thats what the admissions officer made it sound like, but we can never be to sure because then again, admissions officers aren’t really getting much information.
I just got off the phone with an AO, and they pretty much told me what everyone else has been saying. Here are some key points:
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Their waitlist doesn’t work like other colleges’ waitlists, and they do not have a ranking. Decisions are made at random within departments/majors where they want more students.
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Because of this, impacted majors have a much slimmer chance of getting off of the waitlist. I’m assuming this logic also applies to any popular major, but that’s not confirmed.
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Admissions officers do not get any numbers on how many people are gonna get off of the waitlist until the day before decisions come out. This was a big one cause I saw a Reddit post saying they contacted an AO and they said they’re most likely not gonna use the waitlist this year, which is not something they could really say as they don’t have the information yet.
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Decisions are made in waves. Two years ago there were 3 waves and last year there were 2. The AO said she did not know how many waves there would be this year, and said she would expect the first one to be mid to late march, though that’s just a prediction.
Hope this helps 
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hihi! thanks so much for the new info! Do you know what the reddit message meant, that theyre not going to use the waitlist that much this year? Was this message recent? Also do they mean like, theyre not going to take people off the waitlist?
I wouldn’t pay any attention to it as AO’s don’t have the information needed to say that. It was probably a spam post or something.
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Okok, thank you so much!
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March? We are in the middle of May?!
It was probably just a typo… they likely meant May
sorry for the late response! there weren’t any specific meetings, but if you scroll through the thread you can see that a few mentioned that they were coming out in small waves.
a very tiny number of students got off the waitlist around the beginning of may, but we can probably expect a larger batch coming out soon (hopefully)
hahahahaha yeah I meant May
if we’ve waited this long for a wave, is it safe to say not a lot of ppl will get off this year? its already middle of May and barely heard of anyone getting off. also the “small” waitlist pool probably meant that most spots were taken?
there’s plenty of other colleges that still havent released decisions yet either. i wouldn’t be too worried bc it’s a UC which is a pretty big school. smaller schools probably release their decisions sooner.
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what I heard is gov will give UC a certain policy about dorms. After that policy, UC can start to take people from WL.(I suppose all the people who got off wl early are in-state, because the dorm is not necessary for them.)
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do you mean in-state in the san diego area? bc in-state students could be from norcal and still need dorms
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not sure, that could be the whole CA or maybe LA SD?
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anybody heard anything yet?
Nothing here. It’s been pretty quiet.
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no ;( it’s a little disheartening because all the other UC’s seem to already be releasing waves of waitlist decisions… idk if ucsd will be using it- doesn’t seem like it anymore
actually i saw that ppl havent heard anything from ucd and i dont believe a lot of ppl have heard back from uci, so maybe there’s still hope! 
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Hi Gumbymom,
What’s your feeling into why UCSD is so radio silent with the waitlist? It’s odd being that it’s getting late. Thank you!
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I think that all the schools are being overly cautious and do not want to overenroll if they cannot accommodate all students that require dorms/housing for this year. LA county just posted updated information regarding Covid vaccinations and college campuses. Schools like UCSD, UCD, UCI etc… are probably waiting for their county guidelines before getting too deep into their waitlists.
http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/media/coronavirus/docs/protocols/Reopening_HigherEducation.pdf
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