I got rejected with the supplemental questionnaire. After some research, I have no idea what this foreshadows. Anyway, during the week when the supplemental questionnaire was assigned, my personal circumstances heightened like no other time, let’s just say that the police came to my house twice in that week. Anyway, my academic stats are low due to my problems, and I only applied to UCLA due to peer pressure. But I just do not understand, if UCLA knows that some of the people who get the supplemental questionnaire have circumstances, why in the world would they expect the individuals to write two essays? I had no time to do the supplemental. I did it in 5 minutes with no drafts. This does not follow the American idea of equality of opportunity, to be brutally honest. Plus, how do they know that the applicant wrote the essays themselves? I saw a post on another thread where a helicopter parent wrote their child’s supplemental questionnaire responses. Nevertheless, I still have two schools that accepted me (San Jose State and Humboldt State), and I will most likely head to Humboldt State since it is unique. I am not appealing since everything happens for a reason. UCLA is also #30 in the nation for my major, Statistics, at the graduate level and I do not like Southern California, so I probably will never come back (excluding visits of course). UCLA is still an outstanding school for some individuals. Back on topic though, Virginia is a public school and they do interviews to borderline applicants, why not UCLA and Cal since they are (ranking-wise) better public schools overall?
Seeing as how the questionnaire is optional, UCLA was just trying to give you a chance to explain your situation more thoroughly so they have as much information as possible when deciding to admit you or not. I’d call this a courtesy by the university; only about 6% of applicant receive these, so in all honesty the fact that they gave you the chance to sell yourself more than other applicants due to your “circumstances” is them trying to give you the greatest equality of opportunity that they can. There really is no way for them to know whether the applicant wrote the essays themselves, but if your essays lack depth, personality, or just sound unoriginal, I’m sure that reflects poorly on your application. It sounds like you never really wanted UCLA anyway, and if you only applied because of peer pressure then the application readers probably saw that passion and interest were missing in your application.
To answer your other question, it is most likely because UVA receives a much lower level of applicants than Berkeley. UCLA and UCB both received over 100,000 (with UCLA receiving the most applications in the country) for fall 2016 while UVA typically averages around 30,000. UCLA and UCB simply do not have the time or money to conduct such interviews.
Have a great time at Humboldt, I’ve heard it’s a beautiful school!
And if you didn’t have time do the supplemental questionnaire, how would you have had time to go to an interview anyway? @elefish92
@JPhilly99 I would have probably just told my mom about it and then she would let me go for the day. This would also create a more intimate feel for the applicant, and they would be comfortable of explaining everything. If it is true that 6% of applicants get the supplemental questionnaire, interviewing just below of 6,000 applicants should be doable. Cal did interviews for Regents but they do not do the supplemental questionnaire anymore. I forgot about that. It’s frustrating. However, my academic stats are not ideal (3.04 UC GPA and 1460 overall SAT), but everything else is competitive. So I would hope that is the reason.
I just do not want this to repeat with another applicant who got the supplemental questionnaire. I would like to write a letter to UCLA of suggesting the change to an interview, but I highly doubt they would care. Appealing is just dumb unless if it’s your first choice school. But you can succeed at any school. Most of the money and housing has already been given away to begin with.
No time to do interviews for that many people.