I just felt the need to write this rant to convey my feelings regarding UC and college admissions this year. I hope many of you can agree or relate.
I have always felt inadequate and unfulfilled in many of my endeavors in life, even despite friends and family telling my how proud they are of my accomplishments.
When beginning the college admissions process, I already had the mindset of a pessimist and prepared myself for the worst possible outcomes. I have thoroughly researched and read posts on CC of people getting accepted into UCs with lower stats, or what I like to call the “shock acceptances”. My tutor and I worked closely to polish my personal statements, while incorporating my extracurricular activities and goals as well. I genuinely felt that what I did was sufficient, but considering the competition nowadays, I knew my chances at the top tier UCs were slim, even though I had a 2110 SAT score, a 31 ACT, and an ~4.3 UC GPA. I was prepared for the unexpected.
After receiving acceptances from UCSB, UC Davis, and UCI, I was content. Not thrilled beyond belief. But content. UCSD was the first acceptance that shocked me and it has always been one of my top choices, which I am happy about. I feel proud to have been accepted there, and I am sure there is a reason.
Things started to change once I entered the “unpredictable zone”, or what I like to call my reach schools: UCLA, UC Berkeley, and USC. I was rejected from UCLA, and received 2 rejections today, from USC and then UC Berkeley. I was somewhat upset but quickly got over it. No tears shed. But the thing is, I expected maybe 2 of these to be rejections but 1 to be an acceptance. I really did not expect to be rejected from ALL of them! At this point Stanford is a lost dream 
Even more upsetting was the fact that many of my peers who were qualified for at least one of these schools (LA, Berk, SC) just did not get into any of them! Only people who were in the top 15 got in, and that was only SOME of those people! And one URM got into both LA and Berkeley and another URM to USC, neither of whom were in the top 15. And one got into USC with a 3.6 whose parents are legacies there. And it is upsetting for all of us who have higher stats who did not get in, even though schools say they do not discriminate or favor those who can pay their way through, or who are on the opposite spectrum and are living beyond their menas. The middle class is being penalized.
I am genuinely appalled and worried for future college applicants. Nonetheless I am grateful that I have the opportunity to attend UCSD hopefully in the fall. I understand there is limited space at these campuses and they must turn away many valuable applicants, but I just wish the people who truly deserved to get in got into the school of their choice. They need to cap the number of international applicants and somehow expand this system, or perhaps it’ll just take time for the system to correct itself as the demand for the lower UCs rises over the years. The process is just too random to me, and there is no explanation as to why the admissions officers make the decisions they make.
Oh and another thing. No one truly understands the stress and disappointment of college admissions other than the STUDENTS! Parents can comfort their children as much as they would like, but they don’t know what it feels like to feel like you COULD HAVE done this better. Or you COULD HAVE taken harder classes. Or you COULD HAVE played a sport. You are just left wondering “Why?” “How?” Or the feeling of family members and relatives being so confident in you, saying “You will for sure get in” and you having to deliver them the news that your were rejected. Then they say “I was shocked she didn’t get into [school]”. Like NO! You don’t have the right to say that because people who are AMAZING are getting rejected left and right, it’s not only about GPA and test scores when you are competing with so many like you!
And some students were just so unrealistic during the entire college process, wasting their money when their stats were not even high enough to land them at the lower UCs, like I’m talking about the “You have a 0 chance at those schools” type students. Their rejections sure slapped them into reality, although I don’t mean to say this cruelly but rather to make a point. Those students upset me because they wasted their time and energy and set themselves up for the worst situations when they could have applied to so many other great states schools, let’s say.
The greatest lesson the college admissions process has taught me is that each student ends up in the environment he or she will truly succeed in, but that the more realistic you are, the less likely you are to set yourself up for disappointment. Do not waste your money if you do not have the minimum GPA and test score requirements or you are setting yourself up for disappointment. Those are prerequisites nowadays. Good luck to all and please tell me what you think 