Stevens is a great school for engineering and is a beautiful campus. We visited last summer and the views from the campus are amazing. The new tower for sophomores and up rivals most apartments, even the laundry room has views of the Hudson and Manhattan skyline. The school has a very high ROI. Unfortunately my daughter was waitlisted after being accepted to WPI, RIT, Cal Poly SLO, UCSD and UCD.
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Did she get into to slo? We still haven’t heard.
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Yes, she got into SLO on 3/10. It was always her first choice. We both loved Stevens though.
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We are in South Bay Area, have one kid at UCSD and one at Davis.
The one from Davis (Freshman year) comes home 8 weekends per quarter (out of 11 weeks per quarter including finals week). So coming home every week is very doable from Davis. If he couldn’t get a ride from off campus friends. (Freshman living in dorm are not allowed to buy parking permits). We would pick him up Friday night or Saturday morning and drop him off Sunday night after dinner. Traffic usually is not too bad during these hours. About 1.5-2 hours one way.
The one in SD never come home during school, he claim it take too much time out of his study/sleep. There are a lot of overhead taking plane, the flight itself takes 1:30 hour and need to be at the airport at least an hour ahead. That means if he wants to be back in SD at 6:00 pm Sunday, he will need to head to airport in Bay Area around 3:00pm.
We also has a friends’ daughter going to UCI, originally planned to come home once a month, but school was too busy for her to do so. She only come home during quarter breaks.
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Our son at ucla doesn’t come home much but both last year and this he came home for a ski weekend, flying LA to Oakland for almost no money. Easy. Fly home on Thursday and out on Monday, early. Under $40 round trip. Southwest flies from SD to Oakland.
My son has also been accepted to slo. So we are in the process of deciding. Slo for biomedical engineering or UCSD seventh college for Bioengineering
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My son also accepted. we’re OOS east coast and seriously considering attending! Anyone else from the NE in a similar situation? He’s also considering several larger state schools out here. Thanks!
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My son also accepted. We are OOS, east coast NE area. He was accepted to UCI, UCR, UCD, UCSD and SDSU, waitlisted for UCLA and no word yet from SLO. His number one choice right now is UCSD.
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DD accepted OOS, we are east coast (mid Atlantic). Accepted UCSD, rejected UCLA, waiting on UCSB and Berkeley. Waiting on some other decisions as well but it is a strong contender and we will be visiting in April.
Our son is deciding between UCSD and UC Davis, but both Triton Day and Aggie Day are on the same day 4/8. Do most families attend these Admit Days with the intent of committing that day or have already SIR’d? Or do most wait until the May 1 deadline?
We had hoped the admit day would push one school over the other for him, but now it looks like we would have to choose one day to attend and go from there.
He would be a Biology major and for Davis the hesitancy for him is the distance and it being not near the coast (he liked the vibe and bikes)…and for San Diego, his hesitancy is it has always seemed quiet, more serious when we have visited, and he keeps hearing about the “socially dead” reputation (he’s not a partier but wants a warm social environment of students) - but he does like the UCSD location and academic reputation.
I think families attend Admit days to either reaffirm their decision or to help in making that decision. Some students want to SIR to the campuses during the Admit days for the extra hoopla they get by deciding on that day. My older son attended UCD’s admit day to help decide between 2 schools. After coming home and thinking on it for a day or two, he then SIR’d to UCD.
If your student has a clear choice after attending the Admit days, there is no reason to delay SIRing to the top choice. We gave both son’s an earlier deadline to decide since we wanted them to move on with the process. Best of luck and enjoy the Admit days.
someone who was accepted, did they list the # of applicants and # of admits? or maybe just the acceptance rate for this year?
That makes sense, thank you. Our challenge will be deciding which Admit Day to attend since they are both in the same day and at opposite ends of the state. 
The actual acceptance rate would be posted after they clear the waitlist. The number of applicants for Freshman spots is 130,830.
They stated they have around 6900 spots for Freshman but will admit probably 3x as many applicants as spots since not all admitted students will enroll.
Daughter got accepted for Cognitive Science so we are very happy
OOS from Arizona, UW GPA 3.9, Weighted GPA 4.75
All Star Cheer and Varsity Volleyball and leadership positions at school
Also accepted at UCI, UCDavis, UCSC, UCRiverside and waitlisted at UCLA (which was her dream school. Has several CSU’s, USF, Santa Clara and Pepperdine acceptances too.
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That is always the issue when there is an overlap on the Admit Days. We revisited UCD on Admit day since he was leaning towards that school and already had revisited the other school (SLO) the month earlier on a more dedicated tour for his College.
We have kids in both schools and I don’t think SD is “socially dead” or UCSD students do not like to social.
However, in my opinion, SD does lack a “social opportunity ” that other schools normally have - the Dining Common. When I went to college, DC was the main place where I make new friends and “the” place to hang out with them.
Sharing dining table with strangers could be the easiest way to make new friends.
I think this articles summarize things well.
https://ucsdguardian.org/2022/04/03/the-uc-socially-dead-stigma/
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Thank you for that article!
I know what you mean about the dining commons being a central hub. So for your child at UCSD, what college do they attend? Our proposed college would be Sixth. We noticed on visits the Price Center didn’t have much activity…there are a lot of good food options spread out on the large campus, and we ate at a good one at Sixth - but again it seemed very quiet. Could be the time we visited.
But we have heard the true “hub of activity” is Geisel Library because every student is always studying there.
How does your child like it at UCSD?
Sorry for the delay in posting this one.
Decision: Accepted into Sixth College
Merit scholarships awarded (if any): unlikely
Major (and division if applicable) applied to: Undeclared, Social Sciences
ACADEMIC STATS::
UC Unweighted GPA: 3.96
UC Capped Weighted GPA: 4.28
UC Fully Weighted GPA: 4.32
ELC (top 9% CA HS): Definitely statewide top 9% designation, really confused about schoolwide
Comments about course load (including senior year): Pretty rigorous but not top, top rigor (APs + one DE class); progressively more rigor from 10th-12th (4 of 6 weighted courses Senior Year); school doesn’t offer many Honors courses, just AP and IB
Number of a-g courses: 25?
Number of UC Approved Honors courses: 9-ish?
AP courses/exams (scores in parentheses): AP Chem (didn’t report score lol – COVID year and she got a 2); AP Lang (5); APUSH (5); AP Bio (4); taking 4 APs now (Lit, Econ, American Gov, Environmental Science)
IB courses/exams (score in parentheses): n/a she’s not in IB (though she’s taking IB Studio Art anyway)
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): none
SUBJECTIVE::
Extracurriculars: Pretty strong (sustained activity for 10+ years, choral singing at a very high/quasi professional level; plus related leadership and mentoring around same); 4 years of a club sport at school
Job/Work Experience: Summer jobs (camp counselor etc.), school year job few hours/per week related to ECs
Volunteer/Community service: Mainly one sustained activity over the course of about 2 years – 200+ hours for sure, maybe more – kind of a non-traditional activity that I think sets her apart
Summer Activities: See above + many activities related to EC
Personal Insight essays (details): Strong. Definitely 3 of the 4 strong, at least – responses cohesive with the EC list
Supplemental/Augmented Review: No
DEMOGRAPHICS::
State/location of HS (if domestic applicant): In-state, large public HS in the Bay Area
Country (if international applicant):
Applied for need-based financial aid? Yes but won’t get it
First Generation? No
REFLECTION::
Strengths: Cohesiveness of her story, devotion to, development within a particular EC over many, many years (showing leadership, growth, commitment to community, etc.)
Weaknesses: A few courses short of where she could have been in terms of honors/ED (school doesn’t have many honors, but also she didn’t work too hard to add extra courses outside of HS)
Where else were you accepted/waitlisted/denied: ACCEPTED: UC Irvine, UC Davis, UCSC, Cal Poly SLO, Lewis & Clark w/merit and music scholarship $, U of Puget Sound w/merit $, Oberlin w/merit $, Occidental w/music scholarship $, Scripps, CSULB, SDSU, U of Oregon w/OOS merit $
WAITLISTED: LMU
REJECTED: UCLA
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My older kid is in Sixth college. There is no complaint about food. I heard it has the best restaurants in UCSD. He had options between Davis , SB, and SD and he chose SD because he wanted to be farther from home and experience of living in south cal. He loves UCSD and I think it is a better fit for him than Davis.
My kids in Davis is younger so he “saw” and “heard” a lot about UCSD before he applied for college. Though he didn’t got off the waitlist of UCSD, he recently told me Davis suit him better even if UCSD did come through because he like biking and like coming home “any time”. As we speak, he is at home studying for Friday finals, will go back to Davis on Wednesday.
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