Yeh, I expect you might have gotten into UCLA without the CS major. The GPA and SAT are really good. However, there are serious weaknesses in terms of rigor and SAT IIs from the point of view of a top 50 school. As pointed out, the relative weakness in math and science doesn’t look good for CS. It seems like a waste to apply to Stanford etc. with those weaknesses and no hooks.
The LOR from the math teacher you got the Bs from has to be a major error. There is no way that would not look bad and raise questions,no matter what he said.or how positive it was.
Pretty much everywhere applied to was top 50. Maybe the idea was to go to a UC to save money if you couldn’t get into one, that is OK.However, you would have gotten into top 80 or so school if you had applied to them.
“The LOR from the math teacher you got the Bs from has to be a major error. There is no way that would not look bad and raise questions,no matter what he said.or how positive it was.”
Yes, it’s risky to ask a teacher who gave you a B for a recommendation, but it is not always a major error. One of the strongest recs my son received* was from a math teacher who had given DS a B. The teacher wrote about DS’ ability to make intuitive leaps, how DS had learned advanced concepts outside class and said things like “you are going to want to clone him.”
We’ll never know for sure, but I think that strong rec from the B-giving teacher was a major part of why DS got into a top 5 school with a fairly low GPA.
We got to see a copy because the teacher sent it to an employer who asked for a math teacher recommendation before hiring him.
I also don’t think it’s a major error to ask for LORs from a teacher who gave you B’s – it’s all in why you got those B’s. If the teacher was genuinely impressed with you, while maybe your other teachers never really paid much attention to you, then that will come through in a recommendation. However, the OP said she chose that B-giving professor because he would be able to write about how hard she had worked. I don’t think colleges need to be told that top students all work hard – that’s a given. I’d want some other reason to single out a teacher from a class where I hadn’t done my best work.
Also, please note that of the UC’s, only UCB accepts LORs (and then only on request). The UCLA and UCSD rejections can’t have had anything to do with LORs. I would agree that it was probably the B’s in math, plus the fact that regular calc was the highest math class taken, that torpedoed the applications for CS major at those schools. They really do not want to admit anyone who can’t handle the extremely rigorous coursework that’s going to be thrown at them – why should they admit you if you look like someone who might drop out or switch to a communications major after one year?
I’m actually more confused as to why @suzuki7 's D was rejected from UCSD for cognitive science.
Personalized LoR’s from teachers who know you well will be the most effective ones. If that happens to be a teacher who gave the student a “B”, that may be the student’s best alternative if the teachers who gave him/her A’s don’t know the student very well. However, we also know that with a “B”, the teacher will not be able to credibly say that the student was an exceptional student in that subject matter. So from a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the best/highest, recognize that a letter from a teacher that gave the student a “B” can at best be an “8” because it can never say that this student was a top student in the subject. A point that I was trying to make upthread is that a lot of high achieving kids tend to overly obsess over imperfections and tend to make things worse by highlighting these issues by being defensive. I saw those signs in the OP’s situation,
" I think my letters of rec were good; I got one from my math teacher that’s given me the only Bs I’ve had throughout high school, I thought maybe his recommendation could outweigh the Bs."
If this math teacher knew OP well and had a personal connection that would make for a strong letter, it might have been a good choice. But if OP chose this teacher to explain away the B’s, when there were plenty of other teachers who could equally sing OP’s praises and who gave OP A’s, then I think it was a mistake.
@ProfessorPlum168 “this was an especially tough year with all the additional applicants possibly due to the Y2K kids.”
Per census data, the US population did see a little “bump” in births in 2000 probably due to Y2K, year of the golden dragon, etc; however it looks like this is the new norm and college applications will continue to be strong in the near future. I don’t think my 2002 D and 2006 S will have it any easier at top 100+ schools.
I’m just glad i found this site recently and hopefully can help my kids make any adjustments within their control such as classes, test prep, ECs, essays over the next 2 and 6 years, respectively.
"However, we also know that with a “B”, the teacher will not be able to credibly say that the student was an exceptional student in that subject matter. "
Au contraire! In the example I’m using - my son - he had one of the most advanced understandings of how to apply math, including advanced concepts he self-taught that the math teacher had seen. The B wasn’t because DS didn’t understand the material, it was because he was disorganized and also rarely turned in homework. High school grading systems often have components that are unrelated to skill and my son didn’t respect those aspects of the grind, he was too busy doing advanced things than to sit and bother writing out the boring homework on the basic stuff (yes, you can tell I’m still frustrated with that.) Mature and responsible? No x 1000. Intuitive, advanced mathematician who was able to use advanced concepts in cross disciplines? Yes. Guess which one top math programs care more about? The diligent student who faithfully grinds through every homework (A for effort!) but doesn’t intuitively grasp the top concepts or the one who can be a disorganized dingbat but first taught himself some calculus in 7th grade in order to use the concepts to have the car he was programming move in smooth curves or create complex math models to explore solutions to social issues…
If he had all Bs or hadn’t otherwise shown he could be organized enough to be successful, none of this would have made any difference and he wouldn’t have gotten in. But judging from his acceptances, even top colleges are interested in students who may have had immature struggles with the paperwork aspects of school yet are very advanced with the underlying concepts.
But I will agree with the other poster who mentioned that it’s important to know what the teacher will say. If the LOR states that the student worked his/her butt off and struggled hard for that B then it shows colleges that the student is a very hard worker and diligent, but may struggle with that subject because they don’t inherently understand it. Schools like MIT and CalTech might be hesitant to take a student like that in regards to subjects like math because the level and speed of the material would make it incredibly tough for someone who lacks intuitive understanding of math to keep up no matter how hard they work. It’s important to know what the LOR will say was the reason for the B and how that fits with what the college is looking for.
^ Your son is clearly an exception and congrats to him. There are Einstein’s out there. But for the majority of student applicants, having a teacher write that that the student was “bright” but was an underachiever in terms of results, that would be faint praise indeed.
One of my daughter’s LOCs came from a teacher who gave her a B first semester but saw her work her tail off to finish with an A. She had him again junior year, aced the course from the beginning, and did well on both AP tests. He also knew her from some of her ECs, recommended her for some leadership positions which she pursed and was accepted.
“Your son is clearly an exception and congrats to him. There are Einstein’s out there. But for the majority of student applicants, having a teacher write that that the student was “bright” but was an underachiever in terms of results, that would be faint praise indeed.”
I didn’t mean to imply he’s an Einstein - I don’t think he is.
Was really just trying to point out that what’s really important about the LOR is that it tells your story in a way that the intended college is looking for. Will that usually be from a class you got an A in? Yes. But think hard about it because it might be better to get a LOR from the B class that shows a part of you that you want that college to see rather than get a LOR from the A class that is generic or even unhelpful.
“There are Einstein’s out there. But for the majority of student applicants, having a teacher write that that the student was “bright” but was an underachiever in terms of results, that would be faint praise indeed.”
There’s a lot of myth around Einstein and school, he got superb grades in math and science, and struggled a little in humanities and languages, typical of many STEM students in the US. I’m not totally sure on the European grading system, but it’s apparent that he did not get the equivalent of any Bs in math and science. He was rebellious but pretty much a straight A student.
Hi again guys. I’m the OP and since there’s been a lot of debate about my math LOR I’m going to clear up a few things about why I chose the teacher of my weakest class as my LOR writer. I had him for two years, first freshman year with Algebra 2 (Bs both semesters) and then regular calculus junior year (B first semester, A second semester). I don’t mean to be crude but I worked my a*s off in that class–I went in literally (and I’m not using the word “literally” for emphasis, I mean “in reality”) every day at lunch to ask questions about homework and tests. So I cultivated a very strong relationship with this teacher. And I believe that my second semester grade of an A shows improvement over time, which I know colleges look for. Now, I understand that maybe this was not the best strategy, but I did not do it to “explain away” the Bs. I did it because this was genuinely the hardest I’ve ever worked and the closest I’ve ever been to a teacher, and I thought that that would come across in the LOR. I personally believe that hard work is a more important virtue than the ability to slack off and do well anyway, as @milee30 has stated universities hold in higher esteem.
Despite a lot of review of my applications, I still find it strange that I was not accepted to UCLA (I can accept the other rejections, but not this one). As I see it, the Regent’s Scholarship to UCSB should have translated into an acceptance at UCLA–even a bare one, with no financial aid or scholarships whatsoever. Can somebody answer why it didn’t? Is UCSB so far behind UCLA (and I don’t think it is!) that this is logical?
And @Mimi2018 – I’ve been to a number of credentialed SIs. I included them on my applications. But honestly, I don’t think that universities know so much about the world of dance that they will be able to determine the level of a dancer based off of her SI list (and if they did and I had gone to SAB and ABT NY, I would be pursuing a professional dance career instead of a college degree). I think you’re kind of getting into minutiae here.
“I personally believe that hard work is a more important virtue than the ability to slack off and do well anyway, as @milee30 has stated universities hold in higher esteem.”
You are of course welcome to your own beliefs. But you have missed the point of my posts, which wasn’t remotely that colleges hold slackers in high esteem. Your own description of your abilities and efforts - had to work your ass off and literally come in every day to get help - to get first a B and then an A in calculus is exactly the point I was making about how this hard work (commendable though it is) was likely to give selective colleges the impression that you’d struggle to do the work if you were admitted. If your teacher described this level of work in his recommendation, that may have been part of what torpeedoed you in the admissions process.
Colleges will read that LOR and wonder if you’ve got the raw brains to make it there. Add in the fact that this either wasn’t even AP Calc or it was AP Calc and you did so poorly on the AP exam you didn’t submit your score (your OP didn’t list AP calc or a score) and that’s going to make selective colleges wonder. If you have to work that hard to keep your head above water in Calc and even then can’t get a 4 or 5 on the AP exam, how the heck will you keep up in Stanford’s Comp Sci courses? (Who knows, maybe you’d ace them, I’m just describing what your LOR, grades and omission of AP Calc reporting might suggest to the selectives.)
Calculus is hard, no doubt. But if you’re having to put that level of work into it, it’s reasonable for top colleges to worry that you won’t be able to keep up with the advanced work you’ll be doing if you’re admitted.
I would have recommended replacing 2-3 of your true reaches with another low reach like Rice, Georgetown, Wash U, Notre Dame, Tufts (or equivalent LACs)… and a couple of match-range schools like U of Rochester, Boston College, Tulane, Wake Forest, Lehigh, Case Western. You likely would have ended up with more options.
But UCSB is a fine school that prides itself on undergraduate focus. Go have a great four years.
Personal opinion: Berkeley and UCLA are in a seperate and distinct catergory of truly world class universities that UCSB is not in. UCSB is a great school, but I’m not sure if I buy the notion that a scholarship to UCSB should equate to an acceptance at UCLA.
That said, I still think your numbers show you to have been a strong candidate for UCLA. Unfortunately UCLA can’t admit all strong candidates.
UCLA is certainly much stronger for most grad and PhD programs, but I’m not sure there’s much difference in quality, if any, at the undergrad level (vs. UCSB). A greater percentage of classes at UCSB have fewer than 30 students than at UCLA, for instance.
BTW, never have teachers write LOR’s about your academics (unless there is something that isn’t evident elsewhere in the app), always have them write about who you are (your character, interactions, etc.) Otherwise your just wasting an LOR if they’re just regurgitating things that are already evident in the app.
@primacaterina you can’t translate a scholarship or honor received at one UC into a “should have been admitted” at another. My kid was awarded a Regent’s scholarship at UC Davis, but didn’t even get into the Honors college at UC Santa Cruz. That doesn’t make sense if you assume that all UC admissions offices think identically and are making identical decisions. The point is, they’re not. Individual human beings are making all those decisions, and some of them are going to drop your application into one pile and some into another. I’ve heard of people being accepted to Cal but rejected from UCLA, UCSD and Davis.
At both UCLA and UCSB, the comp sci major is in the College of Engineering, which is tougher to get into than the College of Letters and Science. (By the way, you said in your original post that you changed your mind halfway through about what you want to do – I assume, since UC apps are due early, that you changed your mind about comp sci and now you want econ? I guess you’ll be switching from the College of Engineering to the College of Letters and Science, which is where the econ major is.)
@primacaterina- I highly disagree that admissions officers don’t know the ballet world.
An AO knows what an acceptance to SAB, ABTNY, PNB, SFB or EBSF means, and what it says about a dancer’s ability. I’m not dismissing your commitment to dance or your amazing academic accomplishments, but if you didn’t audition, or you weren’t accepted into these elite ballet programs, then this is an area where your college application may not have shined as brightly when compared to another ballet student who was accepted to top SIs.
