I’ve seen many comments about colleges “thinking” applicants may not attend, because thier stats are high and therefore do not offer admission. Besides the FAFSA (which has its own messed up issues) that asks you to rank your college choices, how else does this come across? Sounds like ridiculous assumptions?? Especially the applications like CSU which is all stats with no essay to express desire or strong intent.
I don’t entirely buy the “this person may not attend” pre-emptive rejection theory. What I suspect is that applicants who are very well qualified may not invest as much in making their app strong. An essay that talks about enthusiasm for marching band finds itself in the hands of an AO at a school with no marching band. Plans to pursue xyz are revealed when only graduate students can do xyz at that school. And of course, the schools that accept by major are exactly that. The kid who wants to study film at NYU is not in the same pool as,the one who wants to study English.
In any case, OP, don’t sweat it. Each school has its own criteria. If your stats clear the hurdle for the schools you are waiting to hear from, you are still very much in the game.
You can check the college’s common data set, section C7, to see if “level of applicant’s interest” is considered. If it is, that suggests that the college is trying to increase its yield by rejecting or waitlisting applicants who do not show additional interest (e.g. having a visit recorded, checking the portal, etc. – or applying ED).
However, it is true that yield protection is blamed too often for rejections from what the applicants thought were safeties, even though there may be other likely reasons for rejection that the applicants did not consider (e.g. applying to an oversubscribed major that is much more selective than the overall campus).
Both UCD and UCR list “level of applicant’s interest” as “not considered”.
“It’s not just about stats. Holistic matters. Your app can strike one college differently than another.”
The UCs are not that holistic, at least as compared to the other schools that use it. There are no recommendations, can’t use race, no why us essay (your personal favorite), I mean you could say how ucla is a great fit in one of the four essays, but since every uc reads that, good luck getting in to the others. There are 14 factors the UC weighs, 10 are academic, only 4 would be holistic - achievements in special projects (#9), special talents, achievements and awards (#11), academic accomplishment in light of life experiences (#13) and geographic location (14). And I think we both agree that geography is an interesting holistic thing to consider. But at least it’s the last item on the list.
“It is very possible that you fit some of the more competitive schools and not so much the non competitive ones.”
Well I wouldn’t mix non-holistic with non-competitive. Non-holistic are typically used by state schools and any private that uses a straight formula of gpa and test scores, and these can be still very comptitive. So if you applied to any CSU, you would have gotten in, even to CS or engineering with your stats. They wouldn’t be concerned about yield, actually most public universities don’t care about yield as the privates do, they care more about making sure the students in the state get a good education. You also got rejected from Cornell ED, probably means they were concerned about your ability to pay. Meaning you could back out of your ED and go somewhere else.
Agree with @theloniusmonk , some UCs “claim” that areas such as essays are 50% of the decision (I’m talking to you UCSB!) but when you look at the GPAs, class rigor, and test scores of the accepted students almost all get in above a certain threshold.
Did UCSB actually say that, the 14 point list is public knowledge see here:
http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/files/comprehensive_review_facts.pdf
I know that Berkeley asked for recommendations from some applicants after the first review, not sure if they were borderline and recs swayed the adcoms or maybe just confirmed the decision. I don’t think that there were many of these requests though.
UCD (~189th nationally by standardized scoring) appears to be a generally tougher admit than UCR (~338th).
I don’t know about UCs but it is a definite factor at some schools, like American. Interest is important, common belief is that they are sensitive to being listed as backup for Georgetown or GWU, all borne out by the data on my daughter’s naviance, where there is clearly a sweet spot for admits. Below a certain gpa/sat/act it’s almost all rejects - but it’s also almost all rejects or waitlists at the high end of gpa/test scores. Very strong indication of yield protection. My question would more be, would a public that is part of a wide system engage in this too? On D’s naviance, almost everyone above a certain gpa/score for UCD is an admit. No indications of yield protection there. Interestingly, UCB is more scattered, not just more rejections at the high end but more admits at their low end too, suggests UCB is more holistic than UCD?
In http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/files/comprehensive_review_facts.pdf , #6 through #14 could be subjectively determined (though not necessarily). However, “holistic” in this case means that admission readers read the application and give it a single score as whole, rather than assigning points to each characteristic and then combining them in a formula (e.g. like CPSLO MCA or CSU EI). Note that “holistic” does not necessarily mean more unpredictable.
Does this Naviance distinguish between UCB CoE (and majors within) and UCB L&S? Could be that the rejects at the top of the “admit zone” were applying to EECS, while the “admit zone” was mostly L&S (or CNR or CED) applicants.
@ucbalumnus , no it doesn’t differentiate by major, neither do any of the others. The high school in question is a Bay Area school well known to UCB though, not sure if that might impact?
Interest is NOT just visiting and getting on the mailing list, then blowing the rest.
No, holutic doesn’t mean less predictable. But it does mean stats alone don’t determine.