“academic competitions and shows a ton of growth, maturity, and leadership over 6-7 years- he has several regional and national awards-”
Are these like intel science fairs or olympiads or something else, if you’re willing share.
“I think he has an excellent shot at one or both of those and UCSD, etc. Don’t know about safety, though. I guess Davis might be a safety”
I wouldn’t consider Davis a safety unless Naviance at your hs says 8 or 9 out of 10 kids get in with your son’s stats.
“What I would love to know is How many “perfect stats in a rigorous curriculum/solid EC” kids actually get turned down by UCs. I know it’s possible (esp with UCB, which is more holistic) but curious to know stats. That list only shows 4.2 and above GPA and doesn’t factor in scores.”
Here’s the profile that shows scores for UC Davis:
It shows acceptance rates by act or sat score range not by actual score, so 39% of students with act of 31-36 get rejected, 45% of kids with 15 or more honors courses get rejected, and 25% of 4.0 and above get rejected.
@theloniusmonk,
I don’t want to say exactly because it’s a bit unusual, but various Individual and team competitions that are related to humanities and stem. He does well and has a real interest in learning, which comes across in his schoolwork too, but it’s also been a huge leadership opportunity for him, going strong several times a week even in Covid times. Their advisor is in name only. My son founded the team, runs the show and has done a great job coaching and mentoring others - even to nationals winner level- plus various other things related to this. Sorry to be vague
The UC data is too general. There’s a big difference between an ACT of 31 versus 36 and “above 4.0” is a wide range. I guess there’s no way to know. Our school doesn’t have naviance, but I checked the overall UC admissions data. Our students last year had a 40% acceptance rate from Davis. That includes a wide range of applicants, though. Generally the school sends around 30 kids to ivys and other selective private schools, and another 60-70 to very selective public schools (mostly ucb and ucla), some regents at the top schools. But that doesn’t tell you how many got into the schools, only where they ended up going.
I can see Davis is not necessarily a slam dunk, so we won’t count on it.
Agree. That was our experience. Rejected from Davis and SD. Accepted at UCB and UCLA. S had Oregon State and University of Arizona as safeties. Early acceptances to those schools took the pressure off when waiting for UC acceptances.
See, that’s the sort of thing that makes people apply to 20 schools. Ugh. My friends and I talk about this all the bad time- it’s like tossing the dice. And you can’t blame colleges for yield protection, but it greatly complicates matters. So you could be that unlucky person who gets shut out on both ends.
D17 did early action at Santa Clara, and it was nice to get an early decision to a good school with some minor merit, and she would have been ok there. She also applied to UIUC and CPSLO and got into both honors programs early , though that wasn’t at all what she wanted and I have no idea why I encouraged her to apply, though I’m sure they are great programs. I think it was last minute panic, just not where she wanted to be.
This time we will be more focused. It was nice to get some decisions early, as you said, so hoping to do that for D21. Maybe Santa Clara will be a good early action.
In case anyone is in a similar position and is curious about the outcome, I thought I’d update. He added a very impressive extracurricular in senior year and went on to win a major award for it. He updated the award in the admission portals and (for small schools) sent an email update to the AOs, but who knows if the larger schools read it. Unfortunately there was no way to update this for the UCs. He was also chosen as a NM scholar (the $2500 award).
In the end, he didn’t apply to any guaranteed safeties like ASU. Instead, based on CC advice, he put effort into target schools that would be a great “fit” (aside from UCI, which was just added last minute) and his essays were excellent.
Accepted: USC (presidential scholar, half tuition), Occidental (president’s scholarship $25k), Haverford, Reed, UCD with regents, UCSD, UCI
Waitlist: UCB, UCLA (go figure ) but he’s not really interested in UCs (since he got into some top private choices) so won’t pursue it
Rejected: CMC (this was a top choice but he procrastinated like crazy on the why us essay and had to submit a subpar one- hope he learned!)
Pomona, brown, swarthmore, penn, Stanford
Aside from CMC, where we had some hope, the rejections were almost expected and we treated them like playing the lottery and didn’t focus on them much. His essays were amazingly well written - he even got positive feedback on his personal statement- and he won some merit awards at schools that offered it. I learned a lot about him and his writing skills.
I think the UC test blind policies were detrimental in his case as I suspect scores might have pushed him from WL into the admit pile for UCB and UCLA. Also, they had no inkling of his major award. I think he has a shot at the WLs but UCs don’t make sense for him as he needs flexibility (the USC option makes much more sense) and in any case UCSD was the UC that we liked the most.
His senior year has been busier than ever with his ECs and school, with hardly any down time, so getting him to do the apps was a challenge, and he was (still is, honestly) disengaged and overwhelmed with the process. Covid hasn’t helped. It was a weird, weird year for college admissions, and I think heightened by being home all the time. All in all, we are pleased because we went into this with a realistic mindset and he got into some of his top choices!
) but he’s not really interested in UCs (since he got into some top private choices) so won’t pursue it