She applied for either business or Econ in most colleges, biomedical at UCD and cognitive science at UCSD.
As long as you are truly happy with your “safety”, admission anywhere else is gravy. You like the place where you were admitted, so you win. Truly, that is all that matters. All good wishes for your years there!
UCLA is still a reach. While race is not considered, first generation is strongly considered and is the new important hook. UCLA is one of the top schools for upward mobility.
As many of the above posters have pointed out, the schools (and programs for those that admit by programs) that rejected you are reaches for just about any student. Congrats though on the Regents Scholarship at a great school. Time to move ahead; you are off to a great future!
For purposes of potentially giving insights to future applicants, besides the standard, who can tell why a decision is made because so much is subjective, I do think it was probably a mistake to have your math teacher write one of your LoR’s. By virtue of your receiving B’s from that teacher, you clearly were not his top or even one of his top students. The best he could have said about you was that you tried hard, were diligent, curious, pleasure to be around, etc…, but he could never have said you were an exceptional student in mathematics. These highly selective schools/programs are looking for the best students, not the “nicest” hardest trying kids because there will be plenty of “top students” who are also “nice” and work hard. I think a lot of high achieving kids beat up on themselves on any perceived flaws, which can otherwise be a good trait because they want to address weaknesses and are perfectionists. But, in the world of college applications, they have to approach this as a “sales job”. You are trying to sell yourself as someone the school wants and you should be highlighting your strengths, not picking at scabs.
It could be that changing your major midway meant that your applications didn’t seem as focused overall. And, in general, you applied econ to schools that probably don’t care as much what your intended major is, but that are so hard to get into you weren’t likely to get into them anyway. And you applied CS more to schools that do care more about your major, and where CS is more difficult to get into.
If it had gone differently, it probably wouldn’t have had any effect on your top five, but might (or might not) have affected one or two of your next six. But, as mentioned, you can’t change what was done now, and you do have a great option to be happy about.
To OP: With all due respect, I have seen kids with higher hard stats get rejected from Comp Sci majors at UCLA or Berkeley. In fact, getting into Comp Sci major at these two schools is IMO as difficult as getting into top 10 schools, so I don’t find it surprising that you got denied from the schools. I mean this seriously. One weakness I see you applying as a Comp Sci major is that I don’t see too much of ECs involving programming. I know many kids with 1560+ SAT, NMF, nearly perfect GPA with decent ECs get rejected from very competitive majors at UCLA and Berkeley ALL THE TIME. This is nothing new. You miscalculated. However, you still got a Regents at UCSB, and it’s not easy to get into UCSB as a Comp Sci major either. I have seen other kids go to UCSD as a Comp Sci major. Therefore, my direct answer to your question is that your rejections are not abnormal at all.
IMO there was no school on the rejected list which you had a decent chance to get into with Comp Sci or Econ major. Now, if you had applied as a marketing/communications major to UCLA or Berkeley, I might have been somewhat surprised.
Having said this, you have very good stats and will do very well at whatever college you go to. You should also have applied to some Honors Colleges.
Congratulations to UCSB on landing you!
As for the losers, you have an awful lot of viewbooks that need a thorough barbecuing.
Please keep a fire extinguisher nearby just in case!
U Chicago Economics is an insanely good program, and you got waitlisted rather than rejected. Wow.
I think what stood out to me is that the schools that rejected you were the hardest schools to get into, and you applied for computer science or economics - both subjects that require incredibly strong math skills and math was your weakest subject. I wonder if you would have had a different outcome if you applied as a french major.
You didn’t have an understanding of the profiles of your competing CS applicants. They all have significantly higher stats than the university average. Your math scores were average and maybe most importantly you didn’t have CS related ECs. The schools won’t care about dance ECs for a CS major or even community service so much.
Enjoy the school that you are going to.
@ProfessorPlum168 @19parent @BKSquared Some more information: I am white and middle-class. I actually didn’t take any more SAT IIs, which I know was a mistake, but I didn’t prepare enough for them and at the last minute decided that a bad score would hurt me more than no score. I think that taking SAT Math II would have helped me greatly. My past SATs have been 1410, then 1460, then 1540–the 1540 is not superscored and is 760 math, 780 ELR. I got all As first semester senior year. I don’t understand why my UC GPA is 4.42, that’s just what it says on my school transcript’s UC GPA so I assumed it was true, but I’ve had 3 Bs, all with the teacher that wrote my letter of rec. I think now perhaps that a letter of rec from this teacher was maybe not the best idea, but I worked very hard in that class and thought it would come across in his letter. I also didn’t understand at the time of my applications how much harder applying as a CS major is, and I think that this is the greatest factor that hurt me. At the same time, I was not expecting to get into any of the Ivies–my strategy was to apply to them out of hope but really spend time on USC, Northwestern, and the UCs (which I know are also very, very good schools; I did not factor in my CS major as an extra condition of getting in). I also think my ECs hurt me. Although I genuinely love dance and dedicate the majority of my free time to it, it is not a priority to colleges.
Thank you all for your replies, I’ve learned a lot from this process about what I could have done better, but I’m sincerely happy about attending UCSB in the fall!
Likes lots of others here, I feel your pain and disillusionment. Others say you should have applied to more schools. Maybe that’s true, but your stats are stellar and you were safe to assume you’d have gotten into some more of them.
My DS has nearly identical stats to you (just substitute 34 ACT for your SAT), and applied to engineering programs. He was rejected at the big UC’s, even Cal Poly SLO, the Ivy’s, Duke, MIT, Cal Tech, and Stanford. He did get into 4 great programs, and his chosen Claremont McKenna, and will be doing their 3-2 program in Economics-Engieering, and will try for a double major in CS as well. He was lucky to get in there, as it’s just as selective (or more selective) as the schools that denied him.
But congrats on the Regent’s award. UCSB is a great place and you’ll thrive there.
I think all of my feedback with regard to why you didn’t get into all of those other schools has already been covered. You will be a star at UCSB - while it’s not maybe at the level of a UCB/UCLA, it’s in the next tier below and will only get better as those other two schools continue to reject excellent applicants. Pack your bike!
Why would someone suggests to apply Notre Dame/WUSTL/Georgetown/NYU which are in the same category of OP’s top heavy reach schools? If you apply to 8 schools, most people here would suggest 2 to 3 reaches, 3-5 matches, and 2-4 safeties. The OP’s list is about 90% reaches and only 10% safeties and left no room in between.
My kid also asked the teacher who gave her both Bs for her LOR, but she was also the one loved my kid and made my kid the teacher’s intern next school year. So you can’t say because the teacher gives out a B to a student, the recommendation wouldn’t be excellent.
Yes I think the Math II would have really helped in borderline cases. An 800 score. Plus a very high Chem or Physics score as well. Also as others have mentioned, some activities that deal with Econ or CS such as an internship or a website or something along that line might have helped. The scores were good but as we found out also, this was an especially tough year with all the additional applicants possibly due to the Y2K kids.
BTW my kid also did exactly the same thing, he asked his teacher who gave him his only 2 Bs last year to write one of the LOR. Unfortunately he didn’t have many choices, as most of the schools wanted 11th grade teachers for LORs and 2 of his teachers had already left the school district.
Thanks for replying and providing us with an analysis of your experience. I hope you don’t look back at the rejections but look back and say “if I received more acceptances I might not have selected UCSB, and missed this wonderful school”. You should be very proud of all the hard work to get you this far.
You applied only to reaches with one match: UCSB. Your results are not surprising.
OP congrats on the Regents’ Scholarship! You did have a great outcome – thank goodness you included UCSB on your list!
It was a rough year. Our son rec’d many many rejectons (I think 8) and three waitlists. It was a rough couple weeks around the house! Some of them were schools where his stats were in the top 25% and which we really had thought were likelies. Most were high reaches taking in to account generosity of need-based financial aid. He had hoped for one merit scholatrship at a school he genuinely liked and would have been happy to attend, where his stats were way up there…waitlisted! Another school where he did a summer program on almost full scholarship…waitlisted! He did end up with two awesome choices, which means precisely that, a choice. Another was for a Jan admit which he is not interested in. He knew of course intellectually thagt you only need ONE acceptance (at an affordable school) to go to college next fall. Yet…opening those rejections one after another was so disheartening!
Time to let it go and look ahead. Our son decided not to even bother with the waitlists, even tho he really likes the three schools. He is so ready to move on. Love the school that loves you – bloom where you are planted – and above all, take advantage of that awesome scholarship and all those opportunities that are waiting!!!
@TomSrOfBoston I’m sorry, but I disagree on the point that UCSB is a match school. I always viewed it as a safety and I still believe I was right to do so (though this does not detract from my excitement about attending). It is telling that I received the Regent’s Scholarship to UCSB, which only 1.5% of admitted students receive, in addition to making it in with a CS major.
I think that was your problem. You overestimated your chances at all your schools. And you are still doing it.