are misled by schools which have different admission buckets like the UT Austin auto-admit versus non-auto-admit example or different divisions/majors with different selectivity.</p>
<p>UCLA and USC are not safeties or almost-safeties for anyone, although they can be low-matches (70-80% chance) for some.</p>
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Chance of admission can be far higher than 70-80% for some. 2014 stats are still listed as “preliminary”, so I’ll use 2013 instead. In 2013, the 11.5% of UCLA applicants who had the highest UW GPA had an admit rate of more than 70%, with no consideration to course rigor, test scores, or any other factor. If you look at applicants who have a top GPA combined high course rigor and top test scores, than the admit rate is far higher than 70% for just GPA… high enough that I think it would be in your almost-safety range. In another thread, you linked to the decisions for CA public HS located near UCLA with scores of UCLA applicants at <a href=“http://www.pvphs.com/pdf/CollegeAcceptance.pdf”>http://www.pvphs.com/pdf/CollegeAcceptance.pdf</a> . Note that the scattergram for UCLA shows no rejections among the many top stat applicants. Earlier in the thread I mentioned a 100% admit rate among recent Parchment applicants with top GPA + SAT + course rigor. Scattergrams do not consider course rigor. Nevertheless ones that have a large sample size across many high schools also suggest an admit rate of near 100% for this group. I realize the sources are not ideal, but they suggest that the admit rate increases quite a bit beyond the published rate for GPA alone when top GPA is combined with excelling in other areas, which is consistent with admit rates for stat groups at other colleges.</p>
<p>Chance of admission can be very high at USC for some groups of applicants as well. USC’s CDS is quite different from ivies and other holistic-focused, selective colleges that we often discuss. The only criteria that is marked as “important” in USC’s CDS relates to grades and test scores – GPA, test scores, and secondary school record. USC’s decisions reflect this focus on grades and scores, with students who excel in the criteria marked as important having an extremely high chance of admission. USC sponsorship of NMSs and very large NMS totals also suggests emphasizing stats and a high admit rate for certain groups. While the chance of admission for top stat applicants to USC is quite high, several sources suggest it is a bit lower than at UCLA, which likely relates to certain majors at USC being more selective than others or having different admission criteria, such as USC’s School of Cinematic Arts admits. I would not assume a SCA applicant with excellent stats has a high chance of admission.</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>And the silly semantics continue. For starters, you did misunderstood my point of having “a” highly likely school to mean only ONE such school. And only applying to ONE school. </p>
<p>You also are missing how such schools become sure bet safeties in states such as Texas. One can have various acceptances from what you call the various buckets at UT well before Thanksgiving. It is not because the applications are due later and that certains programs are not reserved to auto-admits that the admissions are delayed to April. They work ALSO on a rolling basis system. Add a few schools in Arizona, and the “safety” part of an application process is … done. And with 3 to 6 schools in the proverbial bag.</p>
<p>Still want to talk about a possible shutout in April? This is ENTIRELY different from gambling without highly likely schools. </p>
<p>Lastly, this entire debate on semantics is plain silly. There ARE students applying to the UC system or USC that have chances vastly superior to what you call high matches. They would have to have a horrible set of circumstances to be rejected. Obviously, they also happen to be extremely poor candidates to convert an admission offer into an enrollment. But that is a completely different debate. </p>
<p>In the end, there are NO vast differences between Cal or UCLA and other state flagships in Michigan or Wisconsin, safe and except the huge number of applicants who toss their hats in the ring without much hope but with the help of UC wide application. And THAT is why there are 80 to 100,000 applicants in California and why that admit rate is what it is! </p>
<p>Students who are competitive at our most selective schools nationwide are indeed likely or … highly likely to get the nod in their own state. </p>
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<p>“A” can mean a range that includes one.</p>
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<p>No, I am not missing that. I know that Texas publics can be 100% sure thing safeties (as opposed to merely “highly likely”) for automatic-admit students who can afford them. But many other schools do not have stated automatic-admit criteria, so a student who considers those schools “highly likely” should have more than one if s/he does not have a 100% sure thing school in his/her list.</p>
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<p>And why does that matter after I told you --with incorrect grammar-- that YOUR interpretation is not the correct one. I wrote the post and it did not mean … one. Why bring it up again? </p>
<p>For the rest, you keep on arguing semantics and relying on your interpretation of a safety ought to be a … 100 percent guarantee. I thought I was clear that I think that a safety is NOT necessarily a 100 percent case, and that the term highly likely is a better term for the bottom layer or starting point of an application plan. </p>
<p>“Safe” needn’t mean “guaranteed”, as long as one is willing to accept a little risk.
Some super-qualified students would take a gap year and apply all over again rather than attend a 100% guaranteed alternative. For them, 90% or even 70% may be safe enough. </p>
<p>A useful statistic for this discussion would be the number of Californians wait-listed by HYPSM who also are rejected by the more selective UCs. </p>
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<p>Absolutely true, but there are still some unhooked students with a boring life story in that high UW GPA who are rejected. Not many, but some. And for those, the college is far from a safety, particularly since those instaters are being replaced by the OOS’ers.</p>
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<p>With this, I would disagree. Our instate HS counselors encourage the Cal/UCLA wannabes to add Michigan as an safer admit. Not bcos its a ‘lesser’ academic school, but because the lower population growth in Michigan and the rust belt in general means that UM must go ■■■■■■■■ more for OOS students. (Michigan also costs a whole lot more for OOS which should impact its yield.)</p>
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<p>If an OOS student gets little/no aid to a UC, then he has a highish EFC. The fact that they want to borrow 200k means that their families dont want to pay anything, not even their EFC.</p>
<p>An OOS student with a 0 EFC would get a lot of aid to a UC, but still have to pay $23k…but that still means getting over $25k in aid. </p>
<p>I’m just wondering if the UCs are need aware at all for OOS students. Not saying that UCs dont accept any 0 EFC OOS kids…the schools may decide to accept some high stats ones or have other desirable qualities. Need aware can mean that the school may evaluate the quality of the student along with need and then decide whether to accept.</p>
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<p>Sorry, xiggi, you are the one who is misinformed. Both UCLA and USC are popular choices among BS kids, many of whom want a change of climate or who aren’t from New England or who aren’t Ivy-focused or who understand what a great education both of these schools provide. Both universities are on our son’s list and he would be happy with either one. Many Choaties HAVE chosen these schools over the years that Choate has posted Naviance data. I’m simply pointing out that even among qualified student in these pools, there are rejections. My small and irrelevant data point is just agreeing with all the other posters upthread who correctly claim that neither school should be viewed as a safety.</p>
<p>Misinformed about … what? </p>
<p>That the anecdotal evidence is not really relevant for the reasons I pointed out! How many students from Choate enrolled at Cal and UCLA last year? Was it more than one at each school? Or was your list posted in December 2013 misleading? </p>
<p>Obviously, you know all there is to know about Choate and the details of its students, but that does NIT mean that this can be extrapolated to dismiss the opinions of others in regard to California. Nor does it allow you to call other misinformed when they state that Cal or UCLA are their safety school. </p>
<p>There are great students at Choate. And there are many schools in the US that produce students with a similar or even better pedigree. </p>
<p>For a bit of perspective, how many students do you think are accepted at Stanford, Caltech, and by an Ivy League had acceptances at Cal, USC, or UCLA? And considered the latter to be part of the routine work of the application? And their safety! </p>
<p>Lost my last paragraph on perspective. Here we go:</p>
<p>Take the example of just one school in California. </p>
<p>With a graduating class of about 170-180 students, the school had a total of close to 480 admissions at USC, Cal, and UCLA for the past three years. That is a whopping 160 per year. Even if every acceptance was part of a multiple admission at all three, you still have a full 1/3 of the class being admitted at those schools. </p>
<p>Of course, it is Harker, but the point remains the same. </p>
<p><a href=“College Acceptances | Upper School | The Harker School”>College Acceptances | Upper School | The Harker School;
<p>I have no fight here. Just a simple opinion that UCLA and USC are great schools and certainly not safeties for OOS applicants. I don’t believe I made any comment about California applicants.</p>
<p>Perhaps I missed it, but I didn’t see in the original post that the OP was from California, so I wasn’t responding from that perspective.</p>
<p>mom2:</p>
<p>I think the UCs are more of an admit/deny system. If you have the grades, we’ll admit you from OOS, but if you can’t pay for it, too bad. OTOH, if you have some wealthy relatives, or 'rents have money stashed away from fafsa – and many do – y’all are welcome to come.</p>
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<p>I would – and have frequently on cc – strongly counsel against paying OOS rates to attend UC. There are much better values out there, IMO.</p>