Is there any place where I can check psychology admits per UC college?
You are spot on. The UCs had no choice but test blind was obviously punitive to kids who did what they were supposed to do. Test optional would have been more than fair.
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Agreed on all this. Test optional would have been acceptable. Don’t forget that just last year UC system required the writing section too for the ACT/SAT . One of a very few schools that required it, and now it is nothing. What a complete boondoggle.
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From what I see here no one got accepted with less than a 4.0 GPA. Seems a bit one-dimensional to me and not necessarily a wholistic view. Also, the UC only counts 4 semesters which is quite a limited view of GPA. OOS schools often take Freshman grades and ask for mid term Senior grades. To make a judgement about college entry from a snapshot in time when your kid is 15 and 16 years old seems crazy. My son was more concerned about socialization and now that he is 17 he is thinking about college more seriously.
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I hear you. Our son did well on the SAT and had straight As in his freshman and thus far, senior year. He’s also had significant work and extracurricular stuff even since November. For that reason we added both private and out of state applications at the last minute. We just wanted him to have a chance to be evaluated holistically rather than the comparatively limited view used by UC. Given the results, we are glad we have those options. He’s been waitlisted at Cal Poly and UCSC, still hopeful for some good news for an in state option. UCSB was a rejection.
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I’ll be the unpopular opinion/ devil’s advocate on the issue of no test scores that so many students and parents are upset about. Being test-blind this year was a blessing for my daughter. She is extremely qualified for all the schools she applied for but has always struggled with timed tests. She has been a strong student her entire life and will graduate 3rd in her class with a 4.0 UW and a 4.58 W gpa having taking rigorous courses (5 honors, 5 AP, 6 DE) including taking both honors PreCalc and AP Calc as a sophomore. However, from the start of HS we worried about the SAT and other standardized tests as we knew she struggled with timed tests. She knows the material it just takes her a bit longer to spit out the answer. The example I always use is most people look at what is 2+2 and answer in a second with 4, for her it make take 4-5 seconds to give the same answer. Of course this is a very simiplified example but illustrates the concept. Many students are in the same boat. I have believed for at least a decade that the use of standardized tests really favors certain students and have not been a fan of them for use in determining college admissions. I have a son who is the complete opposite of his sister and is a whiz at test taking and did incredibly well on all the tests when he took them. He also was a top student academically in high school graduating as Validectorian in a class of nearly 500. Seeing the difference in my kids who grew up in same house with same educational opportunities and both hard-workers but different type of test takers really solidified my belief that these tests shouldn’t be used in determining who gets into colleges. Additionally I think it is ridiculous the amount of time and money that kids and families put into trying to achieve a good test score. I personally witnessed several of my daughter’s friends two summers ago spend 4 hours a day/5 days a week for the entire summer in an SAT prep program just to raise their scores by 100-200 points. That is insane to me. I truly hope that these types of tests are coming to an end.
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Getting rid of testing requirements and throwing them out midstream this year are different issues.
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This year makes no sense whatsoever, and I would say, none of us will find out how each UC (or any school) makes decisions. Each of our children will land where they are supposed to, and 10 years from now, for many of these students, who will go onto grad school and exciting careers, where they got their undergraduate degree will matter very little. I say this as someone in the HR profession who spends a lot of time hiring people.
I do think there is a lot of subjectivity depending on who reads your application and how the details in each app (including essays) resonate with the application reader. I also do think that students who have good writing skills tend to have an advantage since the essays seem to hold a lot of weight as do extra curricular activities.
The college admissions process has become such a business and because of the need to stand out, in the last few years, every kid seems to start a new club (even if there is a similar one at the same school) or a new non-profit, not because they are passionate about the cause, but because it looks good on a college app! Apparently this new trend is called “passion projects” and showing a spike. I remember that one of the promotional emails in the fall from an Ivy league College specifically stated that if kids want to continue to stay active during COVID and make an impact in their communities, they should not start another non-profit but join the many already doing good work. I know of one kid who is at UCB now (was a regents finalist) who we know well, didn’t have stellar grades, well to do family with all the resources available to her, rose to the top because of her supposed non-profit she established as a pre-teen. But those of us who know the family know that the parents (especially mom) did all the work and the kid had no passion or interest in the activities of the non-profit. In fact the kid actively resisted doing things when pushed (even in public). The student won many community based scholarships and big scholarship $$$ for college, and since entering UCB (now a Jr), not a peep about the non-profit. A kid who is as passionate as this kid supposedly was would have taken it to whole new levels at UCB, one would think. This is what some people do in the name of college admissions.
My S21 who has been accepted to UMich and Georgia Tech, was waitlisted at UCI. Admitted to UCSB.
UC Stats: UW GPA: 3.95, WCapped: 4.33 WUncapped: 4.71 SAT: 1560 (he took SAT his sophomore yr and both UMich and GT would have considered as they were test optional and not test blind)
I feel for all these students who are on pins and needles, feeling the weight of the world on their shoulders and I wish the universities would show more empathy, at least with decision release dates so they are not losing sleep over it. I do commend UCSB for sending an email in advance.
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Agree. The criteria replacing the test was not clear or defined before tossing it out which put all the students this year in limbo who were banking on getting or rising the test score to increase the admission probability
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Well said and well written. Also, students taking AP courses have become a number game. There is something wrong with our college application process.
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I think college admissions should be more objective (class rigor, GPA, SAT/ACT, AP). There is too much subjectivity in the process. It sadly depends on who reads your essays and how they felt that day (poor sleep, trouble with spouse, etc…). There is too much lying and fabrications of EC’s now that colleges admit to not even fact checking these lies. There are professionals who will write your essays. If you made it more objective, you know why you got rejected. Now there is no way they can tell you why you were rejected, because of the subjectivity.
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Its called changing the rules of the game in the middle of the game. It is so frustrating. As soon as I heard about the test blind thing, we put our focus on OOS schools. UC is so hard to predict in a good year and now it is totally unpredictable. Of course we applied to UC schools because “you never know”, but it is not turning out well for my son who had an excellent ACT but not stellar GPA.
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I had my sons add on more safeties when I heard. I knew it would be trouble.
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That’s good. One of my friend didn’t apply for UCSC because he thinks it ranks pretty low. Till now he has nothing in hand. This year safeties are life savers
And even UCSC wailisted tons of high stats kids this year.
I was safety heavy when i applied but it was due to my major choice (EE) and having somewhat mediocre stats. You were smart to add safeties in these uncertain admission circumstances
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I do agree with you on this as I too have two kids, similar to yours in their test taking abilities on standardized tests. Having said that, I think this year is a trial year for all colleges going test blind/test optional because it is quite unclear how they will review applications without test scores.
Another factor that has significant impact is how well a student writes. I think that students who write well definitely have an advantage, because so much emphasis is put on the many essays. well written essays (whether students do it on their own or with help from outside consultants that families pay big $ for, just like SAT prep), have impact, I think. Not all high school students write well (though it is an essential skill). The type of essay writing required for college apps is very different to business writing or general well written communication. They have to be creative, “show” not “tell” and convey a compelling story. Some do it much better than others even if they have similar grades. This is a very subjective process overall.
Hawaii would have been nice but both boys got into Cal Poly SLO, which was not a safety.
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The problem with the essays are who are writing these essays? You would assume the students. I know several families where the person who was writing the essays was not the applicant.
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How do GE requirements work for UCSB college of letters and science? Is there a max amount of credits you can get with AP exams ?