The UCs care a lot about fit. And while they use waitlists to MANAGE yield, they do not yield protect. It’s just not a thing at schools like UCs that don’t even have a traditional “admissions committee” discussion process.
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Where’s the lie though? These kids are the one’s actually winning - as in they get the spots, whereas the others are left to winning arguments on online forums.
Harvard has legacy - its not some mecca of meritorious admissions. They don’t see through the propped up profiles. If anything, Harvard and their ilk provide a platform for mediocre connected legacy kids to bask in the reflected halo of the genuinely talented.
The UCs do a FAR better job of ensuring upward mobility and making admissions as merit based as possible. While the UC process is still flawed, I much more prefer their approach than that of a Harvard.
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Have you seen who sits in admissions? My son’s private counselor who used to be in Harvard admissions told him he couldn’t call his Real Analysis class an advanced class. He said advanced class would be something like Calculus and admissions would think he was padding the application.
Also a ton of kids have patents because it takes money to file them and a know how and you don’t really need to invent anything worthwhile.
Emperor has no clothes.
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I personally only know one kid who has done this. Mine. And this is VERY far from the case. So while I’m sure this is sometimes true, I do take issue with painting all such kids with such a broad brush.
For us, it’s just the opposite. We prefer she spend her time getting hands-on experience where possible than on test prep 
So different strokes and all that…
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I just quibble with the generalization here. Certainly, there are affluent kids who have ALSO overcome adversity, such as cancer, loss of a parent, etc.
Again, this is about fit from the school’s perspective, and there isn’t a definitive line. Maybe the thing that put some affluent students into the acceptance pile are not their amazing ECs and summer programs and research, but the adversity they wrote about in the PIQs.
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I am not at all surprised that this is happening. Those application evaluators are not capable of understanding what Real Analysis means.
And you are exactly right that people with money have huge advantage in this system where the balance has shifted towards more subjective measures.
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Interesting. CS is such a small program at UCSB–I wonder if they underenrolled a bit, if they are already letting students off the waitlist. But since you are OOS, they are likely trying to fill their OOS allotment (18% or something like that). So maybe they already know their OOS CS offers are being declined more than predicted. (Since it’s not May 1 yet.) Congrats on Purdue. And it’s very important to be $100K richer :). You could save that for grad school or a cruise around the world. . .
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Why do you believe on the one hand that elite colleges “see through” token research but on the other hand believe they don’t see through unearned, exaggerated or fake aspects of their resume that help form the “holistic” review?
To be clear, I’m personally in support that test scores schools be considered. I also agree that grades can and are often manipulated both by entire schools or by activists students and parents. Ask any teacher their honest stories and you will hear about the pressure they are put under where the squeaky wheels often are rewarded.
But I’m not convinced that there is no room for holistic admissions. I suspect the high rejective schools are pretty savvy about what they are looking for here, and it’s often not what outsiders would predict. They probably see through the kids with a million activities but not a lot of specifics about what they accomplished in them. One of the things I liked about the UC application is it tried to force applicants to get specific about what they accomplished in a club or activity as opposed to just being a member or an officer.
From the admitted student events I have attended from some elite schools, you get clues to what they seek. They often mention “passion” — did someone invest deeply in an activity in a way that demonstrated a love for it and a desire to make a difference or share it. So being a top musically performer is fine, but when they see the person used that to do free performances for local retirement homes or tutor under privileged kids in their instruments or that they turned it into employment, etc., it goes beyond just an accomplishment. I heard an Ivy the other day say that when they get to their final sort (meaning everyone left is well qualified), they look for who stood out in demonstrating kindness. When a school has more top 1% students than their class size, they identify all kinds of specific things that helps align their student body with their institutional character and priorities.
To be brutally honest, even these have become very performative and deliberate. Its not the kids - its the parents who seem to take a formulaic approach to even these honorable endeavors.
May be I’ve become a bit more cynical than I want to but the entire process that places so much emphasis on the “top schools” leads to some unsavory behaviors learned early in life, and potentially corrupts kids for the rest of their lifetime.
One thing the UCs do is the admission in local context where primarily kids are competing with others in their school. Obviously this approach doesn’t scale with the high demand majors but there is at least some effort being made by the institution to be as fair as possible. I don’t see the Ivys doing that level of diligence - they are more interested in maintaining exclusivity rather than meeting educational demands.
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You shouldn’t need to have to overcome adversity to be a good candidate for college. It’s OK that rich kids get a lot of summer opportunities. Urban kids also get a lot more opportunities than rural kids. It’s hard to know exactly who had what opportunities in front of them and what they took advantage and what they didn’t. It’s impossible for admissions to know that. How would they know if a kid got an internship because their neighbor is a CEO? They don’t.
I think in some ways I like UC emphasis on grades and class rigor. Those are a lot more objective. Not as standardized as tests, but still better than “I filed a patent because my uncle is a lawyer and knows how to do it.
I guess on the positive side of all this college madness is we have a ton of outstanding kids in this country. That’s not a small thing.
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But similar to the research issue - yes, some are performative, some are fluff, some are “bought” - but of course some are not. I imagine AOs try to discern which is which. Likely they are not able to 100% of the time, but surely some are savvy enough to figure this out and not essentially penalize a hardworking kid because other applicants may be exploiting privilege?
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I completely agree that the message MUST be to “apply broadly” to the UCs. My DD applied to 7: accepted to 3, waitlisted at 2, rejected from 2. None of these results were predictable. If she hadn’t applied to 7, and only to the 4, she would have received no offers at all. (She SIR’d on Sunday to UCSB).
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Did I say this? My apologies if that was misunderstood.
I was trying to make the point that you can’t generalize students into one bucket or another. Like, affluent OR overcame adversity.
Defining buckets seems to be what so many parents want, so they can know where their kid will get admitted.
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It was not my perception that Cal values leadership over other qualities. I think UCLA values leadership and well roundedness, where it seems like Cal values passion in one area and will give a hard look at a pointier kid. My son was accepted to Cal and rejected at UCLA and the last several years at our school reinforce my theory, though obviously anecdotal. I do think PIQs are extremely important at all campus, but which qualities they are seeking in a student differ.
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They spend very little time per application. They get paid very little to read those apps (UCs gave out figure on that). Do you really want to trust somebody in 10 minutes to determine if our children are propped up or driven by passion? I don’t think they are savvy enough at all to do that. You would need to talk to a kid to get a sense.
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I also like UC’s obvious emphasis on grades and course rigor. I looked at the data and saw how the odds of admission are GREATLY increased if an applicant has 10+ AP/DE/IB classes AND 25+ a-g classes. Those stats, plus being in the top 9% ELC or state, plus not getting more than 3 Bs in high school, will put the odds of admission much higher than otherwise (except for CS/engineering majors maybe). And that’s regardless of what the ECs or PIQs show. Just the raw data. It’s found right on the UC website.
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Once again, the response is likely shaped by personal experience: if the outcome was in your favor, it is much easier to trust in that; if not, then obviously greater suspicion about the process.
The truth of it is likely somewhere in between.
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@gumbymom had a post which summarized the characrteristics each UC emphasizes and I believe Cal was called out as looking for leadership examples. Also, if you look at the Cal admissions site, they make it very clear that leadership is of significant importance in their selection process since they have a specific video to talk just about that.
I am also skeptical that this complex process of 4 PIQs, and 20 Activities & Awards on top of rigor of coursework and grades actually leads to better outcome for under-privileged students. It does give an advantage to students who can “articulate” their story better.
But I am genuinely surprised by the fierce defense of this admission system here. I think the current admission system serves UC bureaucracy and their administrative bloat. We should not be oblivious of how UCs treat their Graduate Student Instructors and their teaching faculty. I recently came across this article in Bloomberg. It makes some excellent points:
Mine is heading to UCLA, so I am not complaining for my kid’s outcome. He also got Regents at two other UCs. Yet I still don’t trust reviewers with 10 minutes to decide.
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