Why is UCLA so selective?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Los Angeles
1

<p>I can't figure out why UCLA has such a low admission rate. They don't require SAT subject tests or letters of recommendation, and their middle ACT scores aren't that high. It seems like I would be able to get into it, but all the other schools I've applied to have the same stats with much higher acceptance rates. What is the deciding factor in admission?</p>

2

<p>\My son got into UCLA last year.</p>

<p>As an out of stater, all he had to do was check a box on the California “common” application.</p>

<p>So it is my guess that almost every kid in California applies to UCLA. For many, its a reach. For others a target. For others a safety.</p>

<p>But every smart kid in the whole state applies.</p>

3

<p>The admissions rate is defined as the number of people who are admitted divided by total number of applicants. So either (a) there are space limitations that dictate number admitted and/or (b) a lot of people apply. Keep in mind that UCLA is most of the most-applied-to universities there are (might be the most popular school, according to UCLA Newsroom). A lot of people want to come here, so that explains that.</p>

4

<p>Indeed, that’s a really silly question. It’s simply a fact that UCLA gets many, many more applications every year than the number of students it must accept in order to fill its entering class.</p>

<p>I can’t imagine a better response to those numbers than selectivity. Were you thinking maybe “first-come, first-served,” or perhaps a lottery?</p>

<p>Your question seems based on an assumption that the labor-intensiveness of a university’s application is tied to the quality of the institution. But it’s not; they’re completely independent phenomena. It’s true that many leading universities have lengthier, more demanding applications, but that doesn’t mean that the difficulty of the application creates prestige or selectivity, or the other way around.</p>

5

<p>It was just a question. Their stats seemed similarly selective to other schools I applied to with 50-60% acceptance rates, so I was trying to figure it out. No need to be offended.</p>

6

<p>I completely agree with several of the things people have said here:
FloridaDad5 stated that “every smart kid in the whole state applies” which is completely true. I am a CA senior and every single kid I know who applied to any UC schools whatsoever applied to UCLA (in addition to Berkeley) simply because many people consider them the top 2 schools in the system.
Also, Sikorsky made a valuable point that the difficulty of the application has no ties whatsoever to the quality of the school itself. I offer Wesleyan U. as an example of this, which is considered one of the nation’s top liberal arts, and which didn’t require a single supplement!</p>

7

<p>UCLA and Berkeley have very high admissions standards when it comes to HS GPA – this seems to be a (probably the) major reason why the selectivity is so high even though the SAT 25-75 range is not as high as the SAT range at schools with similarly high selectivity.</p>

8

<p>It is easier to apply to additional UCs once you have applied to one of them. So pretty much everyone who thinks he has a chance will apply to UCLA, making its numbers artificially low by some extent. </p>

<p>Also, UCLA does not superscore, lowering its average SAT scores.</p>

9

<p>UCLA – UC as a whole – concentrates more on gpa, both w and uw, moreso than scores. UCLA’s uw gpa is ~ 3.82, wgpa through senior year would probably approach 4.4. The 4.24 wgpa that UCLA reports would be soph and jr. grades.</p>

<p>UCLA does some quirky things wrt SATI (I’ll abbreviate as SAT) and ACT reporting, thereby lowering its reporting of scores: </p>

<ol>
<li>UCLA’s website reports mean SAT, as well as mean ACT.</li>
<li>As Bubbles stated, UCLA doesn’t superscore.</li>
<li>UCLA double-counts a good portion of SAT and ACT scores.</li>
</ol>

<p>If you allow me to concentrate only on UCLA"s SAT reporting…</p>

<p>Wrt point 1:</p>

<p>UCLA reports a mean SAT of 1910. I haven’t looked at component scores, but I’m sure that the Writing component score probably lags in relation to Verbal and Math. I’m sure that this applies to students taking the test nationally; that is, students haven’t quite caught onto and adjusted to this fairly newly added writing component of the SAT … or test-scorers are tougher grading on this particular part.</p>

<p>Many, mainly private, maybe most u’s like to optimize their reporting of SAT’s by reporting 25th and 75th percentile medians, and occasionally report the 50th. They would never report a mean as UCLA does, because this would indeed lower their reported nos… When UCLA reports this 1910 mean, this will understate things overall because a mean SAT score will be materially lower than a 50th % median because there are a lot of really lower scores hidden in the bottom 25% of any u’s entering class, eg, athletes, special admits, etc. </p>

<p>If one notes that the greater concentration of UCLA matriculants is in the 2000 score range, ie, the highest point of the distribution curve, one could guess that 50th % median is probably around 1970 or so. The fenceposts for SAT scores are a little too far apart wrt spacing to really determine a more accurate determination of the 50th% SAT. Similarly finding a midpoint between 25th and 75th %-ile would be an erroneous 50th for any u, especially UCLA, for the same reasons given above … given the shape of the distribution curve. </p>

<p>So the act of converting from a mean/average to 50th %-ile mean is as follows:</p>

<p>1910 -> 1970</p>

<p>Wrt point 2:</p>

<p>UCLA doesn’t superscore SAT’s. Those students who take the SAT more than once, depending on factors of the amount of study prep and comfort the first time vis-a-vis the second, tend to ascend their scores pretty materially, 60 to > 100 points. The act of converting UCLA”s unsuper to superscored, is tough, depending on the % of UCLA’s matriculants who retake the SAT.</p>

<p>This is similarly hard to find, but in the admit cycle for 2011, UCLA reported > 135% who took both SAT and ACT. This would probably mean that there were a good portion who retook solely the SAT instead of changing from one of these two boards to the other. </p>

<p>I don’t have anything definitive on the bump-up of scores from unsuper to superscored, but a rule of thumb on the College Search board stated something to the effect of 20 points per section. Given there are three parts this would mean a 60-point increase for UCLA. But conservatively, I’ll use 40.</p>

<p>The act of converting UCLA”s scores from unsuper (I’m unaware of the term for this) to superscored is:</p>

<p>1970 -> 2010</p>

<p>Lastly wrt point 3:</p>

<p>UCLA reports all of the ACT’s and SAT’s reported by ~ domestic matriculants. I’m not sure why, but on UCLA”s website, there is a definite lower portion of SAT’s reported by an amount of > 1,000 of the total who matriculated to the U, which appears to solely domestics. </p>

<p>I would guess that Int’l students would have higher scores on average than domestic students becasue scores would carry more weight for them because of often a lack of conversion from foreign-school grades to US, to compare each of these sets of students in admission. </p>

<p>But working with the info the UCLA Admissions website has given us, this double counting will affect the lower tier scores (the 25th %) which were double counted for of the apparent 35% of students who reported both scores. This is because for each student there is only one score that will determine admittance to UCLA instead of both SAT and ACT. </p>

<p>If one scored 31 on his/her ACT and 2050 on the SAT, the 31 will have helped him/her gain admittance to UCLA. Similarly if another student scored 2130 on the SAT and 29 on the ACT, the SAT will have helped this student gain admittance. </p>

<p>One has to figure that 10% of the 35% (~ 30% of the total who reported both) might have like scores on the SAT and ACT. So we have to essentially throw these out, unless they both were super high or super low. This would leave us with 25% (~ 70%) who have one score too low, relative to the other test. </p>

<p>If we assume that these students took, say, the SAT first, and posted a low score, and decided to switch to the ACT later, and scored materially higher, we have to throw out the SAT. Similarly for those who went for the ACT first and SAT second -> elide the ACT.</p>

<p>The essence is this: there are a material amount of scores that UCLA reports for both ACT and SAT that should be excluded based on the one-relevant-score-per-student reporting. What this amount of increase would be would be tough to figure. </p>

<p>Btw, all schools report 15-30% redundancy in SATs and ACTs. There seems to be a downward adjustment for most private u’s, which could be their partial attempt to reduce the %’s who report both tests because one is materially higher for a good portion of students. The CDS and IPEDS however don’t force u’s to report the hard nos. who score within the various intervals to sum up to the %’s greater than 100% so one has to assume a best-foot-forward reporting; one has to assume that most if not just about all u’s (except the extremely transparent UCLA) make the adjustment to a one-score-per-one-student reporting. The UCLA’s Admissions website shows that it reports redundant ACT’s/SAT’s for the CDS and IPEDS because the numbers are consistent from its native website to the federal reports. </p>

<p>Anyway here’s my adjustment:</p>

<p>2010 superscored, median SAT -> 2030-2040, an additon of 20-30 points, not significantly higher, but a definite increase as there would have to be.</p>

<p>Given the things above, a 2035 median, superscored, one-score-per-student isn’t bad. If we assumed symmetry for all parts, I discounted this above somewhere, we have a two part of ~ 1357. This isn’t bad based on the fact that there are a significant portion of UCLA students who come from extreme poverty and don’t have the funds to really ascend their scores as wealthy students do (because high scores do tend to run commensurate with wealth). There’s a large group of UCLA students who took the boards only once, probably with poor prep, who could probably ascend their scores by a good 200 points.</p>

<p>The only reason why UCLA reports scores on a lower bad-foot-forward mode, I’m thinking, is to give poorer students a boost in confidence in applying to the U. You see this all the time, for instance, you’ll see fairly recently that UCLA received another boost in undergrad applications, with its website noting that there were increases in URM students, over which the administrators of the U are ecstatic. </p>

<p>This similarly explains why kids say how hard UCLA is in which to gain entry, when it seems the SAT/ACT nos. don’t necessarily manifest this (but grades do). Besides UCLA dumbing-down the scores of its matriculants, there is a two-tiered admission system at the U, that requires students from wealthy top-tiered high schools to have generally impeccable stats, which includes > 2100 SAT, and those from underperforming HS’s to have serviceable but not particularly high scores, even some with really low ones.</p>

10

<p>UCLA is the most applied to college in the United States. For Fall 2013, it received 80,000+ freshman applications. Total undergraduate application is just short of 100,000 (freshman and transfer applicants combined). See [UCLA</a> sets new undergraduate applications record / UCLA Newsroom](<a href=“http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/ucla-sets-new-undergraduate-applications-242778.aspx]UCLA”>UCLA sets new undergraduate applications record | UCLA) for more information. Given that UCLA only admits about 10,000 students (expected enrollment is a little over 5,000; that is how much room UCLA has), only 1 in 8 applicants will be admitted. That is why the admit rate is so low.</p>

11

<p>I was flat-out wrong on Writing scores being lower than Verbal. I thought I’ve seen databases of students at high schools that manifested lower W than V. This might be true, but wrt UCLA, the matriculants at the U have higher scores on W than V. In any case, assuming symmetry of scores would never work; however, I was just using this for convenience to try to achieve a two-part reporting from a three.</p>

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<p>And one of a probable few corrections that I need to make:</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>“Throwing out,” isn’t in reference eliding lower scores to raise the median, but in reference to the calculation of % of students who have material differences in their SAT’s and ACT’s, the end effect being that the higher the % of students who have these differences points to a higher 25th% primarily, and will push upward the 50th, but will have less, little or no impact on the 75th.</p>

<p>And we would still have to throw out one of the scores if both were super high or super low, though if a student’s baseline score were super high, I would seriously doubt if he/she would switch tests and retake, except for a possible challenge.</p>

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<p>Instead of wondering why UCLA’s SAT and ACT scores are lower than other selective colleges, think about what does the SAT and ACT measure. Does it measure intelligence? Does it measure diligence? Does it measure one’s willingness to help out the community? Does it measure perseverance? More importantly, does it measure one’s ability to change the world he lives in? </p>

<p>Maybe UCLA is one of those colleges that answered each of those questions correctly.</p>

14

<p>^It does measure reasoning and reading skills to a large extent.</p>

15

<p>Kids are applying to 10-20 schools. If each kid limited the number of application to 5, The acceptance percentage would skyrocket. The college marketing machine is whipping the kids into a frenzy</p>

16

<p>UCLA isn’t that hard to get in…</p>

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<p>The average admitted SAT Composite is 2037 which is the 95th percentile. I wouldn’t consider that a low score.</p>

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<p>Darthpwner - When you look at the facts below released by UCLA recently, I had to take a second look at the average weighted GPA… I think that explains one of many reasons why its hard to get in.</p>

<p>“The average admitted applicant to UCLA for the Fall Quarter 2013 had a weighted GPA (a GPA that includes all extra grade points for honors or AP coursework) of 4.41, an unweighted GPA (no extra points) of 3.89”</p>

19

<p>Well the average GPA range is high but it’s more predictable for UC’s and other top public schools to admit based on high GPA’s than Ivies or top Private schools that tend to emphasize more on extracurriculars and the essays. I would say if you had at least the GPA you described and a 2100 or higher on the SAT, you’re pretty much guaranteed for UCLA, even for Engineering. When I say UCLA isn’t that hard to get in, I’m comparing it with the HYPSM-caliber schools xP</p>

20

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<p>Well, don’t overstate the case here. The Dean of Admissions at Yale has been quoted in the New York Times saying that the single most important document in a student’s application is the high school transcript. The same will be true at colleges and universities that are Yale’s academic peers.</p>