<p>Yes my son is in that big stack. Unfortunately there’s not much of a chance that he’ll get into his “dream” school. It was much easier when I attended in the early 80’s. I filled out one UC application and it never even occurred to me that I wouldn’t get in.</p>
<p>What I really don’t like is the inability to rank campuses when applying. My son (who will be applying for fall 2014) HIGHLY prefers Berkeley over UCLA - to the extent that he is wondering if leaving UCLA off the app will increase his chances for Berkeley. However, in our area, the majority of students are just the opposite: they prefer UCLA.</p>
<p>
That’s a real interesting idea I’ve never seen brought up before. I wonder if they would consider doing something like the Match Day program where med students and teaching hospitals each rank one another and then a computer program puts each student into the highest hospital they matched with.</p>
<p>
Everything I’ve read says that that’s not the case - they each review the app and make the admissions decision independently of whether one applied to a different UC or not.</p>
<p>On the ranking, I’m not sure it’d be very effective or telling. Most students would likely rank them with UCB and UCLA almost equally the top choice and the other the second choice, UCSD, then others, with UCR and UCM at the bottom. If most students rank similarly there’d be little difference in where they’d end up from the way it is today.</p>
<p>It is known that UC campuses have access to admission information from other campuses. For example, UCSC short-cuts the admission reading process by using admissions reading scores from B and/or LA if the same student also applied to B and/or LA as well as SC. In theory, the reading scores by readers at each campus should be same (or very close) for each applicant, but SC’s thresholds for admission are lower (i.e. a reading score that would be a reject at B or LA could be an admit at SC).</p>
<p><a href=“http://senate.ucsc.edu/committees/cafa-committee-on-admissions-and-financial-aid/cafa-admissions/CAFA052711scp1674.pdf[/url]”>http://senate.ucsc.edu/committees/cafa-committee-on-admissions-and-financial-aid/cafa-admissions/CAFA052711scp1674.pdf</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1306513-ucsc-using-holistic-scores-ucb-ucla-admit-decisions.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1306513-ucsc-using-holistic-scores-ucb-ucla-admit-decisions.html</a></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Back in the dark ages, UC used to allow applicants to prioritize of the top 3. But in reality, it matters not.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>With all due respect, UC just does not care what anyone’s child prefers. UC campuses admit who they prefer.</p>
<p>That webpage soliciting readers was depressing for all sorts of reasons. From the pay rates listed, it is unlikely that any application is getting more than a cursory review.</p>
<p>With so many applications and readers, I’m sure the school has instituted an extremely strict scoring rubric. Even though they are doing a “holistic” review, you can be sure that it is nothing like the holistic review at a small LAC where subjective factors may influence the admissions decisions. </p>
<p>Re schools sharing admission read scores: UC Davis relies on UCLA’s scores, but reads a certain number of apps that would be “denies” at UCLA but borderline at Davis. I assume that UCSC does the same thing with UC Berkeley scores.</p>
<p>My son is also in that stack for 3 of the UC’s. Fortunately he has already been accepted to his first choice school out of state. It’s nice to not be waiting to find out where he will be attending. </p>
<p>It was so much different when I applied in the late 70’s. It was pick 3 and rank. Plus I knew I would get into one of the three I picked. </p>
<p>I do believe that the top 5% (or some smaller number) of California graduates are guaranteed admittance to a UC, however it’s probably the Merced campus.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The UC holistic review process is designed for different goals. It is rather obvious that some of the goals are scalability and repeatability. The latter means that if the process were rerun on the same applicant pool, the result should be almost the same (though in any holistic process like this, there are bound to be some differences at the borderline), unlike the commonly held view that if a small private school reran its holistic admissions process, much of the admit class would be different.</p>
<p>“Holistic” does not mean that the process appears random or non-repeatable, or that (for example) an admissions reader admits or rejects an applicant from a certain city because the admissions reader visited that city and liked or did not like it.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Pretty sure that all of them that rely on the Berkeley system have a tie breaker system when the group of applicants at a given reading score is too large to fill the rest of the admission spots (e.g. 200 at that score to fill the last 100 spots after admitting all of the applicants with better reading scores.).</p>