Hello, I’m from the east coast and i know some schools i’ve applied to really seem to care about when a prospective student shows actual interest in attending. Tulane is a great example of this, as the admissions officer told me they look for students who email and attend visits, etc. Because the UC app isn’t too in depth, i want to know what else i can do -if anything- to help my chances. UCLA is my top, but im sure the same thing goes for SB. Thanks!
UCs go primarily off of your GPA and test scores. After that, they consider essays and ECs. I’ve never heard of UCs considering demonstrated interest.
I already answered this on one of several threads about the same subject started by OP. If you look on the common data sets for UCLA and UCSB, UCLA does not consider an applicants interest but UCSB does. However, @PhantomVirgo is correct that the most important factors for all the UC’s are GPA, test scores, HS course rigor and essays.
^ Huh, good to know. Do you happen to know if any of the other campuses consider demonstrated interest?
UC’s are so huge they really don’t take into consideration demonstrated interest unlike Tulane, which is a private school. Remember, UC’s are public. Living in California, I get the sense a lot of time that people forget they are public because they are considered so exclusive. Perhaps UCSanta Barbara does more than others, I don’t know, but I’d have a hard time believing that it matters much. We live in the SF Bay Area, and we visited UCLA, Berkeley, UCSD, and CalPoly (not a UC school; it’s a CSU school, but still public). None could have cared less. The tours are huge. Yes, you sign in. Now if you are huge in a sport or have a unique talent that a school like UCSB cares about, that may be different. Most important is that you are from the East Coast so would be paying out of state tuition (which UC’s love). Also depends on where on the East Coast you are from–the smaller and more unusual place, the better. As others have said, UC’s are a real numbers game unless a special talent or sport. Out of state gives you a bit of an edge–or international.
I believe UCI and UCM state on their common dataset that they consider an applicant’s interest but it by far a low priority when it comes to reviewing applications.
How do UCs even measure demonstrated interest?