@separatelayer Did you have a compelling extracurricular/intellectual vitality profile? I’m speculating that the alumni scholarship invitation emphasizes holistic review over stats and that those with the most interesting profiles were invited to apply. People who are lively and very engaged in their field and would respond well to alumni mentoring. Pure speculation.
I don’t think I am that special. I have a very strong interest in physiology/biology/anatomy, and ultimately I hope to go to med school. I think this came through in my application. I was a good athlete in a particular sport (not D1 level–think D3 level) but had to give it up after an accident and subsequent injuries. I also got the supplemental questionnaire (probably because I had to drop a couple of classes when I missed months of school after my accident). My interest in medicine is related, in large part, to my accident and injuries.
@separatelayer That is a very compelling profile, especially the fact that your interest in medicine is coming from a real adversity experience, rather than self-interested careerism.
Agreed. I am always impressed by those who not only have overcome adversity in life but also gone on to advocate/help others who face similar challenges. Good luck to your application.
@savethelemurs and @2015vintagemars thank you so much. My dad was a first gen at UCLA, and some of my earliest memories are dressing up in my UCLA cheerleader uniform and tailgating at the UCLA/USC games with his college friends and their families. Being admitted would be a dream come true.
My son received an invite to apply to Alumni but not Regents scholar.
He has a pretty good stat (Weighted: 4.7, Unweighted: 4.0, UC GPA: 4.39, ACT=36.
UCLA is his first choice and he is quite pessimistic about getting in since he didn’t receive Regents invite.
Another email he didn’t get is the “Explore Campus Life at UCLA”. Does anyone know if this email mean anything?
@Joy2009 Also received “Explore Campus Life at UCLA” email but pretty sure that one is a general mass email to anyone who applied or signed up to be on an interest address list.
@Joy2009 My son also received the Alumni email and no “Explore” email. He has been receiving promotional emails from UCLA since last spring - they started right after he took the ACT so assuming he was initially on a purchased mailing list and now just receives because he applied. Although it is unclear if the Alumni email is an indication of a higher probability of acceptance, it helped to keep his hopes up at a time when it’s crickets from the UCs. Good luck to your son!
Thank you @kittycat1203 and @Calmom20!
@Joy2009 Your son’s stats are amazing! Regents Scholarship offer goes out to only the top 1-2% (1,000 to 2,000 students out of approx. 110,000 applicants), and eventually, only 100 students get it. In other words, not many students get an offer. IMO, your son should be fine with his stats. Good luck!
I’ve received the Alumni email (applied!) and the Explore Campus Life at UCLA email. I’ve also received a few others like one for a Twitter chat and one about affordability all from Office of Admissions.
Reeeealy hoping this is a good sign since I applied for TFT majoring in Film and I know the admission rate is crazy low. I’m sure everyone that’s applied gets all these emails but it’s nice they keep in touch.
My son got the alumni invite (UC GPA 4.21, UW 3.93) but his friend did not (UC GPA 3.95). Both have major ECs (athletics and community service). I only have n=2, but perhaps only those above certain stats are invited?
Only 3 emails matter in terms of hinting at eventual acceptance. The rest are sent to everyone. They are the regents, alumni scholarship, and discover engineering invite. The regents is pretty much guaranteed, the alumni scholarship email only has a correlation, the discover engineering email is the equivalent of a likely letter and is sent just before admissions is released.
I’m hoping this might be a helpful insight regarding the email-received/not received questions. My hunch is that UCLA, like most companies that use email marketing, is tracking open and click-through rates for the communications they send. This is done automatically by whatever marketing software they are using and based on the data, they will push out additional communications to those who maybe are not opening. My son did not receive the “Explore” email but he has been opening and clicking through on all the other communications coming from UCLA so they may already see that he has received and engaged in the information being sent. Again, just sharing my hunch (and it’s only a hunch) so that all our poor kids who are so stressed out understand that there may be a simple reason for not receiving.
@10s4life - my son applied for engineering. He got the alumni email but not the discover engineering email. Oh well, guess best not to think too much of it. Thank you for the info.
I think we are reading too much into these email situations. As most people agree, the invitation to regents is definitely a good sign. However, all the other emails, such as the Alumni scholarship, have only minor to little correlation to acceptance. I would avoid thinking about it too much, as these days a lot of people mentioned that the admission decision process is complicated. It’s not fair for us to raise or lower our hope based on something without too much proof. Sit back, relax and wait for the decision. You may be in for a happy surprise if your expectation is low! On the other hand if your expectation is high, you can potentially be very disappointed. 
Discover engineering is sent about a week before acceptances come out @2015vintagemars
Uggh! It’s impossible not to get my hopes up after after receiving the alumni invitation and working really hard to write great essays for the application. How can I not get my hopes up. If I’m rejected, I’m going to feel like this invitation was a cruel and inconsiderate tease.
I really don’t like how deadlines and invitations are released before decisions.
My D received alumni email (UC GPA 4.22). While solid, certainly not close to UCLA standards. However, her resume is solid (almost 600 service hours, elite athlete, Jr Olympics gold medalist, FAA licensed, Native American of federally recognized tribe, well spoken). If she gets in it will be on resume, not stats. Will be interesting to see if the insight questions & accomplishments outside the classroom make the difference.