The numbers between UCLA and Berkeley have been essentially identical for many yeas (.1 GPA average here, 10 points on the SAT there). I can’t imagine any student applying to UCLA because they think they will get in, but then NOT applying to Berkeley because they don’t think they will get in. That just doesn’t add up to me.
I think a lot of people want to live in Los Angeles, especially the Brentwood/Bel Air/Beverly Hills area, in which UCLA is nestled right in the middle. I love Berkeley personally, but I don’t think the town offers the same universal appeal.
“I can’t imagine any student applying to UCLA because they think they will get in, but then NOT applying to Berkeley because they don’t think they will get in. That just doesn’t add up to me.”
If you look at the applicant stats (https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/freshman-admissions-summary) of HS GPA by campus, significantly more students with a relatively low GPA (below 3.8 weighted) apply to UCLA and have little chance of getting in (they account for less than 5% of admitted students). The % of freshman applicants with <3.8 weighted GPA for each campus was:
2017: UCLA 33% UCB 27%
2016: UCLA 34% UCB 27%
2015: UCLA 36% UCB 28%
2014: UCLA 37% UCB 30%
2013: UCLA 39% UCB 32%
2012: UCLA 41% UCB 34%
The absolute number of lower stat applicants would show an even greater disparity, since UCLA has more applications in total than UCB. So it looks to me like many people just haven’t realized how selective UCLA is. But that may change in the future with the publicity about record low admission rates.
“I think a lot of people want to live in Los Angeles, especially the Brentwood/Bel Air/Beverly Hills area, in which UCLA is nestled right in the middle”
No one in college or recent college graduates at UCLA are living in these areas, just too expensive. They may try to live in Santa Monica or the south bay but again very expensive. While Berkeley isn’t the best city to live in, the surrounding SF bay area including the east bay is very desirable to work and live.
But MOST students have < 3.8 GPA. You erroneously are assuming they are applying to UCLA and not Cal because they think they have a better chance of getting in. Did you talk to those applicants?
Are there other reasons to apply to a school? Yes. Are you wanting to consider those reasons? Nope.
Sorry, I used to teach LSAT test prep, and your argument is a classic red herring on the logic questions…
“You erroneously are assuming they are applying to UCLA and not Cal because they think they have a better chance of getting in.”
No I said that more lower stat applicants are applying to UCLA. Since there are more of them in both % terms and absolute numbers, some of those lower stat applicants also decided not to apply to Cal, for whatever reason.
I then went on to hypothesize that (“it looks to me like”) one possible reason might be that lower stat students have a misleading impression of the relative difficulty of getting into the two schools. There may be others, like the weather being nicer in Westwood, more local students, or simply the on-campus housing situation at UCLA being better, as noted in post #39. But IF one contributing factor is a misleading impression of relative difficulty, then those impressions could change, assisted by recent publicity.
IF those impressions were a significant factor and did change, then one consequence would be a narrowing of the gap in total numbers of applications between UCLA and UCB (all else remaining equal), as lower stat applicants were deterred from applying. Of course all else not will remain equal. Nevertheless, it will still be interesting to see how the relative number of applications to UCLA and UCB changes in the next few years.
[Mathematically, my hypothesis is that if the number of applications N = f(A,B,C,…) where A, B and C are various contributing factors, with A being the perceived difficulty of getting in, the derivative df/dA is negative at least in the region of the current values of A, B, C,… (It won’t be necessarily be negative for all values of A - if a school becomes very unselective, a lot of students may then decide it’s not worth applying, but when most high stat California students do already apply, there are probably more to be lost at the low end as A increases than there are to gain at the high end). We can’t observe (let alone prove) what the precise shape of f() is, or really even characterize the various factors precisely. However, it would be fun to run some multivariate regressions across the number of applications to a large number of colleges to see what some of those factors might be (remembering that correlation does not prove causation).]
California residents have to be worried about those middle class parents who make 200K+, and have top students for kids, but won’t get any or too little FA to send them to a top private school, so they look at UCLA and UCB as their best affordable (due to COL in CA) choices (maybe only choices as far as they are concerned for their very bright children) only to be denied by the dropping acceptance rates………
@KTJordan78 I think a bigger problem for UCLA–and all the UCs–is that its financial aid policy is going to result in the university being transformed into a regional university as opposed to national one. For OOS students, it is now inaccessible except for those from wealthy backgrounds. Contrast this with University of Michigan and University of Virginia, both of which offer substantial financial aid to OOS students and, in both cases, promise to meet the full need of all OOS students with signifiant financial need.
Internationally and nationally, UCB still enjoys significantly higher “name recognition”, being referred to as a “public Ivy”. Living abroad, Berkeley is one of the few public universities mentioned along with the Ivies, Stanford and University of Chicago. This may not be an accurate indicator of its academic prowess but it is reality.
