http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/12/19/uc-freshmen-applications-hit-new-high/
freshman hopefuls at one campus — UCLA — topped six figures, to 102,177
Freshman applications at four schools — Berkeley, Los Angeles, San Diego and Irvine — topped 85,000
Another day in California.
At least we have good weather!
From the article:
Let’s hope the “writer” didn’t graduate from one of those fine universities. Sheesh, that’s just deplorable writing.
Writer was just trying to decide between “got” and “were” and left them both in accidentally. Agree that an editor should’ve caught that, but sometimes your mind fixes the text as you read. I’m surprised a built-in grammar editor didn’t flag it, though.
Tell me that the Admissions office is not earning there pay. To read through 102,000 applications and evaluate each one is quite a task. I applaud the UCLA staff for their hard work. And should I understand that this is just the early applications (ED/EA). Would they be expecting another 100,000 RD applications? Amazing stuff.
Re #5
They have to hire lots of seasonal admissions readers, since each application is read and scored by two or three readers.
UCs don’t have EA and RD. They have only one deadline.
Wow!
The UC deadline was November 30, which is why they have these numbers already.
@MotherOfDragons – newspapers have let go most of their editing staff. Journalists are apparently supposed to edit their own pieces. I have some editor friends who frequently note the sharp rise in typos and errors of the sort you quoted in news articles over the last few years. Someone I know just today posted on Facebook a headline that was published in 4 local papers giving the results from one of yesterday’s football games – except they got the name of one of the teams wrong.
One deadline and one application for all nine undergraduate campuses. UCs don’t have Affirmative Action or legacy preferences either. They do, however, vigorously recruit athletes, especially the athletic powerhouses Berkeley and UCLA.
@dustypig I know; I used to work for a newspaper as an editor. The writing quality that is acceptable today is appalling.
To keep this on topic, how on earth do the adcoms go through 102k applications? Is there any automation at any level? I’d hope so.
Note that there are no transcripts on application – applicants self-report courses and grades, to be verified later with final transcripts for those who matriculate. This substantially reduces the data entry work at the school, since it is effectively offloaded to the applicants.
At least at Berkeley, the process is something like this:
Each application is read and scored (on a 1 to 5 scale, with 1 being the best) by two different readers. If the scores differ by too much, a third senior reader scores the application.
Then all scored applications are ranked within division or major as applicable. The cutoff determined by the number of admits desired (which is presumably determined by the estimated yield) will fall at some score level. All better are admitted, all worse are rejected. At the threshold score level, tie breaking procedures are used to determine admit or reject decisions. Note that there is not a small central admissions committee reading all of the applications and becoming a bottleneck in the process.
Recruited athletes are run through the usual process with no special consideration (though the sport counts as an extracurricular, of course). Those who are not admitted through the usual process are considered for the spots reserved for recruited athletes.
There are no letters of recommendation either. If you send them anyway they won’t read them. However, a few departments or campuses have in recent years started requesting rec letters as part of a supplemental review of certain applicants.
I wonder how many of the 60,000 OOS and international applicants will be admitted and surprised that they receive no financial aid?
I don’t think so. I know plenty of kids who were recruited and did not go through the regular process. Do you think Missy Franklin (Cal) or Snoop Dog’s son (UCLA) just sent in applications and hoped to be accepted? I think their applications are in a special pile.
What I wrote that you quoted indicates that there is a “special pile” for recruited athletes who were not admitted through the usual process. But it is just that recruited athletes are put into the usual process first, but rejection from the usual process means landing in the “special pile” rather than just rejection.
I still don’t agree that recruited athletes just send in an application to their chosen UC and wait to hear if they’ve been accepted. Their sports are not just another EC, even if it says ‘Olympics gold medal winner’ or ‘played in the McDonald’s All American game’. The admissions office knows which athletes are being admitted and they don’t get rejected first and then admitted. Do their applications look just like all the others? Yes. Are their applications processed just like all the others? No.
A billion years ago, I worked at UC Berkeley’s summer session office. Plenty of “special” kids applied, but there really was no “special pile.”
Prince Albert of Monaco was one of the applicants, as was a homeschooled Rothschild from France, this would be his first ever experience at a school - up to then he had tutors come to him. They both got in, the former didn’t end up taking courses there, but the latter did.
I’m sure times have changed, even at the summer session office. But it was kind of fun looking at a royal application. (Which wasn’t signed, btw. We returned it for the royal signature.)
As stated previously, they are run through the regular admission process first, but those not admitted then are considered for the recruited athlete admit spots. Note that this means that those admitted through the regular process do not take up any of the recruited athlete admit spots.
You may want to read http://academic-senate.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/committees/aepe/student_athelete_admissions_policy_2016-2017_approved.pdf to see how recruited athlete applications are handled.