Yes, the CA resident acceptance rates have dropped due to the increase in the # of resident applications. All campuses are moving towards the mandate set by the Regents to have a minimum 82% of CA residents enrolled. If you look at this chart by residency, 2022 achieved the goal of 82% of CA residents enrolled UC campus wide. Undergraduate admissions summary | University of California
If you filter by campus, UCSC in particular, 89% of CA residents were enrolled.
There are 13 areas of application review criteria that all the UC’s use to evaluate their applicants and each UC determines the weight of each area independently. On the UC PIQ discussion, many good points have been brought up regarding how Unpredictable the UC’s are when selecting applicants and how important PIQ’s are becoming more vital along with the EC’s to differentiate all the 4.0+ GPA applicants. Although you cannot tailor your PIQ’s to each campus, each campus is looking for key attributes presented in the PIQ’s and EC’s.
Each UC has a mission statement and much information can be derived from this statement on how they determine “fit”.
For UCSC: promoting and protecting an environment that values and supports every person in an atmosphere of civility, honesty, cooperation, professionalism and fairness.
For UCB: Motivation, Achievement, Leadership and Commitment
For UCD: Collaboration
For UCLA: Leadership, intellectual curiosity and your interest in personal development.
My son was waitlisted
Weighted GPA: 4.29, unweighted GPA: 3.97
Number of a-g courses taken 9-12th: 27 a-g
Number of UC approved Honors/AP/IB or DE classes: 1 honors, 6 AP’s
Intended Major: Film & Digital Media
Non-local CA resident from large public high school, Bay Area
Not ELC
EC’s: Varsity Baseball, acting, lots of film-related EC’s
Accepted to: CSULB, CSUN, SF State, Puget Sound, ASU
Waitlisted at: UCD, LMU
I remember you posting somewhere the stats of past years how many kids got off the waiting list at the different UC schools. I did a search but cannot seem to find it, would you mind sending me the link to that info?
Thanks so much!
Here is the new waitlist discussion with data.
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/t/uc-santa-cruz-freshman-class-of-2027-waitlist-appeal-thread/
OMG, this is insane.
DD23 was waitlisted.
GPA: 4.0 unweighted/4.33 weighted capped/4.6 unweighted capped
Number of a-g courses taken 9-12th: 24
Number of UC approved Honors/AP: 6 honors, 5 AP
Intended Major: Biology
Non-local CA resident from a private school, San Diego
ELC
EC’s: Multiple (varsity sports, volunteer, internship, leadership roles)
Accepted to: UCD, SLO, UO, CU Boulder, UW, SDSU (multiple scholarships, honors)
Waiting to hear: UCLA, UCSD, UCSB, Berkeley, USC, Tufts, Emory, Wash U (deferred from ED)
UCSC was her first choice for a long time. We visited last year and she loved it. At least she has some good options.
Regarding the PIQ and A&A sections, each campus has their own values and looks for different attributes. While an applicant might view themselves as having the following attributes, was that shown in the PIQ and A&A sections of the application?
UCSC defines their community as
The University of California, Santa Cruz is committed to promoting and protecting an environment that values and supports every person in an atmosphere of civility, honesty, cooperation, professionalism and fairness. We strive to be: diverse, open, purposeful, caring, just, disciplined, and celebrative.
UCSC’s Principles of Community might give insight into what attributes they are looking for in students, faculty, staff, admin.
UC Santa Cruz expects that every campus member will practice these Principles of Community.
We strive to be:
- Diverse: We embrace diversity in all its forms and we strive for an inclusive community that fosters an open, enlightened and productive environment.
- Open: We believe free exchange of ideas requires mutual respect and consideration for our differences.
- Purposeful: We are a participatory community united by shared commitments to: service to society; preservation and advancement of knowledge; and innovative teaching and learning.
- Caring: We promote mutual respect, trust and support to foster bonds that strengthen the community.
- Just: We are committed to due process, respect for individual dignity and equitable access to resources, recognition and rewards.
- Disciplined: We seek to advance common goals through reasonable and realistic practices, procedures and expectations.
- Celebrative: We celebrate the heritage, achievements and diversity of the community and the uniqueness and contributions of our members.
She has excellent options with what many would consider “better” schools. Of course, it’s a personal choice, and UCSC is a unique campus, but I am sure in the end, she will be happy with one of these great options (and quite likely she’ll have more coming). My son was accepted to UCSC last year but chose UC Davis and loves it. Great school with a great college town and a top-notch Biology program (definitely “ranked” in the top).
It’s so hard to understand! My D23 was waitlisted at UW, Long Beach, no word from Cal Poly or SDSU but accepted in Business Administration Econ at UCSC, which is not her first choice because it’s too close to home.
Too bad that can’t let us parents sort it out “I’ll trade you my UCSC for your SDSU…”.
Its so wild to me that there are so many kids who got waitlisted at UCSC but got into SLO. I just can’t figure out the logic for these admission decisions. My DS got into both UCD and UCSC but not SLO (or so it appears at this point).
SLO and UCSC use different application review criteria. You cannot compare those to 2 schools when it comes to admission decisions.
Of 66,033 who applied to UCSC , they admitted 31,096 and waitlisted 18,099. That means they admitted or waitlisted 49,195 of the people that applied, ~74%.
Even worse, 1,573 of 3,869 admitted came off the waiting list , so only 2,296 ( 3,869 - 1,576 ) were admitted directly and enrolled. 2,296 out of 31,096.
They clearly knew my daughter looked at them as a safety school. They know their yield, because they are admitting so many people.
UCSC Common Data 2022-2023. mediafiles.ucsc.edu/iraps/common-data-set/common-data-set-2022-23.pdf
I know that the UC application is much more holistic it just seems like if you have high enough stats to get into a highly selective school like SLO you would get into UCSC which has a much higher admit rate. I’m thankful for the holistic application though because it seems to be working in my son’s favor.
What UCSC is doing to me and others in this thread is called Yield Protection.
The colleges run their admissions with an eye on the US News rankings. Specifically, the data points US News uses and their percentages in their ranking formula. (They like to look at our grades, but they don’t want to be graded themselves…)
Yield protection means, if they think an applicant is overqualified, they reject him. If they admit him, very low odds he will attend. And when he doesn’t matriculate, it dinks two of the college’s numbers. 1. the yield of, percent admitted that then matriculate, which they want to keep high. And also 2. their percent admitted, which they want to keep low, to look selective.
In theory, if the kid chose UCSC instead of USC, it would bump UCSC’s numbers for SAT or GPA. But net net the odds of this are so low, that the overall optimization is to reject them, for the two benefits of yield protection above.
I realize that a court ruling prohibits any UC from accepting SAT scores. But probably the mistake was to let them know that she was national merit semi-finalist. I don’t know if there’s a way to only tell UCB and UCLA this but not tell UCSC and UCD.
It’s not a good idea to assume UCSC is a safety school these days. Back in 2019, my eldest daughter got accepted everywhere she applied (Cal Poly Slo, UCSC, UCI, UCD, UCSB and waitlisted at UCLA 4.0 gpa / 4.4 capped / 4.67 uncapped) including first round UC Santa Cruz with merit scholarship. She ultimately chose UC Davis because she didn’t want to go to college in Southern California.
In 2020, my second daughter got accepted to UCM, UCR, UCSC, UCD and rejected from UCI and UCSB. She also chose to go to Davis. 3.9 gpa / 4.2 weighted.
This year, my third daughter has so far been accepted to UCR, UCSC and waitlisted at UCD. 3.89 gpa / 4.19 weighted but different major.
UCSC is not a safety school these days. Since covid and the removal of the SAT, the application process has become much more holistic and the decisions are very different to four years ago when my first daughter applied.
I would contradict your Yield Protection assumption. The Yield protection theory comes up every year when top students feel they should have gotten into a particular school.
Yield protect is a strategy some individuals feel that is used by colleges to increase their yield rate which in basically rejects highly qualified applicants who they believe will not enroll if accepted. Schools that offer EA/ED/EDII/SCEA or REA have been associated with this Yield protection concept but not confirmed. Since UC’s do not consider an applicants interest in their admission criteria, this strategy does not fit the UC model.
Yield management uses a colleges historical yield rate to determine how many students need to be admitted to fill their incoming classes. They use their yield rate to predict revenue, housing availability and the # of course offerings needed each year. One of the ways the UC’s can mange their yield is through their waitlists.
UCSC has shown with the utilization of their waitlists that they Yield Manage.
Important to remember that every school is building an entire class as well as looking at each individual. They want a well-rounded class with a variety of strengths and interests and backgrounds. So people with nearly identical stats can get different results b/c they might fill the same niche and the school can only accommodate a certain number of students in that niche.
I doubt this. UC is not a private school and the application fee is to do exactly that.
More than likely it was something else. No one knows for sure. But I think it would be to geographic diversity. The UCs are under pressure to admit people from all over the state.
Also
Yes my DS1 applied to two Cal States (accepted to one), my DS2 applied to two Cal States (accepted to both), my DS3 applied to five Cal States (accepted to all), my DD4 applied to two (accepted to one so far). And so far 2 of my 4 kids SIRed to a Cal State. I’m a huge fan of these Cal States in particular: Chico, Cal Poly SLO, Cal Poly Humboldt, SDSU, CSULB, and Cal State Monterey Bay which is an overlooked gem (right next to some of the most beautiful territory on earth–Carmel and Monterey!). San Marcos is another up-and-coming gem. And Sac State is located right on the American river for great white water rafting. 