It may also be related to ELC status.
Eligibility in the Local Context (ELC) is a program by which the University of California identifies top-performing California high school students. Unlike the broader statewide eligibility pathway, which seeks to recognize top students from throughout the state, ELC draws qualified students from among the top 9 percent of each participating high school.
The ELC program was implemented to:
My dd is ElC qualified, had 1400 sat, 3.96 unweighted gpa 4.46 weighted capped … all honors and Ap classes, lots of extra curricular activities and volunteer work plus leadership roles and We haven’t heard anything…
Well there goes that theory…
In either case, these early acceptances are a very small pool of kids and not reflective of the majority that get accepted.
@NorCalsoccermom Stats could be a driving force in the early admits! However on a lot of other forums (and I’ve been searching Reddit like crazy lol) people have also given stats that weren’t as high. Also many very high stats kids haven’t heard anything yet.
I’m assuming there must be some logical method to these early admits, but it could also be related to high performing high schools that consistently produce successful students at SC. I can’t imagine how they begin to tackle the amount of applications they receive, but it sounds like the process would make an interesting documentary!
My daughter is from a high performing public high school (kids had to have high achievement tests and pretty much straight As in middle school to get in), and as a I mentioned before, about half the senior class applied to SC last year, and more than half of those got in (though only 18 enrolled). But while my daughter’s a very good student, she’s not one of the high achievers (for this school), yet she was one of the few to get the early acceptance. I looked (here) at the early admits from last year and many seemed to be out-of-state or international, but that seems less true this year… I think?
SophiElliot mentioned the possibility that personal statements were a factor this year, though she found that doubtful. I find that doubtful, too, but at the same time, that would seem to be the only possible thing that could set my daughter apart (maybe including the ECs she mentioned in the essays). Her 11th grade AP English teacher, who has extremely high standards, made college essays a course requirement, and she really loved my daughter’s essays–thought they told a good story and were moving.
Or… it’s all totally random, and just a practice run for the real deal. At any rate, the rest of you/your children sound like shoo-ins!
@Junipero One could only speculate. One theory is yield protection, offering early admission to kids with high stats who may be in the top percentiles of enrolled UCSC students, but not to those with over the chart stats who will likely get into UCB/UCLA? Just a theory.
Now that makes sense-- for my daughter’s situation, anyway. (Definitely not expecting offers from UCB or UCLA!)
Most of the early SC admits at my daughter’s hs, at least those that she knows about, were not particularly high stat kids. solid stats, but nothing exceptional. The one thing that they all had in common, was that they had not applied to either UCLA or UCB.
It is my understanding that UCSC uses UCLA and UCB read scores for kids who applied at one or both of these campuses and ONLY does initial reads for applicants who did not apply to UCB and UCLA. They will read these applicants if they fall into score groups with a large number of applicants and where the group need to be whittled down and decisions need to be made.
I also notice that high stats kids in either CS and Engineering seem to get early offers from SC.
Just a guess, but it seems like this is a yield protecting strategy, making offers to strong/qualified candidates where UCSC is not competing with UCB or UCLA, and offering early admit to very high stat kids in impacted or highly competitive majors like CS (again related to the likelihood of gaining admission to UCB or UCLA).
My theory assumes that UCSC still uses this method to evaluate candidates. I haven’t seen any updates to this policy, but I can’t confirm that they still do this.
Also, the pattern that I notice at my daughter’s school is based on a small number of students.
Like every other comment on here, this is pure speculation, so don’t try to make predictions and don’t stress about it.
Just curious who applied to UCB and UCLA as well as UCSC, and if early admit was extended and in which majors. Please share in the comments.
My D applied to both UCB & UCLA as did several of her classmates that got the early invite to SC, mainly all that were ELCs at her school. I figured ELC was the common thread but that has since been disputed by another post. However my D did not get any of the other early UC notices, as some lower stats at her hs received. Who knows why they make these decisions…It’s nice for those who got in but adds anxiety to the other qualified applicants.
My son got early admit for UCI and UCSC. He has applied for Bioengineering. Few student from his high school got into all three UC that is Irvine, Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara. Those kids have applied for CS. But he did not got into Santa Barbara as he applied Biology there ,as they do not offer bioengineering. All the kids whoever have got have applied to UCLA, UCSD and UCB. All the kids have high stats here.
Daughter is ELC with solid stats (higher than several I’ve seen for the early UCSC admits) & didn’t hear from SC or Irvine. She did receive the Chancellor’s invite/ letter from UCSB, though. Oh, and she’s applied for UCB, for whatever that’s worth.
I did notice that the honors/early admits for UCI all seem to have pretty high SAT scores, which she does not.
I may be mistaken but I have notice many that were accepted were lqbtq, people of color, first generation college, ect. Perhaps they are sifting through the qualified applications with diversity first and then the general pool? My daughter has no diversity, is gender confirming, has 2 college educated parents, an intact family and is from an upper middle class family. We literally check no boxes. Just a thought…
I applied to Berkeley, UCLA, and UCSD (no early admission/scholarship invites from any of them). I got in for biomolecular engineering. A friend got in early after applying to all the UCs for CS
@travelmom5
Your theory is consistent with what I’m seeing amongst my kid’s friends.
And I’m glad they make a diverse class a top priority.
My daughter seems the outlier again among early admits. Her situation sounds similar to your daughter’s (no boxes to check), unless having been adopted (as a baby) from Vietnam checks some boxes: immigrant, adopted? I mean, being Asian wouldn’t help/hurt a UC application… and was there actually anywhere to check “adopted”? I assume the application asked where she was born, but she is still (legally) known by her Vietnamese surname and she didn’t mention adoption in the essays, so the assumption would probably be that her family is also Vietnamese. (We’re white.) Also, she did apply to UCB (my alma mater before it got so competitive) and UCLA, but with no expectation of actually receiving an offer.
Maybe she is just an exception for some reason…
@travelmom5 @Junipero Both my friend and I who got in early are straight, Asian (think overrepresented Asian), have college educated parents, live in stable households, and are reasonably wealthy. We don’t have any of the diversity checkboxes. However, we both attend a high school that has a history of sending the majority of its top students to UCs.
My son is also from a competitive high school with no hooks (e.g., first gen, URM, LGBTQ, etc.). Applied for engineering to 8 UCs and received early admission to UCSC.
It seems all of the top 10 students at my son’s HS have heard from a variety of UCs- UCLA, UCB, UCSB and UCSC- many with Regents offers, except my son. He has strong stats -1530 SAT, 4.0 UW GPA; 800 Subject Test scores in Math II and Physics- so hoping he gets some good news soon. His best friend has almost identical stats and she applied to many of the same schools for computer engineering. Hopefully UCs don’t frown on taking 2 great students from the same high school for the same major.
I think anyone searching for a pattern is out of luck. My daughter with no early admit and her friend with are virtually identical upper middle class white girls. Commended but not NMF, high grades and SAT scores, multiple high AP scores, equivalent but different ECs, both applied to UCB, and so on.