Alright so Im pretty sure that title caught your attention. Yes I understand that UCR is the “Reject” school but let me show you how UCR redeemed itself and is now on it’s way to becoming a mid-tier UC. So as we all know (or if you didn’t heres the link http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-ln-uc-enrollment-20150303-story.html ) it is becoming super hard to get into a UC (Well except Merced not to be mean) because of budget cuts, increased out of state competition, and record numbers of applicants. Now obviously this has forced UCR and UCSC to become more selective since they can only accept the same number of applicants as last year despite the high rise in applications. http://admissions.ucsc.edu/apply/first-year-not-admitted.html The link here shows that the average admitted GPA for UCSC in 2015 was 3.88. Holy crap. Now heres a link to UCSC’s Wiki page showing 2013s admission stats. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_California,_Santa_Cruz The average admitted GPA was 3.66!!! Thats crazy! So now that Ive shown how UCSC has basically become a mid-tier UC in terms of its admission stats,(And since UCSC has become far more selective it will rise in rankings) how has UCR stacked up to the mid-tier UC’s? Well lets see. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_California,_Riverside Here is UCR’s Wiki page. If we look at the same year as UCSC’s (2013) we see the average admitted GPA was 3.60. http://www.highlandernews.org/9058/ucr-freshman-acceptance-rate-dip-in-numbers/ Now what is the average admitted GPA for UCR this year? 3.71-3.76 Lets just say its the median between those 2 and its around 3.74. UCR raised it by around 0.14 in just 2 years and if UCR continues this trend (probably at a lesser extent since in 2 years you would need a 3.88 like UCSC and a 3.9 like the mid-tier UC’s in the third year) for the next 5 years UCR will become pretty damn selective which will of course lead to smarter more hard working students which will produce better alumni and an overall better reputation. This also leads to UCR rising in the college rankings and it has in the past 5 years. UCR has shown no sign of letting up in terms of how selective its becoming and it will continue to become more prestigious since they recently opeded up a Med. school. I predict by 2019 UCR will become a mid-tier UC and the only low-tier UC will be Merced which will probably become more selective as time passes by and will most likely follow the same path as UCR. I myself have gotten accepted into UCR and have already SIR’d with a Bioengineering major. Go Highlanders!!!
Hm. Interesting.
Now imagine Stanford and MIT in the next few years.
I wonder how college admissions will look like in the next 7 years.
Only time will tell.
UCR is a pretty nice school though I must admit.
Sorry made kind of a big mistake. I just skimmed through that last link but that was 2013’s admission stats. The average admitted GPA was 3.76 meaning that although I messed up it ironically helped my argument to the point that the average admitted GPA for UCR in 2015 was most likely hovering around the low 3.8-ish range. Sorry!
Yeah for the top 20 schools admissions are going to be insanely tough but who knows maybe it will stay like how it is now.
You missing one big point here. Due to the budget cuts and increased demand all the UC are being more selective. IIt is not due to a push by the administration of UCR and UCSC to focus on higher academics or research- they do that anyway. These two campuses and Merced will be the go to for students who are not as accomplished as kids say at UCLA/UCB. Riverside has a 50% grad rate after 4 years and has the lowest GPA requirements for incoming freshman. Your 3.8 GPA is not correct at all.
As UCR stats have gone up, so have the other UC stats. So UCR still remains above Merced and below UCSC.
So relative to other UC’s it remained in similar position.
Now for the part I agree with you, relative to other universities in general, UCR is certainly getting a better reputation, and very qualified students are now choosing UCR instead of going OOS. Previous argument being because they did not get into a good UC, they would rather go out of state. Now that does not hold anymore.
http://www.highlandernews.org/12499/ucr-student-graduation-rates-reveal-little-change-according-to-uc-officials/ Well actually its around 40% which is still horrible. But we can see here that the administration at UCR have some solid plans to make that number go up. I agree that all the UC’s have become more selective but that is just the UC system. In comparison to other universities and colleges across the nation, UCR and UCSC have definitely ramped up their selectivity at a much faster rate. I sort of agree that the low tier UCs have students who are less accomplished academically but honestly how much more selective can UCLA and UCB get in comparison to those low tier UC’s? Not by much at all. The 3.8 thing was most likely incorrect for UCR, but UCSC’s is undeniably 3.88 meaning that UCSC is definitely moving towards the likes of UCSB and UCI. Until UCR’s admission stats. are released, we won’t know but what we do know is that their selectivity has definitely gone up. To how far of an extent is the big question here.
I definitely agree with your first paragraph and I failed to see that. UCR is gaining a better reputation though. My freshman year we all perceived UCR as a community college with “UC” just stamped in front of it but now we all respect UCR greatly and many of my friends who got into UCSB and UCI said that if they got denied from those schools they would be happy to attend UCR instead.
Good to see that UCR is getting a better reputation. The students perceptions have to change regarding the school about it be a “safety” and better marketing of what the school has to offer. It will take a good amount of time.
In the UC system, there will always be a desire to assign top, middle and lower tier. I often see kids trying to sell UCR as a middle tier and UCI as a top tier but the reality is that UCR is still lower tier and UCI is middle and likely to stay that way for awhile. That doesn’t mean they are bad schools! The UC’s have a lot to offer and being a lower tier school in the UC system is nothing to sneeze at. Imagine saying that Brown is a loser school. Sure, it’s a lower ranked school in the Ivy system but Brown itself is an awesome school.
Will UCR eventually pass up UCSC or UCI? Maybe. Will it overtake UCSB, UCD and UCSD? Well, not for a good while I’d guess. But more likely, it will continue to improve and get more competitive along with all the others and stay near the bottom until newer UCs are added to the system.
Try not to worry about where your school lands or will land in the future. It sounds like a great fit and you are excited to attend! College is all about what you make it!
Very true stuff there. All the UC’s have amazing research and educational resources no matter which you go to. It’s all about what you do with it. You made some great points, especially with your comparison to Brown and how it is “ranked.” It’s just sad to see so many people dismiss an institution that is ranked 55th out of all public universities in the U.S. (UCR) just because it’s in the same system as other colleges like UCLA and UCB. I don’t see the UC system adding more schools in a very long time but that just gives the current ones all the more time to improve.
just because it is in the same system “technically” does not make it is peer institution. Its not just the UC system take a look at Penn State, Rutgers New Brunswick, University of Michigan- AA, UCONN, SUNY, University of Maryland, These are all nationally ranked schools with satellite campuses in reach respective state. And those campuses are different in terms of what kind of students they attract, the majors they offer, campus life and so on. I can almost say with confidence that a lot of those students would like to attend their flagship school. However you can still have a great college experience its all what you make of it.
I still think UCR is at the bottom, just above UCM. Nothing wrong with that, though. UCR may be getting more competitive but so are all the other UCs.