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UC admission is weird - yvonne - 03-27-2018

Forget everything you've heard about UC admissions and relative ranking. It just makes no sense. One of my students had the following UC results:

Accepted: Berkeley, Santa Cruz, Irvine
Waitlisted: Davis, Santa Barbara, San Diego
Rejected: UCLA

Re: UC admission is weird - Mick - 03-27-2018

(03-27-2018, 05:36 PM)Yvonne link Wrote:  Forget everything you've heard about UC admissions and relative ranking. It just makes no sense. One of my students had the following UC results:

Accepted: Berkeley, Santa Cruz, Irvine
Waitlisted: Davis, Santa Barbara, San Diego
Rejected: UCLA

Any theories, Yvonne?

Re: UC admission is weird - yvonne - 03-27-2018

I've heard Davis and San Diego are trying to maintain their yield rate by waitlisting students whom they feel might be admitted to Berkeley or UCLA. This is only a rumor, though. The baffling one is UCLA vs. Berkeley because the student wants to major in CS. Santa Barbara?

Re: UC admission is weird - Farm93 - 03-27-2018

Doesn't really seem that weird really.

Over the last few years UCLA has become the most popular and most selective UC school.  Given that trend in popularity and selectivity the UCLA rejection makes sense.  The intended major likely is not a factor.  UCLA is simply more selective now and they selected other applicants.

UCB is really like 1A.  They like the applicant and they extend an offer to the applicant. 
UCI is quickly becoming choice #3 in the system.  I believe they routinely win when the applicant is a SoCal suburbanite.  Other applicants like UCI because of the demographics of the area that are less common in LA and UCB.

UCSC just does its own thing.  Got to love them.

Yield management in the world where kids apply to 20 or more schools is so tough.  I have to suspect the UC system doesn't want any applicant to get 7-9 acceptances.  A bit odd, but it is all one system and one application, so this is different than Brown waitlisting an applicant that was accepted Early Action at Harvard.  The UC system must know applicants like this will select UCB or UCI, especially given the desired major.

Does seem like the lower UCs should still extend an offer, but my guess is the others would say yes if the waitlist was appealed with some explanation that it was, or has become, UC #1 for that applicant.




Re: UC admission is weird - dabigv13 - 03-27-2018

I doubt that UC schools would coordinate in the system-wide way you suggest. Pretty sure each school makes their decision without knowledge of other schools decisions, though they probably do play the waitlist yield game and may make educated guesses about where another student may go. Just the logistics alone of that type of coordination makes it unlikely in my mind....who gets to pick first?

Re: UC admission is weird - Treebound - 03-27-2018

Having had my two older kids and their friends go through this in the last few years, I have to agree that UCLA is now more selective than UCB in many areas, perhaps not engineering.  UCLA really made a hard charge at my daughter with a Bio Honors type of program that was very, very compelling (paired with professors, research, pick of classes, etc..).  SC has even gone so far as to try to get kids to skip their senior year of high school and come early to Trojan-land.    It's clearly a competitive landscape. 

The UCs are suffering from a perception right now that it is very hard to get through your required classes in 4 years.  I think there is definitely some truth to that, although my kids didn't matriculate to either UC or UCLA so it's not first hand knowledge.  As for that next tier of UC's, I think there may well be some truth to them trying to bump their yields and their rankings with more waitlists.  Not necessarily a bad strategy as the kids that really want to go there will fight to get off the waitlist and the ones that had it as a likely/safety will try to go elsewhere first.

Re: UC admission is weird - Papa John - 03-27-2018

I have some experience with UC undergraduate admissions at UCLA and SB. Most likely explanation: the student applied to CS in Letters & Science at C.al and CS in the School of Engineering at UCLA. In general, the Engineering schools require a lot of science classes, more AP/honors and higher overall GPA for admission than L&S.

Re: UC admission is weird - Snorlax94 - 03-27-2018

Oh yes, Papa John's explanation makes a good amount of sense. You said the person wants to be a CS major at UCB, not an EECS major, which, certainly during my day ('94-'06, at least), was considered the more difficult and elite program.

My background on this topic: When I worked at a big software company, I was involved in on-campus recruiting for CS/CSE students.

But even aside from those points, I'd offer a few other possibilities:
1) As many have mentioned, UCLA and in general the SoCal universities are becoming even more attractive, I suspect for perceived quality-of-life reasons (sun, beach, glamour). In recent years, 3/3 nieces/nephews on the east coast applied to schools in SoCal (USC, UCLA, Pomona, etc.) I'd say the perception/quality-of-life factor definitely extends to UCSB. Have you visited SB? What a gorgeous little town.

2) There is the factor of holistic admissions and fit. In the case of two of my nieces who were admitted to top-30 colleges during the past 5 years, my sense is that the colleges did a good job of knowing which school was the best match. For example, the only Ivy League school that admitted my older niece was the the one which, whether she knew it or not, was actually going to be the best fit for her.

3) My sense is that college admissions in general has become more random. It's a bit more unexpected with UC's because I'd expect them to make decisions on a more automated basis based on GPAs & scores, but still, I plan to encourage my kids to (someday) apply to a lot of schools, simply because my perception is that the "hey, you never know..." factor has increased.

4) The Davis part mystifies me a little bit. I also wonder if there are other factors at play. Did the student apply to all the schools at the same time? Were there extra essays at each school that could have been stronger or weaker? Is a parent an alum at one of the schools, etc.

As an FYI, in case it's helpful, after interviewing hundreds of CS students, and hiring and mentoring a significant number of interns and new hires, my ranking for candidates (in the 04-06 timeframe) was:
#1) Berkeley EECS
#2) UCLA
#3) Cal Poly
#4) UCSD
#5) Berkeley CS
I really like Cal Poly and to my understanding it costs a lot less than a UC. I thought it offered an amazing value.


Re: UC admission is weird - yvonne - 03-28-2018

Thanks, Snorlax and Papa John. That makes a lot of sense.

Re: UC admission is weird - Mick - 03-28-2018

(03-27-2018, 09:59 PM)Treebound link Wrote:  Having had my two older kids and their friends go through this in the last few years, I have to agree that UCLA is now more selective than UCB in many areas, perhaps not engineering.  UCLA really made a hard charge at my daughter with a Bio Honors type of program that was very, very compelling (paired with professors, research, pick of classes, etc..).  SC has even gone so far as to try to get kids to skip their senior year of high school and come early to Literature's most famous losers-land.    It's clearly a competitive landscape. 

The UCs are suffering from a perception right now that it is very hard to get through your required classes in 4 years.  I think there is definitely some truth to that, although my kids didn't matriculate to either UC or UCLA so it's not first hand knowledge.  As for that next tier of UC's, I think there may well be some truth to them trying to bump their yields and their rankings with more waitlists.  Not necessarily a bad strategy as the kids that really want to go there will fight to get off the waitlist and the ones that had it as a likely/safety will try to go elsewhere first.


My eldest was accepted to UCLA for the fall semester and UC Berkeley only for the Spring semester...that was back in 2010.  UC San Diego was the very clear third choice back then.

When we toured the UCB campus, the guide told us we could count on five years to graduate and that it would probably be six and seven wasn't out of the question.  One of my son's good friends got his computer degree in four years, but he was extremely motivated, shall we say.

Here's last year's acceptance rates and yields at each of the UCs.  Make of it what you will:


Applicants Accepted Acc Rate Yield
Berzerkely 85,054 14,624 17.2% 44%
Los Angeles 102,232 16,494 16.1% 37%
San Diego 88,463 30,204 34.1% 19%
Santa Barbara 81,828 26,879 32.8% 17%
Irvine 85,097 31,103 36.6% 21%
Davis 70,968 30,945 43.6% 19%
Santa Cruz 52,974 27,216 51.4% 15%
Riverside 43,675 25,062 57.4% 19%
Merced 22,583 15,804 70.0% 15%



Re: UC admission is weird - qwerty49 - 03-28-2018

Is UCB still on semesters?  My daughter needed an extra semester to graduate back in 2010 because of the difficulty in scheduling created by semesters and class enrollments/sequencing vs requirements.

Is yield defined as percentage of admits who actually matriculate?


(03-28-2018, 06:56 AM)Mick link Wrote:  [quote author=Treebound link=topic=18924.msg226790#msg226790 date=1522213179]
Having had my two older kids and their friends go through this in the last few years, I have to agree that UCLA is now more selective than UCB in many areas, perhaps not engineering.  UCLA really made a hard charge at my daughter with a Bio Honors type of program that was very, very compelling (paired with professors, research, pick of classes, etc..).  SC has even gone so far as to try to get kids to skip their senior year of high school and come early to Literature's most famous losers-land.    It's clearly a competitive landscape. 

The UCs are suffering from a perception right now that it is very hard to get through your required classes in 4 years.  I think there is definitely some truth to that, although my kids didn't matriculate to either UC or UCLA so it's not first hand knowledge.  As for that next tier of UC's, I think there may well be some truth to them trying to bump their yields and their rankings with more waitlists.  Not necessarily a bad strategy as the kids that really want to go there will fight to get off the waitlist and the ones that had it as a likely/safety will try to go elsewhere first.


My eldest was accepted to UCLA for the fall semester and UC Berkeley only for the Spring semester...that was back in 2010.  UC San Diego was the very clear third choice back then.

When we toured the UCB campus, the guide told us we could count on five years to graduate and that it would probably be six and seven wasn't out of the question.  One of my son's good friends got his computer degree in four years, but he was extremely motivated, shall we say.

Here's last year's acceptance rates and yields at each of the UCs.  Make of it what you will:


Applicants Accepted Acc Rate Yield
Berzerkely 85,054 14,624 17.2% 44%
Los Angeles 102,232 16,494 16.1% 37%
San Diego 88,463 30,204 34.1% 19%
Santa Barbara 81,828 26,879 32.8% 17%
Irvine 85,097 31,103 36.6% 21%
Davis 70,968 30,945 43.6% 19%
Santa Cruz 52,974 27,216 51.4% 15%
Riverside 43,675 25,062 57.4% 19%
Merced 22,583 15,804 70.0% 15%
[/quote]

Re: UC admission is weird - Snorlax94 - 03-28-2018

(03-28-2018, 07:51 AM)qwerty49 link Wrote:  Is UCB still on semesters?  My daughter needed an extra semester to graduate back in 2010 because of the difficulty in scheduling created by semesters and class enrollments/sequencing vs requirements.

Is yield defined as percentage of admits who actually matriculate?

Yes, that is my understanding of yield.


Re: UC admission is weird - Nan3cy - 03-28-2018

(03-28-2018, 02:03 PM)Snorlax94 link Wrote:  [quote author=qwerty49 link=topic=18924.msg226805#msg226805 date=1522248701]
Is UCB still on semesters?  My daughter needed an extra semester to graduate back in 2010 because of the difficulty in scheduling created by semesters and class enrollments/sequencing vs requirements.

Is yield defined as percentage of admits who actually matriculate?

Yes, that is my understanding of yield.

[/quote]

That is indeed the yield, and schools have been playing games with the statistic for a very long time. A friend of mine applying to college in the mid-60s was accepted at Princeton (where he went), as well as several other Ivies, and everywhere else he applied -- except for Tufts. I've heard Tufts referred to everyone's favorite backup school. My friend's interpretation was that Tufts realized he was going to go somewhere else, so didn't bother admitting him and causing a hit to their yield. (In the late 90s, I heard a Tufts admissions person touting the fact that Tufts was getting 12,000 applications for a class of 1,100 -- without mentioning that they were admitting about 4,000 in order to fill the class of 1,100 -- see earlier comment about being everyone's favorite backup school.)

There are about 2,000 four-year colleges and universities in the country. The last time I looked at the data, there were only about 20 or so with a yield rate of over 50%. Fifteen years ago or so, it was a very big deal when Stanford's yield rate hit 67%.

Re: UC admission is weird - Treebound - 03-28-2018

USC plays the yield/selectivity game with great vigor to try and pad their numbers.  We know a number of kids that were not admitted in either early or regular rounds, but were offered either spring or sophomore admissions.    They tend to do this with legacy kids that might not be up to par.    They also offer at least half tuition if you are a national merit scholar and you can apply for full tuition via some of their programs (others do this as well). 

Re: UC admission is weird - Papa John - 03-29-2018

(03-27-2018, 11:55 PM)Snorlax94 link Wrote:  1) As many have mentioned, UCLA and in general the SoCal universities are becoming even more attractive, I suspect for perceived quality-of-life reasons (sun, beach, glamour). In recent years, 3/3 nieces/nephews on the east coast applied to schools in SoCal (U$C, UCLA, Pomona, etc.) I'd say the perception/quality-of-life factor definitely extends to UCSB. Have you visited SB? What a gorgeous little town.

Not really relevant to the discussion on college admissions, but when my wife and I moved to Santa Barbara in 2000, we referred to ourselves as "refugees from LA."

Re: UC admission is weird - Farm93 - 03-29-2018

(03-28-2018, 05:52 PM)Treebound link Wrote:  U$C plays the yield/selectivity game with great vigor to try and pad their numbers.  We know a number of kids that were not admitted in either early or regular rounds, but were offered either spring or sophomore admissions.    They tend to do this with legacy kids that might not be up to par.    They also offer at least half tuition if you are a national merit scholar and you can apply for full tuition via some of their programs (others do this as well).
The games USC plays are pretty easy to identify in the government mandated enrollment information.  USC's admit rates for transfers and January starters are dramatically higher than the fall admit rates.  The GPA and test scores for those non-traditional groups are also much lower.  USC doesn't just admit a few transfers each year and/or a few scholarship athletes each January, the January admits and undergrad transfers represent a large percentage of the overall undergrad student body.

Many state schools have transfer percentages in that some range, but it is relatively uncommon for a selective (cough, cough, hack, hack) university to have that many transfers and mid-year starters.

Not weird; random - jacketree - 03-29-2018

Check out Mick's figures.  UC had nearly 700,000 applications in total.  I don't believe there is a limit as to how many UC campuses one may apply; that isn't 700,000 students.  Sorting it all out is done via rejection or wait list.  The on-paper qualifications of those 700,000 applicants isn't going to be that varied. Random.

Six years ago my son was accepted at Annapolis but rejected by Berkeley and wait listed at UCSD.  Do not read purported "prestige" or "relative ranking" into any individual set of admission decisions.  I'm pretty sure it is statistically more difficult to receive an appointment to USNA than to get into UCB or UCSD.  Along with the UC decision came an automatic offer into Riverside and Santa Cruz. Just a mishmash of popularity and space available each and every year.

My main theory is applications are mostly free and kids really don't worry about rejection; thus applications to a dozen or 20 schools for each fully-qualified kid, which means lots of rejections, which means more applications, which means....

Do people really apply to particular schools because of the published yield?  Those people would be dumber than the schools that game the yield in the first place. There are many, many perfectly suitable schools out there; I'd advise even top-echelon high school students to not focus just on the usual suspect glamour schools.


Check out "safety school" Cal Poly SLO, which may have the best undergraduate engineering program in California. For prospective engineering majors:

Applications 16,693
Accepted            4,440
Avg GPA              4.16
Avg ACT                  32
Avg SAT              1467    (SAT=Evidence-Based Reading and Writing, and Math scores only)



Re: UC admission is weird - Papa John - 03-29-2018

A problem with some of the data cited in this thread is that it is aggregate across all majors. In the UC system it makes a big difference if you are applying to the arts--and even within the arts, some degree programs require auditions/portfolios while some don't--engineering (very impacted); certain social science majors like Communications at UCLA (very impacted), or the ever-popular undeclared. While there is a centralized undergraduate office of admissions that makes most of the decisions, many admissions decisions are made by a number of units across campus, depending on the major to which the student applies.

Re: UC admission is weird - Mick - 03-30-2018

(03-29-2018, 09:57 PM)Papa John link Wrote:  A problem with some of the data cited in this thread is that it is aggregate across all majors. In the UC system it makes a big difference if you are applying to the arts--and even within the arts, some degree programs require auditions/portfolios while some don't--engineering (very impacted); certain social science majors like Communications at UCLA (very impacted), or the ever-popular undeclared. While there is a centralized undergraduate office of admissions that makes most of the decisions, many admissions decisions are made by a number of units across campus, depending on the major to which the student applies.


UC system used to publish their acceptance rates per major.  They opened their data warehouse through 2010 or 2011, then shut off all but the basic access.  I distinctly recall two items of note: first, while the UC system claimed to consider just two AP/qualifying honors classes to adjust one's GPA in one's soph and junior years, I noted that their acceptance rates were stratospheric for applicants who clearly had taken all the AP classes that their high school had to offer, and that acceptance rates dropped precipitously for every AP class not taken.

The other interesting item was that choice of major dramatically affected acceptance rates.  I seem to recall that the lowest were Chemistry and EE/CS and the highest were multidisciplinary studies and (oddly) Undeclared.

My last little contribution: I have a cousin, Stanford grad, I've mentioned him on this board before.  He was a professional counselor to families who were attempting the get their students admitted to very selective colleges.  The question he most received?  "What's the magic bullet?"  He said, based on his experience, that there were essentially two magic bullets: (1) Start a for-profit business in high school -- or earlier -- that does reasonably well.  Admissions offices loooooved those applicants.  (2) Find someone at the University of choice who desperately needs you in either a formal or an informal fashion.  Sometimes, when you see that college student laboring at an unpaid internship, it's because the professor or coach  or administrator or doctor needed someone to do that kind of work, and that professor/coach/administrator/doctor wrote an unbelievably supportive letter on behalf of that student.

Re: UC admission is weird - wallendar - 03-30-2018

From sfgate....

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/UC-applications-acceptance-rates-Berkeley-UCLA-12791560.php