UCSB hard to get in to?

<p>I don't really understand why people say this school is hard to get in to. They have a 45% acceptance rate yet people say that this school is on the same level as UCLA and Cal...</p>

<p>Not on the same level as Cal or UCLA but it is a UC so your not going to be able to just waltz in I believe the average gpa is above a 4.0 not sure what the Sat score (1900?) is but you can easily google that. I think Santa Barbra community college is what taints the name a little, but I’m really only going off hearsay I applied there for fall admission (my stats: 4.2/3.74 gpa 1640 sat good e.c w/ leadership and community service) but I know people get accepted with all kinds of stats 3.3 4.5 etc.</p>

<p>And to clarify when I said not on the same level I meant acceptance rate wise can’t speak for academics .</p>

<p>UCSB typically likes your GPA to be on the high side. Good test scores can only help.</p>

<p>Why don’t you post again when/if you get in? 45% acceptance means they reject more than they accept. And, perhaps a lot of out-of-state people don’t apply because the “big two” (Berk and UCLA) have more national/international prestige and are perceived to be worth the out-of-state tuition price. UCSB is a great deal for in-staters and is an amazing place to go to college for anyone, but it is pretty pricy for out-of-staters, esp. with no financial aid (which is pretty sparse to non-existent for OOS).</p>

<p>45% is still kinda high for an acceptance rate compared to some other colleges. If you think about it they are 5% away from being at 50% which means to me means that they almost accept half of their applicants. But I guess I would know. I didnt ask why certain people apply and why certain people dont either, or about the price, but thanks for the info that I already knew/didnt care about.</p>

<p>acceptance rate depends on yield. usually, people opt for other schools (if they applied to ucsb as a safety, for example) even if they get accepted so that lowers the yield, hence acceptance is higher. however, it is a more selective school. high test scores and good gpa don’t guarantee acceptance.</p>

<p>picordy is right on the money.</p>

<p>Every institution of higher ed has a Common Data Set:
<a href=“http://bap.ucsb.edu/IR/CDS.pdf[/url]”>http://bap.ucsb.edu/IR/CDS.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Scroll to pages 6-11 and you’ll get detailed stats on who they accept and how they select students. Depending on what your own stats are (whether they’re above, below, or within the averages), and the overall strength of your application, you can probably guess for yourself whether or not SB will be “hard” to get into or not.</p>