Looking for some real insight as my son is still waiting to hear from several schools he applied too.
As a normal High School Senior, he applied to several schools 14 in total four were dream schools (reach schools) the remaining where average or what is called safe schools.
He has heard back from two schools so far UCSD and UCD and was rejected by both. UCSD was considered a 36% chance of acceptance and UCD was at a 63% chance of acceptance. He is disappointed and not sure why he was rejected.
He is an Honor Student, top 10% of his senior class of 950 students, 4.1 GPA, 100 hours’ community service, ACT 28, SAT 1300, two sport all conference and academic teams. Yet an individual we know was accepted into UCSD with significantly lower GPA, limited community service, etc… Not comparing the two just trying to figure out the reasoning.
We are still waiting to hear from the other 12 schools.
Sorry for the disappointment, it certainly stings. What major did he apply to? Besides UCLA and UCB obviously, UCSD and UCD are the most competitive remaining UCs to get into. Science major perhaps? And the way UCs calculate gpa throws a wrench in some kids application - all those A’s in freshman year mean zippo and anything other than an A in soph or junior year cause a bigger hit. He has to know it is just the shear volume of applications and some majors are just harder to get into than others. No doubt he will land where he is supposed to. But yes, rejection can really make kids wonder why they worked so hard, so you have to offset that feeling with one of “everything happens for a reason” and he will go somewhere great in the end. Hang in there - many schools to hear from still!
His major was Biology, he also applied to UCI, UCLA and UCB which we have not heard from yet. Also applied at University of Washington, Penn, John Hopkins, Tulane, Baylor, Occidental, Hofstra, University of Boston
OP, congrats the UCI acceptance. Also the acceptance rate for UCDavis is 38% not the number you gave. If you are out of state that could play a role in your son’s rejection at those two UC’s. Choice of Major plays a major part because science and engineering majors are impacted at the UC’s. Three years ago I have a student from a very competitive high school (Bellamire) who had a gpa over 4.0 and SAT over 2000 who did not get accepted to a single UC as an egineering major. There simply isn’t enough space to admit every qualified student especially as a biology major. Compared to other biology majors I bet your son’s SAT is on the lower side for the admitted students profile. Plus with the Cal Grant Program as a financial aid resource for in-state students, you see the number of applicants increase every year to the UC’s while the number of admitted students does not increase other than what the legislature agreed to last year with Napalitano (sp?).
Just to prepare yourself, I predict your son is also going to get bad news form UCB, UCLA, Penn, and Hopkins (and perhaps Tulane). Hopefully your son applied early to Baylor since they let a lot of students know of their admissions results last fall and you really need to apply early for merit. He should be getting good news from Hofstra (and again applying early to Hofstra is the best way to go).
Good luck. I know rejections are tough, but you really can’t compare your son to the other accepted student you mentioned. The UC’s “scoring” of applications has lots of variables which factor into their admissino decisions.
If you use prepscholor you can enter your ACT, SAT and GPA and based on historical information it will give you a perceived chance of admission. It is a estimate only.