Straight out rejected by UCLA... confused and disappointed

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Los Angeles
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After a slew of rejections came out for me yesterday, the one that hurt the most was UCLA’s. I was fairly confident that UCLA was the one I would be accepted or even waitlisted to. This is because on my school’s naviance page where they show decision statistics for UCLA, all applicants above a certain GPA are accepted, and my GPA is well above that number. Statistically speaking, there is little chance that I would be straight out rejected, but I was. Even a waitlist would have been nice.

I am starting to suspect if my rejection was due to me applying as a Computer Engineering major. My grade in AP Computer Science wasn’t the best because I struggled so much in it. I also applied as a Computer Engineering major to UCSD, and the fact that I was accepted there but under my alternate major (which I filled in b/c I don’t want to leave blank and am not actually interested in at all) seems to support this claim. Do UC’s really care that much about major when it comes to admissions? This is very discouraging because even though I struggle in CS, I can’t imagine myself doing anything else.

I don’t mean to come off as arrogant or believing that I am “too good” for UCLA. But seeing that I am perhaps the first person in my school’s history with a certain GPA to be rejected from UCLA makes me paranoid as to whether there was something blatantly wrong with my application, or who knows, if the universe is just working against me in general. Decent but not stellar test scores. Took the hardest courseload possible. I have decent ECs, leadership, summer activities, job, volunteering, the whole 9 yards. There wasn’t a single section on that UC application I left blank. I’m not ideal but I didn’t think I would suck.

UC Berkeley is coming out soon and I applied to engineering there as well. Looks like I shouldn’t be expecting much from that either. Basically, I am mentally preparing myself for what would perhaps be the worst days of my life over the next 2 weeks. Yeah, one college rejection doesn’t define you but a whole bunch of them? It can really get to you.

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Engineering admits by major, and it’s generally much harder to get into Engineering than Letters & Science. And Computer Engineering is on the harder side (compared to Civil and Materials)

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@lenasharb, I know it feels crummy and it may take a while to recover from this process, but please realize that UCSD is a FANTASTIC school, and many applicants who are excellent are rejected from there. It is never known what the admissions committees are looking for, but many excellent applicants are rejected from the UCs and other schools every year, even the ones who look “perfect” on paper. From my own experience, I can only say that a “no” from a school means “no for now”. What does that mean? I was rejected by my top school for undergraduate, then waitlisted for that same school for medical school (I never got in). I finally was accepted to that school for my specialty/residency training. All I can say is, don’t let the small setbacks stop you. You got into another major at UCSD, but who’s to say that you can’t transfer into Computer Engineering if you do really well in the prerequisite courses once you are there? Also, even though you can’t imagine doing anything else, whose to say you might not find another major at UCSD (or any other school you are accepted to and chose to go to) that you will like even better? The adventure for you is just beginning! :slight_smile:

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Ucla Engineering is very competitive and can’t be viewed as a safety for even top applicants. The school admit rate is 11.2% for Engineering. The individual engineering majors vary from single to double digit acceptance rates. L&S cannot he used as a goood gauge for acceptance.

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I fell you. Got rejected by my top 3, and 2 were UC schools. ACT: 35, SAT:1340 and W GPA: 4.9. I was so hopeful to go to California, but I’m just going to ECU instead, which is fine I guess.