UC Irvine admissions yield jumped from the usual 24% up to 26% which left them with about 850 more incoming freshman than expected for the Fall term. So they got tough with “senioritis” grade drops and missing transcripts and rescinded 499 offers of admission. By comparison this year UCLA rescinded 7 and UD San Diego rescinded 9.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-uc-irvine-rescissions-20170728-story.html
WOW.
This is prompting tons of conversation on the college admissions counselors’ listservs and facebook pages.
Not surprising that a college in an overenrollment situation would apply the conditions strictly.
The frequency of administrative errors with respect to final high school transcripts is obviously a problem, though it is probably not a new problem (but less visible in the past when they were less strict about it).
Of course, those who did not meet the conditions like earning at least a 3.0 GPA in senior year should not be surprised.
I thought it was interesting (fishy) that they couldn’t come up with the statistics on how many admissions were rescinded in previous years. You’d think there would have been the same numbers with kids getting D’s and not having high school transcripts rescinded. Many california high schools don’t finish until late in June, so the transcripts aren’t sent until just before the July 1 deadline. This isn’t new.
The biggest problem I see with this is that colleges constantly misplace transcripts and documents mailed to them. We had several instances of this back when our daughters were applying - some college saying they never received some document or other when you KNOW for certain it was sent. For some reason we had a lot of trouble with Princeton repeatedly losing stuff.
Some families, especially ones where the kid is first ever in the family to apply to college, may not know to constantly follow-up with schools to make sure the files are complete. They may assume that everything that was sent will be received, and then out of the blue these kids get rescinded.
USPS registered mail, return receipt requested 
Not very useful info when it’s high schools who handle sending in HS transcripts…not the applicant him/herself.
We were to pick up sealed official transcripts from HS, then send ourselves. Probably not an option to all, but might be to some.
And many school mail rooms would be bogged down with this, having to sign for thousands of pieces of mail every day.
Just wanted to show that there are other options aside from worrying about school mail rooms misplacing documents. Eventually more schools will accept credentials using secure services of companies like Parchment. Would make it easier all around.
It’s a shame that HS still have to use USPS mail to send transcripts to colleges. Also colleges should have websites to show what have been received from students.
I think this thread should be made sticky on the UC Admission forum.
IS there a central application process system for UC/CSU?
I am really surprised that the UC/CSU system does not have a process in place where they coordinate with the some of the California public school districts to automatically pull transcripts.
I know that SUNY/CUNY transcripts are automatically pulled for students attending the NYC DOE public school system during both the admissions cycle and at end of the school year. Students put in their student ID numbers as part of the application process. In addition, we give students an official copy of their transcript and 2 copies of the IEP (if applicable) when they pick up their diploma.
You can’t count on faxing. Imagine a big stack coming through, at all hours. . Do agree about receipt mail. The alternative is this chaos. But now that this has hit the fan, that’s future advice.
They could and should have have handled this better. Period. That’s why schools pay the big bucks to enrollment managers and various planners. Maybe offered gaps. I can’t blame the high schools for the 850 number. And I have no basis for this, but have trouble believing 500 either missed paperwork or had serious grade issues.
I know that Florida high schools do send the information to Florida public schools electronically. They still have to send the information to private and OOS schools the old fashioned way (you actually pay $2 and pick up a sealed envelope which you then send to the college yourself). They do it at the time of application and then at graduation. Also send it to the Bright Futures office all at once. I’m very surprised that California high schools aren’t sending the information electronically, at least the the UC and CSU system schools.
We had trouble with the school getting the transcripts but it was on the part of the college, not the high school. We sent it 3 times from the h.s. plus by having it picked up from the high school and mailed to the college by mail, but the college had 2 files for my daughter it it kept getting misfiled. We could have sent it 1000 times, but if the school kept misfiling it, it wouldn’t have mattered.
We also had a problem with the NCAA clearinghouse, which is set up JUST for documents to be sent in. I talked to the athletic secretary at our hs and she said every year they have trouble with at least half of the transcripts being received. She doesn’t know how or why it happens as they send about 50 transcripts in the same package every year and half are processed just fine and half are ‘lost.’ I talked to a woman at the NCAA and she asked me "Do you know how many pieces of mail we get?!?!’ Well yes I do, but I paid $70 for you to process that mail, and I have no control of how you receive it or process it. I know at least one of my daughter’s high schools sent the info electronically through parchment (paid $3 for that) but the others sent it the old fashioned way. The NCAA requires an original transcript from each high school attended, plus a final transcript from the high school issuing the diploma.
We really like using Parchment, but not all colleges accepted them. Our HS would update parchment with all transcripts (mid year and final). You could then log onto parchment and send official transcripts to participating universities. We received positive confirmation when a college received notification that our transcript was available, and another when the college downloaded the transcript. Our HS (large, public) absorbed all parchments costs, so it was free for us to use. I bet they actually saved money by using it.
The UC and CSU systems each have a central application process system. However, applicants self-report courses and grades instead of sending transcripts. Final transcripts are only required for those who matriculate.
http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/how-to-apply/after-you-apply/transcript-submissions/index.html indicates that there is some sort of electronic submission available. http://admissions.berkeley.edu/transcripts has more detail, at least for UCB (may or may not be similar for UCI).
Even with electronic final transcript submission, there could still be plenty of places for errors along the way (did the high school miss the student’s request? did the high school fail to send the transcript to the correct college? did the college handle the submitted transcript correctly?).
The schools can make errors. But the colleges don’t show what I have been received then students have no way to ask for resubmission. FedEx, USP,… can tell why my package goes, why colleges cannot tell what have been received?
When my kids applied to colleges 6, 8 years ago they had to pay $4 to the HS for sending transcript to a college.
In NYC the high school does not have to do anything. The transcripts are pulled electronically by SUNY//CUNY for every one who applies for admission and for everyone who commits to attending ~ July 7th when ATS rolls over and “graduates” all students who successfully completed requirements for graduation.
Transcripts are mailed out on the last day of school for all students attending private school. Since principals/newer APs and parent coordinators are 12 month position, there’d is always someone around to mail/email a transcript if needed.