Rejected from ALL the UCs I applied to. What gives?

Applying to College
1

<p>I'm so confused and upset. I honestly can't believe that UC Davis, UCLA, and UCSB rejected me. UCLA doesn't surprise me but I expected to get into at least one school. </p>

<p>Here are my stats:</p>

<p>GPA (unweighted): 3.6 (UC 3.5)
GPA (weighted): 4.0 (UC 3.9)</p>

<p>SAT super score: 1940 (Single: 1850)</p>

<p>I am currently taking my first two AP classes (Environmental Science and Literature).</p>

<p>Extracurricular Activities:</p>

<p>Mock Trial - Member for 4 years, served as a witness and and as an attorney. I was VP my junior year and I'm currently president.
Choir - I've been a a member of varsity choir for 4 years. I am also part of an after-school audition-based group called Chamber Choir and a student run group called Women's A Capella. I am currently the treasurer of the choir program. I have received 4 solos.
Newspaper - I have been a writer for the opinion section since last year.
Debate - I was a member my sophomore and junior year.
Junior Statesmen of America - I was a member my freshman and sophomore year.</p>

<p>Honors and Awards:</p>

<p>California Scholarship Federation (9, 10,11,12)
National Honors Society (11, 12)
Tri-M Music Honors Society (10, 11, 12)
Debate awards: Excellence in SPAR, Superiority in Parliamentary Debate (x2), First Place in Spontaneous argumentation. (10, 11)
Mock Trial Honorable Mention Award (12)</p>

<p>Community Service:</p>

<p>I have served as a volunteer at a help hotline service since August of '09. I currently have 170 hours of service.
I volunteer at a local pre-school 4-5 hours a week during the summer.</p>

<p>Work:
I have been working at a children's learning center since August.</p>

<p>Someone please offer me some insight as to why I was rejected. This is devastating.</p>

2

<p>@ashleypants:</p>

<p>Please don’t be discouraged. There are too many qualified applicants (UCLA highest ever at 61,000 for like 5300 spots) for the amount of seats. The only thing I can see from your stats is that you are now starting to take AP classes, as opposed to taking them 10th and esp. 11th grades. UC GPA uses only 10th and 11th year grades, and APs are weighted an extra point. Remember getting a rejection is NOT an indication of your ability to succeed. Your stats are impressive! You can appeal these decisions with new info since you applied last November. </p>

<p>Good luck! :)</p>

3

<p>If you are actually UC-qualified then you are guaranteed a space at a UC campus. It will likely be Merced, may be Riverside. You should talk to your counselor about this. You can also ask your counselor to contact Davis and see if you can get more info on why you were not accepted. I wonder if you had a A-G requirement deficiency?</p>

4

<p>ashley:</p>

<p>In the past couple of years, Davis and SB have gotten a whole lot more competitive. Last year, one parent reported that her D had a 4.0+/2000 and was rejected at Davis. Not too long ago, those stats were auto admit.</p>

<p>As to why you were rejected, part of the reason is that the Regents and Legislature would rather admit rich kids from out of state, over well-qualified State residents.</p>

5

<p>My stats are average for both schools as far as I know. And my EC are far superior than most people I know that got into those schools. I can’t understand this. This is honestly the most discouraging thing that’s ever happened to me. I didn’t think I was only good enough for Riverside and Merced.</p>

<p>I feel like I’m going to die.</p>

6

<p>Your counselor should have reviewed the increased selectivity of the UC campuses with you. Of last year’s freshman applicants to UCLA with a UC GPA in the band between 3.7-3.99, only 9.4% were admitted. Those are terrible odds, even though you sound like a terrific student.
What are your other options?
Remember that unlike private schools, some candidates to UC schools are successful in appealing the admissions decision. Generally, it involves submitting additional information of grades and awards earned after the application was completed. The process varies by campus, but you would want to get going on this immediately if you want to explore that option.</p>

7

<p>It might have to do with your rank in your school. Where do you rank, btw? Also, don’t forget, they did read your essays. Perhaps your essays were not your best work? We obviously can only speculate, but I would no longer be surprised of rejections from any of the UCs. Because of the budget cuts, they may be reducing the size of their enrollment and taking more people from out of state than they used to.</p>

8

<p>Our school doesn’t rank, but it’s an extremely difficult school. If I went to any other school in my area I would probably have a 4.0, and I’m not exaggerating. My essays seemed fine to me, probably not as good as my private school essays because the prompts are so dry. And I didn’t expect to get into UCLA at all. But not getting into BOTH davis and sb is beyond me. I know people who got D’s in regular classes are were admitted to UCSB this year! People with 3.2-3.3 GPAs were admitted. I’m so confused!</p>

9

<p>With the exception of ELC, class rank is not an official UC admissions criteria. (less than half of the California public high schools rank students.)</p>

10

<p>The UC admissions was shocking and disappointing to many students this year. I heard the comment that this year was “crazy” from many people involved in college admissions.
My daughter has better stats than yours and was suprised she got admitted to UCSC, but she was rejected at UC Davis (she knew she only had a 50/50 chance there)…
It is definitely a bummer for all that this is the sad state of admissions this year. I hope you got in someplace else that you liked, and be happy!</p>

11

<p>I believe UC only use one sitting for the SATs, they don’t super score. At UCD, comparing your GPA and SAT to last years admitted students you are a little below the 50% mark with those. If more students applied to UCD this year, and those numbers went up, well, it wouldn’t have helped you much. It’s just crazy.</p>

<p>I hope you have other backups. You are a smart student and will have a successful college career somewhere.</p>

12

<p>First let me say that I’m really sorry, and this really sucks. UC’s got so much more competitive this year and its just crazy.</p>

<p>UC’s base their decisions on mostly GPA, so your SAT score shouldnt have hurt you too much (sorry, 1850 is honestly not a very good score). Your UC GPA is only a 3.9, which is lower than the average GPA for both the schools. Plus you’re taking your first two AP’s this year, so that prolly woulda hurt you a lot (for santa barbara). Your extracurriculars are good, but not exceptional (if they were exceptional I would think you would’ve gotten into davis).</p>

<p>unfortunately your application is a little below average a bit for all the schools you applied to and most of the schools you applied to were high match/reach’s (UCSB actually being the only high match, the other ones being reaches) for you. Im hoping you applied to safeties.</p>

13

<p>Thanks for all the helpful feedback. Luckily I’ve been accepted to Loyola Marymount, Syracuse, and San Diego State, but I’m still really bummed out. I’m going to talk to me councilor tomorrow and see what she has to say. </p>

<p>And chocolatecricket, I still don’t understand how so many people with lower stats got accepted. Is it because I applied as an English major?</p>

14

<p>@ashleypants
Well its possible that they had a special circumstance (family) or really good extracurriculars. I dont think the english major would have been the reason; i think its a mixture of bad luck and you not applying to any UC safeties. </p>

<p>Meh though honestly I see no future in UC’s. 30k a year (probably going to be 40k by the time you graduate) for a school where teachers wont even know your name, you cant get any of the classes you want and which nobody outside of california really knows about? Who knows maybe its a blessing in disguise. California schooling is just going to get worse over the years.</p>

15

<p>ChocolateCricket makes a very good point about the UC system. My daughter’s top 3 accepted schools all offered her enough money to make the cost comparable to a UC, and it appears they will be raising tuition in the UC system again for the fall. My son’s Calif. state university raised tuition twice in the same year once or twice in his past 4 years. States are still a bargain, but he had to really work community college classes in so he could graduate in 4 years. Most privates guarantee you will graduate in 4 years.
My daughter is definitely going private, even if it costs a bit more than a UC after financial packages are taken into consideration.</p>

16

<p>My school seems to be successful with UC in terms of getting admitted…
Out of our whole IB Class of 2011, I know that most of them got accepted to LA, SB, SD, and I…what’s weird is that I know for SURE that many of them don’t even have above 4.0 gpa/2000 sat. It confuses me when I see people with much better stats on this site getting rejected.</p>

<p>Admissions are just too crazy this year. Who agrees?</p>

17

<p>^One explanation: ELC</p>

18

<p>i wouldnt be so quick to pidgeon hole all of the UC’s as on the decline because of California budget issues. UCLA and UCB will both be fine due to pretty high alumni donations and outside funding.</p>

19

<p>Uc’s were nuts this year, I got flat out rejected from Berkeley with uw gpa of 3.88, 35 Act, and 9 difficult AP classes. Never saw it coming :(</p>

20

<p>Check out the 2010 detailed admission pdf’s for your schools.</p>

<p>[University</a> of California - Freshman admission profile](<a href=“http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/campuses/davis/freshman-profile/index.html]University”>http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/campuses/davis/freshman-profile/index.html)</p>

<p>Looks way crazier this year, and Riverside (which waitlisted my son with a better SAT) is no longer a “referral” school. </p>

<p>I don’t understand what an “unweighted UCGPA” is. I think there is only one way to calculate a UCGPA. A 3.9 is pretty good for UCSB, but for UCD last year, only a 50 percent admit rate.</p>

<p>I don’t think there a likely way to get in the ones you chose without A’s in AP’s or Honors by 11th grade.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/campuses/files/santabarbara.pdf[/url]”>http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/campuses/files/santabarbara.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/campuses/files/davis.pdf[/url]”>http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/campuses/files/davis.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;