Tell me how I got waitlisted at UCSB and UCSD : gpa-94 (I did bad freshmen year and sophomore year and had 90s but in junior year, with 3 APs, I got a 99 average), tons of clubs, 2 leadership positions including student government, tons of extra classes taken at museums, community colleges, and art clubs. AP scholar award and a bunch of other art awards. 1380 SAT. I’m in shock because my stats are relatively higher than that of the school! Also I worked with everyone on my college essays and spent months on them.
Rejected from: CWRU and Brandeis (everyone from my school w the same or lower stats got in), Usc, NYU (I even LIVE IN THE CITY), UCLA, BU, Northeastern, unc chapel hill, Colgate, uva, and Emory
UCSB and UCSD were my safeties and I would’ve loved to go to their beautiful campuses on the west coast but WHY DID THEY WAITLIST ME?! I don’t get it.
It’s brutal out there. I’m sorry you are demoralized, there are still schools accepting apps, or you can take a gap year. I know for sure that in a year from now you will look back on this post from a much better place. In the meantime, any thoughtful advice for people who are juniors or younger would be useful. Your experience epitomizes the current state of college acceptances and everyone is going to have to reboot and adjust their lists. Just wondering, is there any reason you didn’t apply to SUNY schools and also do you go to private school or public? How was your guidance counselor?
Are you looking for additional places to apply to now for the fall?
What do you want to study? What is your budget? There are some good schools with April 1 application deadlines or no deadlines?
Arizona
Arizona State
Clemson
Iowa
Iowa State
Truman State University (public honors college in Missouri)
University of Pittsburgh
St Andrews (Scotland)
Edinburgh (Scotland)
For rolling public schools, call and ask if they are still accepting applications for your major.
Beloit and Lawrence have often underestimated yield. Call and see if they are still taking applications.
On May 1 NACAC will publish a list of all the colleges that have seats to fill. Many of these colleges are top-notch, but for whatever reason, haven’t met their yield. Or take a gap year.
I’m sorry you feel so bad. You have asked how this happened. You didn’t apply to a single true match or safety school. Your entire list is comprised of schools with acceptance rates in the range of 30% and below. I am amazed that your guidance counselor at school didn’t ask you to add some realistic choices. The UCs were never going to happen with your SAT score because you are OOS. They look at unweighted GPA, then they look at course rigor. I believe the UCs don’t count freshman year grades, but three AP classes isn’t probably going to be regarded as super rigorous when they will have applicants with higher unweighted GPAs and higher test scores.
There are some very good suggestions in post #5, above. If it makes you feel a little less alone, it might help to know that your story isn’t that unusual. It’s just a shame that you weren’t aware that building a balanced list is very important. You are a very good student and will probabaly get into a good school somewhere. Consider some of,the LACs, which will be delighted to have a student like you. Good luck.
UCSB and UCSD out of state as your safeties? That was completely unrealistic.
A 1380 SAT is below the 25th percentile for the private colleges you applied to. If you thought that was a high SAT for those schools you were mistaken. They also use holistic admissions. Not at all surprised at your rejections there.
You’re obviously a bright student, and I’m sorry college admissions has not been going your way. It is tough out there. CA and NC public universities accept a relatively low % of OOS students. Acceptance rates are low. I think UNC OOS acceptance are usually in the 33-35 ACT range. USC only accepted about 16% of students this year. Emory, Colgate, and some of the other privates have very low RD acceptance %s.
The real positive news in your post is that you’ve turned things around academically and are working hard and doing well. That is great, and I hope that this experience does not have a negative impact. It stinks right now, no doubt, but I know lots of people who’ve have similar, and worse experiences and gone forward positively and successfully. I know one very successful person who got kicked out of their boarding school senior year and, as a result, denied admission to all their colleges. They said it’s the best thing that ever happened to them, and they now head a large company and have a great family.
So regroup and move forward.
There are great recommendations for schools with late admissions deadline above.
You could take a gap year, learn about yourself, and reapply as a freshman applicant next year. If you want to go west, maybe apply to work in a national park, like Yosemite, next year. You might even be able to get in-state tuition (not sure about that). Xanterra and Delaware North are concessionaires who staff jobs in many of the parks. They often provide housing and subsidized food. Big parks have big communities with lots of young people.
Also, if you do want to go to CA, there are lots of other schools with great students, profs, staff, and beautiful weather. Santa Clara, Chapman, SJSU, Cal Poly (pretty hard too), Occidental, etc. These are excellent schools!
Seems as though you were a solid candidate for Brandeis. If you reapply next admissions cycle, consider having different folks write your recs where permitted.
Were you seeking substantial financial aid ?
If at a NYC private school, have you discussed this with your college advisor ?
You can take a gap year and if you’re wealthy enough, use something like IvyCoach to get into awesome schools. If you do decide to take a gap year, don’t sit on your *** doing nothing - do something meaningful that will be a great life experience.
i am in a similar position as you. my stats weren’t as good as yours, but i got rejected from similar schools (northeastern, boston university, waitlisted at emerson college). i also did not create a balanced college application list, but i only had safeties and reaches. i could not afford my safeties. i was upset/angry/let down, like you. i decided i could either freak and wait for the problem to fix itself or do something about it. so i posted here like you. i have since applied to 5-6 more colleges and i honestly feel a lot better about my prospects.
some people have given you amazing suggestions. if you can afford it, take a gap year. work, volunteer, travel (if you have enough money there are fancy gap year study programs.), do research in your field or work on personal creative projects. but this gap year has to be meaningful to you and you have to be able to convey the meaning of the gap year to your colleges. if you do this and you apply in the fall, there is no point reapplying to the schools that rejected you unless something absolutely insane happens to you between now and then (i’m talking nobel prize). do research and create a balanced list.
your other option is to apply to rolling-admissions schools. i don’t know if financial aid is a concern for you, or if you are comfortably full-pay. full pay would be a huge advantage at this point as most merit scholarships have been handed out already and FA resources will start to be stretched for these schools. there are some amazing suggestions up there but my biggest piece of advice: give up on prestige. yeah, part of it is where you go, but a solid 80% is what you do when you’re there. you will have to look at 50% acceptance rate and up schools at this point, and your stats might even go out of range for them. don’t discount the benefits of being a big fish in a small pond.
your third option is to do two years of community college and transfer. i don’t know where you’re from (it sounds like NYC from your post) but a lot of states have very nice transfer deals with their local CC’s. if you are indeed in NYC a lot of SUNY branches are still taking applications and as a pennsylvanian, trust me, NY state schools are nothing to sneeze at.
lastly: i understand you probably mostly posted this to vent. everyone on this forum is amazingly helpful and kind and it sounds like you are in desperate need of some sort of plan. while you certainly dont have to take all our advice, don’t immediately brush it off. thinking about it doesn’t take any money or a huge amount of time and effort. chin up, life works in strange ways, and more likely than not you’ll look back in a few years and realize that wherever you are is exactly where you needed to be.
Since you had UCSD and UCSB as “safeties” i assume that you are full pay since the UC’s give no financial aid to OOS students. That will make applying to late application deadline schools easier.
If you are not able to be full pay then those UC’s are out of reach even if you are accepted off the waitlists.
I don’t know why some people post just to be critical and unkind. You’ve been through a terrible time - I feel for you. Your safeties weren’t (apparently) safeties but that’s water under the bridge. It’s not that you aren’t a great student, it IS that every good, attractive school is innudated with applicants this year. There are some great places with openings and a gap year is definitely an option but mostly - take some time to repair your shattered sense of self. It’s terrible to spend so much time preparing for admissions and get nothing but smacks in the face. This is NOT a judgement on you - or on the schools. It’s just what happens sometimes to good students given our crazy application process.
@rejectioncity : I am sorry. You must feel awful from all these rejections AND panicked about next year.
So, breathe deeply. Be nice to yourself. And keep choices open for later when you feel less wounded by applying to a few colleges. If you get in and don’t like them, no big deal- in the end, it’ll be a choice for you to make, which is better than being forced due to lack of alternatives. So, create that choice: those colleges or a gap year. You can also try and apply for Cityear in your city (or elsewhere).
Do you live in NYS?
What’s your budget? Applying to UCs would indicate that you’re full pay but sometimes people don’t know that UCs don’t have any financial aid for OOS applicants.)
I was wondering if you also got the note at the bottom of the Emory rejection letter if you could transfer in your sophomore year after completing a year at a degree-seeking institution.
I see a few people being blunt, but do not read those posts as critical or unkind. They’re giving straight up input that clarifies some of the issues and may help some future student.
The list of colleges still accepting applications should be available soon (couldn’t find it yet, but maybe someone else can). You’re a good student and will do fine once you figure out the next step.