How many points did you get

rider730
Sat, 15 Mar 2008 20:52:04 +0000

Sports61kh

That is exactly the point to realize. With far more points possible from other factors than from stats, using only the average stats in the formula gives you too low a cutoff prediction.

It is not just socioeconomic, although that is the largest grouping of factors. There are also academic achievement factors – such as credits for more than the minimum of a-g course and credit for ELC. Points for talents. Points for sustained involvement in college preparatory activities. Points for non-economic hardships. Points for serving our country. Points for first generation to attend college. Points for leadership roles in school.

I created a spreadsheet, put in the admitted averages from last year, and bumped it up by a completely arbitrary amount. I found some guesses from prior years as to the cutoff point, adding a safety margin because this year is a peak for applications, and ended up with a target. I guessed what points would be assigned to my application and the result seemed above the cutoff estimate. Turned out to be correct.

I used similar logic to build a spreadsheet for the point systems for UCSC and UCSD, predicting acceptance and rejection respectively, which matched the outcomes. If it were close, or if rejected when I guessed acceptance, it would be time to call the admissions office, find out how they scored my application and if there was a reasonable case I could make that more points were due, I would file an appeal.

The UCSD factors are 74% based on academics compared to UCD which weighted academic factors at only 68% of the decision. Thus, the extra points for talent, leadership and other factors were smaller in proportion than for the other numerical UC schools. In this way, UCSD is probably the most stats-oriented of the formulaic schools (excluding Cal and UCLA which are more holistic).