I totally agree with you. Some decisions that we get back will never make sense as they are so unpredictable. I wish your daughter the best of luck with her other schools!
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@locogringo You are totally fine, myself and others get those points too.
Last year there was a parent that went on a tirade through the UCLA and other uc forums blaming all the other posters for his kid not getting in. He ended up getting banned from CC. Appreciate all the discussion that’s gone on this year. 0 moderation needed 
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Both your boys sound like they are awesome and I wish them much success wherever they end up. My daughter is also a musical theater kid for ten years now and has been dancing since she was 3. However, she’s not pursuing performing as a career so I’m curious how that will play out. All she does is sing show tunes all day long so I can’t imagine going cold turkey with performing. She got into UCSB but I’m really hoping she goes somewhere that she can still dabble in the performing arts even if it isn’t her major.
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Thank you! Cal Poly has a dance minor he is interested in. Good luck to your girl in finding a great place for her.
It would have been fair THIS year for the reasons that jntwinmama stated. Many kids, like my own, spent hundreds of hours preparing for and taking the test (prior to covid) because it was a stated requirement at the time. The UCs then went test-optional which seemed fair as it did not penalize the kids who had already gone down that road when it was still required. My kid would love to have all those weeks and hundreds of hours back as the time devoted elsewhere definitely impacted his GPA that semester as he worked 16 hours a week, volunteered, played varsity sports, and had a really packed scheduled like most kids on here. As he is finding out now, the few Bs he received that semester now seems to have made the difference and are impacting the number of rejections for a competitive major and the rest likely to come. As an aside, the out of state schools seems to be navigating test-optional applications really well this year.
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We are as competitive in our home as anyone and we don’t mind, time to time, showing off. There is little doubt my son would have torn up an ACT or SAT, but a pandemic, which is still underway, hit and sonny boy was made to go into lock down. He was primed, having studied hard, and was thoroughly bummed out that he was not allowed to pile higher onto his list of accomplishments and I was ready, for a moment, to unleash him for this special circumstance. If I had, it wouldn’t have been illegal. Sometimes we have to set aside our desires and cope with real disappointment because things just aren’t aligned right. Timing in life accounts for a lot. It’s half the battle sometimes. Many kids and families have suffered. I worry how the development of young people, that were just beginning to learn to socialize, is going to be affected. Holding the line and refusing to look at test scores probably saved many lives. Maybe not yours or mine, but on the large scale, probably many. My wife understood this much more quickly and easily than I (lol).
There were many opportunities offered by schools for students to write creatively about how they were impacted and coped with all this adversity. I have little doubt this new opportunity to write about such a large scale disaster became a tipping point for many applicants to gain admission. Lose something, gain something, that’s the way things work. Very difficult to swallow, especially when more disappointments just keep rolling in. I feel very fortunate my son got in anywhere close to what he was dreaming of. Good luck to all.
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The debate of test optional vs test blind vs submitting scores will be an eternal one this year. As mentioned in other posts, there is no fair or unfairness here. For the sake of submitting scores, my kid flew to Arizona, fell sick, hated plane trip, and we took a big risk of contracting virus. Why because we felt pressured that he will be left out if he didn’t submit the score. few days later ruling came out UCs will be test blind and we were as joyful as one should be. So what might be unfair to you may be totally fair to someone else. But one thing is for sure, test-optional is not fair because only those kids would submit score who were able to get a high score. This is the same reason why many colleges are moving away for subject scores because it’s recommended so only those kids submit who got a higher score. It creates an implicit bias. It is also understandable that kids who put an effort and got the high score (or their parents :), would feel otherwise. The effort was not considered. This year is weird, we need to go pass this argument of what’s fair and what’s not. And as Already mentioned, looking at all of the academic accomplishments and rigor and GPA and economic status and ethnicity, it is not hard to predict where your test score will likely be.
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Son denied, philosophy. Onward to the next…
Timing and luck. We tend to underestimate luck/timing and overestimate personal agency when things go our way and vice versa when we are at the wrong end of a decision/situation. I know good luck can’t be on our side at all times but I wish I could bestow good luck on all youngsters setting out their college sails at this precarious moment in time.
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My sister got in for undeclared L&S… but UCSB doesn’t have a nursing program RIP.
As far as I know only UCLA, UCI, UCD and UCSF do… for the UCs ofc.
I’m a senior so I know all too well what it’s like studying for hours on end for ACTs and SATs while working a part-time job and trying to balance other ECs and a social life. I don’t want to take away anything from your kid’s hard work and studying for these tests, but there were so many kids who put it just as many hours only for their tests to get cancelled multiple times. They were left with no score at all, and it was at no fault of their own. This debate can go on forever and there’s no right or wrong answer but I think it’s important to look at both sides of the story.
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I think the UC schools were trying to be fair about it. They wanted to be test-optional (as most other school were) this year for the students who put all the hours in test prep and scored high. They should be rewarded for the work. I think the court order to be test-blind tied their hands.
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I agree. My kid went through preparations three times as the first two test dates were cancelled (one just 12 hours before the exam was to begin). Test optional would have been fair, like so many other schools are doing.
What I don’t understand is why this metric is any different because of Covid than any other one? One could argue that their sports or other ECs ended due to Covid, so no one should be allowed to submit their ECs as it favors those who weren’t doing anything. Or they got laid off from a job so no work experience should be considered. Or many schools went to pass/no pass grading which affected some kids’ GPA’s because they didn’t get a bump from their AP class grades, so maybe they should have not been allowed to take the GPA into consideration. My point is, there are other things that people could argue were not “fair” but they weren’t changed at the last minute. They should have allowed all of it in to get the best picture of the candidates holistically, but not allow any one thing to specifically hurt a candidate, such as not having a test score, or not having letter grades for second semester junior year, or not continuing with the internship that was cancelled due to Covid. Students were also given a space to explain any Covid challenges so they could have said if they were unable to find an exam near them. As we know, some of the UC’s wanted to go test optional but the court ruling tied their hands.
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That’s tough. It is so hard to see our kids hurt or disappointed. I hope he knows this is not a commentary on him or his ultimate success.
My son is the opposite with his learning differences. He can get the grades, but would never want to take a standardized test. In fact, he would not have applied if it weren’t for the no tests. He would’ve just gone to CC and done the transfer route.
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Sure. My Son had a very decent score on his recent math competition and would like to update it. But we were told that it is unfair to other kids if they received the update. What the hell?
@BaobeiDad that would actually be unfair. Many students accomplish the things after the deadline. It’s only fair there is a hard cutoff for everyone for when their achievements can be considered.
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Heyy, just want to know…did anyone from India get accepted?
Or any international student living outside USA?
My understanding is that UCD and UCSF do not offer undergraduate nursing degrees.
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I and a classmate are from India. Both of us got rejected for psych:/
Pushed, your son sounds like he might be a good fit for the Google apprenticeship program as an alternative to the traditional college route. I’m not sure how competitive it is and they might get hung up on GPA too or maybe not.
https://buildyourfuture.withgoogle.com/programs/apprenticeships/