UC Santa Cruz 2023 Applicant Discussion Thread

@slugwithtea that’s very helpful, thank you!

@Gumbymom quick question: what is yield protection?

@sammygrammy. Yield protection is a practice where a university or academic institution rejects or wait-lists highly qualified students on the grounds that such students are bound to be accepted by more prestigious universities.

I don’t think there’s much yield protection at UCSC. Naviance scattergram shows every student at our HS with over 3.6GPA and 1390 SAT accepted. Above 3.6 GPA and 1290 SATnearly everyone is accepted with a few wait listed and just two rejected.

@Gumbymom thank you. do you know how often by and large UC’s practice yield protection? i’m sure it depends on the school but i’m curious anyways

@sammygrammy I heard that UCD is known for waitlisting high stats kids.

@sammygrammy and @collegemom111111 : over the 7 years that I have posted on CC, I have heard similar rumors for UCD, Cal Poly SLO and several other UC’s/CSU’s. The bottom line is no one can prove these rumors since admissions has the ultimate say on whom they accept. Again, each school determines which applicants will be admitted based on their own criteria.

Hello everyone.
I was accepted yesterday into their bio major. I came to school today and many of my friends and peers were also accepted. Most of them have similar SAT scores (1300s) and GPAs (4.09ish) as me, and a few have significant lower stats like low 1200 SATs and 3.7ish GPA.

I really thought they would only early admit a small portion of applicants. But somehow, they accepted a lot of students from my high school in Southern California.

I wonder if another batch of early UCSC decisions will be released just after 4 p.m. again today, like yesterday. Fingers crossed that they’re not done with early decisions yet…

@PBJisMyFave the housing crisis is something everyone should take into consideration before accepting admission

So, new students have a housing guarantee of 2 years with EOP students being guaranteed for 3 years. Now this doesn’t seem so bad until you realize that UCSC is expensive to live in and it doesn’t help that living conditions are so bad. Students are being piled into dorms meant to accommodate 3 people because we don’t have enough beds.
My dorm building has 3 floors with a lounge in each floor. Those lounges have been turned into rooms to house 5 people leaving us without a common area. Singles have turned to doubles an doubles to triples.
A month ago due to the rain the lounges/room flooded as did the hallway so now outside my room there is a fan generator thing covered in plastic taking up the space in the hall. And you know wet leads to mold which I saw someone show a picture of mold they discovered in their room after searching for a reason as to why they kept getting sick!

Now for off campus housing, well it’s much cheaper to live off campus then on, that doesn’t mean it’s cheap though. It certainly doesn’t help that landlords and the general santa cruz population hate college students. Or the fact that rent in Santa Cruz has increased rent by 25% in the last 6 years.
Now if you have a family that can afford to pay upwards of $1k+ for a small studio apartment then you’re good, but if not well still expect to pay $800+ for a room in a small apartment shared with other people.

I’ve covered on and off campus housing but let’s not forget about the third group. The homeless students who sleep in their cars and struggle finding free parking on campus where they can spend the night because sleeping in your car outside of campus can be dangerous.

As to what the university has done to help the issue, well… A couple weeks before move in date, reports started coming out that the university was asking professors to consider housing some students because there was literally no space for them on campus…
Now the obvious solution might be to build more housing, and we’re in the process of that. And by that I mean we’re at the very beginning of the process because we cannot agree where to build housing. The university wants to build housing on the East meadow but many of us are against that. East Meadow has remained untouched and many of us feel it should remain that way. For a university that takes pride in caring for the environment how are we just going to get rid of that meadow? The buildings they wanted to build were also going to be visible from outside of campus. Our campus is situated between trees, you’re not supposed to see tall buildings instead of nature here!
Further on that, I’m not sure if this has changed but, the construction company the university hired was one that took part in the construction of Japanese American internment camps and wanted to be hired for the Trump Mexico wall… so yeah…
This isn’t meant to scare you off, but look more into the housing crisis because you’ll definitely have to deal with it. I suggest going on r/UCSC on Reddit to see people’s thought on the housing crisis and university as a whole and if you decide to become a banana slug, Sammy welcomes you!

@montanatocali here are good sources describing the colleges, their location, sterotypes about them and pros and cons. I’ve found that ucsc can be very cliquey so definitely look at the colleges and choose the best for you so you can be surrounded with like minded people.

(can’t post links sorry, coppy/paste remove parenthesis)
reddit(.)com/r/UCSC/comments/2z4z7u/updatedguidetocollegesforincomingstudents/
reddit(.)com/r/UCSC/comments/21kjuy/aguidetothe10collegeswrittenbyaucscalum/

also here’s a much less specific / general idea about the colleges. (I’ve grouped them with their sister colleges)

Oakes(OOAAKES!) - a lot of minorities and old looking buldings (has the biggest dorms though)
Rachel Carson (college 8) - SoCal people living in a place that looks like the suburbs

Porter- Social people who love weed and playing guitar. Some student will always be screaming PORTER! which will get annoying when it’s late and you’re trying to sleep.
Kresge- All apartments. Like Porter, people here are chill, smoke weed and do harder drugs, can be artistic.

College 9 and College 10 - the newest additions to the colleges. Best buildings. Here is where you will find the international students and the Asians.

Merrill - HEART ATTACK HILL. Climbing that hill up to Merrill drains you, avoid at all costs. But seriously, Merrill is boring unless you’re a introverted/quiet person. Safe haven for trans ppl as trans inclusive housing is located here. (only thing worth doing in Merrill is visiting the garden to play with the friendly cats)
Crown - Gamers. Like Merrill, it’s much quieter compared to the other colleges but people here love video games.

Cowell- closest to OPERS so Jock type of guys.
Stevenson-similar to Cowell

If you’re a late eater, stick to Oakes/RCC, C9/C10, and Cowell/Stevenson as those 3 dining halls are the ones that have late night service as well as the ones that operate during the holiday or when there is strikes.

Crickets… So, I guess all the early admits went out yesterday, and they’re done? Any other notions out there?

Accepted OOS Environmental Science
3.98 UW, 4.2 W - whatever UC cap is 4.33?

1380 SAT
Very good ECs and Essays

@marinebioslo When did you receive your acceptance? Today or yesterday?

@slugwithtea thank you!! How are the Kresge apartments - is that a better way to go than the dorms? IF you could take an educated guess: what would u choose for a 420 friendly, chill guy, social, not real political, not too far hippie but fine with the vibe, pretty chill, pretty heavy gamer but not quiet / nerd style, looking for good parties… into the forests and camping, and from MT?

@slugwithtea I would like to know more about UCSC my daughter was accepted as a biology major. She’s looking for the whole package college experience and a great school. We have not toured the campus yet but plan to do so in the next few weeks. I would like to know about the housing, lifestyle and costs. She’s undecided right now between Chico, CSULB and UCSC. Any advice would help.

Thank you

FWIW, my daughter was accepted 27 February - she’s fits the “average freshman” profile, so we weren’t shocked but pleasantly surprised she got in. She is lukewarm about the school; we visited a couple of weeks ago (the last college visit - FINALLY), and while it was beautiful, I don’t think it’s traditional enough for her. I was thinking the same thing - it looks like “Sea Ranch - the University” and they have no football team and few if any brick buildings, and everything is spread out on the hill and nestled in the trees…but then you come around a corner from some trees and look out and see the ocean, and WHAM - you start saying to yourself, “this is pretty f#%+ing sick, bruh. I could definitely study here. Who cares about football? Ultimate frisbee is cool too, and they have a killer frisbee golf course on the campus, so yeah, football…whatever, and this part of the prestigious UC system, and there’s weed (and there was even an app for harder stuff) and trees and beaches.” But that’s me. I partied when I was that age…a lot. My kid is straight edge.

And yes, housing is a big issue (yes, they did ask professors to take in students), and the downtown has its share of problems…drugs, homelessness, tourist traffic… Lots of our friends and family went there, so they are happy for the kid, but I think my daughter is holding out for UCD, which is closer to home, has a true college-town vibe, and she has friends that are there and friends that applied, and friends that will apply next year too. I’ll be shocked if she gets in to Davis…but you never know. As a high-school teacher in California, I see the inconsistency of the UC admission process on a yearly basis. 10 years ago my kid would be a strong candidate for UCD, but applicants really have to cover their bases and have a flexible plan these days.

UC Santa Cruz is uniquely beautiful…there is no denying it. We saw deer, coyotes, birds, ferns, redwoods…amazing!

My D got in yesterday (OOS). She applied because it seems to have good programs in her interest - Environmental Science and marine Biology. We have not toured yet but now I am concerned about the housing thing. I knew there was a problem but it sounds like a BIG problem. Are they doing anything to mitigate it?

@marinebioslo I have the same concern my D was accepted as well and we plan to tour the campus in the next few weeks. But after reading about the housing situation, I’m very concerned and I’m not sure if she should even consider it as an option now.

@Zevia Definitely come for the admitted students tour, It will help your daughter imagine herself on this campus. As for the whole college experience package, she will definitely get a taste of it through dorming. Since this is not really a party school like say UCSB you have to know the right people to get invites but if you’re social that won’t be a problem. There’s also a lot of clubs at UCSC, if she ends up a banana slug, during welcome week there will be an event, OPERS Fest, where people set up booths to inform students about jobs, volunteer opportunities and the chance to sign up to the various clubs on campus. Or if she wants, we do have a few sororities here, this university is not big on greek life but we do have a couple she could explore. Also, if your idea of the complete package is sports, you will not get that here. There is no march on the first day of football season to the stadium because we don’t have a football team and we definitely do not have a stadium. We do have other sports but quite frankly, there’s not a whole lot of school spirit going on with sports.
There will also be many opportunities for her to get involved with her college and through bulletin boards or her college’s weekly newsletter she’ll be up to date as to what is happening on campus.
Welcome Week will also be a fun time for her to get situated in her dorm, meet the people in her building and in the college and bond with them.

On to housing, I made a post explaining the housing crisis which you can find on page 9 which I think is really important to be informed about because that is probably the biggest thing students complain about.

As for cost, when you receive financial aid packages (if you haven’t already) examine them closely. Look at what university is giving you the most amount of money so that you hopefully do not need to take a lot of loans. Examine trends, how much does tuition increase a year if at all? how much will you be paying for dorming as a freshman vs as a sophomore? just look at stuff like that and take it into consideration. Also be aware that Santa Cruz is a very expensive place. So take into account whether your daughter will be working (downtown is always hiring at the beginning of the school year and so is the boardwalk) or if you will be sending her an allowance because it can get pretty pricey especially if she likes eating out at the various restaurants in SC.

P.s Congrats on your acceptance to ucsc, if it’s the choice for you, i’m sure you’ll be more than happy as a slug!