I thought UCSD didn’t admit by major though? It admits to the university first? I think there might be some exceptions for highly impacted majors but still. My major is probably one of the least impacted out there but I’m still worried
Yeah I’m not that concerned about prestige, the acceptance rates are dropping tho
@keslee88 UCSD admits by the university then into the major. So you can get into UCSD without getting into your preferred major, especially in the Jacobs engineering school.
so what was @MrQster referring to then? that’s worse honestly bc i’m competing with the high stats students oof
I know that is the official line. But do you expect all the humanities professors to sit around with nothing to do? These colleges are trying to build diverse classes. They can’t admit all business and STEM majors.
@keslee88 I’m assuming he is saying that high stat applicants applying to capped majors were more likely to be rejected or waitlisted. You can be a high stat applicant and still be denied. Remember, its holistic review with a heavy skew towards academics.
@MrQster Not sure what your point is there…
I am just saying that your chosen major is factor (holistic) in admissions.
you mean they want to see that what you did aligns with your major or smth like that?
Yeah thats what I was saying. they admit to the university first which means you qualify for admission to UCSD. Then they admit to the major if you chose a capped major. So you arent guaranteed the major if its capped. They can admit you either in an alt major or undeclared. If you are denied it means you were not admitted to the university. The major is a factor only for capped ones.
OK. That makes sense.
I am not sure about all the intricacies concerning the UC system. I know that for most universities they want you to graduate in 4 years. They really don’t want 5 and 6 year seniors hanging around. This helps with ranking and more importantly opening spots for new freshman. They want to make sure you are aligned to your chosen major with you classes, ECs, essays, LOR, etc… They want what you declare on your application as what you will likely stick in college and graduate with. You may have the best stats but if your application doesn’t have a compelling overall theme with your EC’s, classes, LORs, and essays. Your admissions officer is less likely to fight for you. You basically have a high stat but “uncompelling” application. That is why you may be seeing all these high stat applicants get denied/WL.
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Is it true that some applications don’t even get read, they get weeded out by a computer system for low stats? or is every application really read
It think what I typed is part of it “uncompelling” applications. I think the biggest part is that there are too many high stat CS, business, engineering, pre-med majors applicants at the UCs schools.
@keslee88 Every UC app is read at least twice by different human readers.
I couldn’t tell you that concerning the UC schools. I do know that at Cornell there is an initially academic threshold applicant need to clear before the application is even read. With the increase in applications this year and no SAT scores, I bet there is some type of GPA cutoff before AOs waste their time reading the apps. There were just too many applications this year.
Edit: I would defer to 10s4life. He knows more than me about UC.
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How could they not consider your major or at least take a look at it? What if anecdotally they admit 5000 students that want to study a particular major?
@Luckygal23 because within L&S, which encompasses most of the majors, applicants rarely stick to their intended major. They also aren’t in the major until they complete the pre requisite courses
@NewParentCA: Did you check with UCSD to see if the supplemental was required this year even though it was listed as a requirement on the website? You can appeal but I agree that not knowing about an application requirement is not a valid grounds for an appeal but no harm in trying if it comes to that.
My daughter is a junior at UCSD and loves it. I do have to say though, getting your classes each quarter is a stressful nightmare. I dread each quarter when she has to register as I always get the freak-out phone call that she is waitlisted in 3 of the classes and that she’ll never graduate on time. This is supposedly a problem at most UC’s. And it stinks. She just has to shuffle the order sometimes, but can’t always do that with pre-reqs. It’s all working out, but keep in mind.
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