I have been accepted to all the UC’s I applied to (Berkeley’s hasn’t come out yet). I was awarded a $10,000/yr. scholarship from UCLA for being ranked in the top 5% of all admits. I didn’t receive honors invite from Davis or UCI. I read that the top 5% are awarded Regent’s at Davis. I doesn’t make sense. The only reason I can think of is that UCLA looks at the fully weighted/uncapped GPA vs. the others just using UC GPA. I took so many a-g classes that it actually lowered my GPA. My 4.93 uncapped was only a 4.25 UC GPA. Any thoughts?
I wanted to mention that I do have excellent EC’S, high test scores as well as leadership. I know that the UC GPA is always lower that uncapped, but since I took 7 a-g classes per semester since sophomore year, instead of the normal 5 or 6, it made my UC GPA much lower.
^ Adcoms will took at the rigior of your coursework as well. However, you are right in that when a UC cappes the weighted, then your extra APs will not be accounted in your GPA, which indirectly could lower your chances!
I have taken very rigorous coursework, 14 AP classes. I’ve maxed out on the math offered at my school and have taken a course at UCI.
Its kinda obvious Davis practices yield protection to get good enrollment numbers. They wouldnt think you would enroll at Davis with those stats.
Umm…except he was accepted @IBGuy101. I don’t see how the “yield protection” excuse applies here. Different schools read apps in different ways. A perceived deficiency in any one area is enough to lower your score from a 1 to a 2. I think the theory that UCLA is using uncapped GPA is far more likely.
@IBGuy101 , see the thread currently going about “Tufts syndrome”. In particular, pay attention to the posts pointing out that most people with “high” stats who don’t get in apply for very competitive majors where those stats are average, not high.
And like @MelloG said, it’s irrelevant in this case because OP was accepted. And I would chalk this up to different schools looking at different things, with the uncapped GPA explanation being most likely. The 4.25 UC GPA is pretty average if OP applied to a competitive major, while a 4.93 uncapped (which Davis doesn’t look at, but UCLA does) is very much above average.
That’s another point, OP: Did you apply to the same major at both schools? If you applied to a more competitive major at UCD and a less competitive one at UCLA, that could also explain some of it. I’m not sure how UCLA regards major for admissions, but UCD goes by major in the sense that admissions are decided by the respective college, and some colleges admit by department.
Ok, my bad. Davis is still weird though in terms of admissions compared to other UC’s.
If you weren’t planning on going to Davis, does it matter? You said you applied and were accepted to all of the UCs.
@PhantomVirgo: I applied for Biology at all the schools.
@aunt bea: I was considering Davis also, but since only UCLA will meet my financial need with no loans (due to this scholarship) it makes my choice very clear.
Im in the same situation, 10,000 scholarship and basically full ride from UCLA but only financial aid grants from Davis. Davis was my first choice, and I really want to go there, but I was very much hoping for regents or some other means to make it completely affordable.