Supply and demand. California is a large state with many well qualified and competitive California applicants and not enough spots for all these applicants.
For Fall 2026, there were 205,531 total Freshman applicants with 130,211 California applicants alone. The UC’s target around 82% of the enrolled students to be California residents and the OOS/International enrollment is capped so no they do not get preference; however Non-residents have a much lower enrollment yield so some campuses will have higher admit rates for these applicants just to meet enrollment targets.
She has some good UC options along with Santa Clara but if affordability is an issue, then you need to talk to her about the finances and your concerns. As a parent, we want our kids to be happy and if you can handle the costs and she believes she can thrive at UW, then it might be the right decision.
Well, you said you wanted an opinion. Here’s mine. I think it’s an abjectly crummy attitude to declare your child ‘rejected from all other UCs’ and then you go on to say she actually got into UC Santa Cruz, UC Riverside, and I guess would have been admitted to UC Merced if she’d applied. That is not being ‘rejected from all other UCs’ at all. Do you really think your kid is in such a unique position that they’ve been wronged in some way? I can tell you that this probably was the hardest year for any kid to apply for a UC, because our kids are on the tail end of the biggest baby boom since 1953. And UC did state that last year was the most applicants ever, and actually the numbers surpassed last year’s, but you had that information available to you.
You made the choice to have your kid apply to expensive OOS schools rather than an assortment of Cal States besides the two most impacted campuses (Cal Poly and SDSU). If Santa Cruz is not to your kid’s liking (I cannot fathom why not–their Biology and Bioengineering depts have a stellar reputation) then you might want to look into two years at community college and either TAG or transfer to a preferable UC.
You had a choice of 31 UCs and CSUs and only applied to a few of them, so being upset about paying high taxes doesn’t make a whole lot of sense here.
Based on your daughter’s proposed major, and her internship at a hospital, I am going to guess that she might be interested either in medical school or some other form of biomedical career.
One thing that might be worth mentioning: UC Riverside has a very good medical school. If anyone starts university thinking “premed”, and eventually 4 or 5 years later gets accepted to one single MD program, and it is UC Riverside in-state, that is a really, really good outcome.
Another thing that might be worth mentioning: 8 years of university can be horribly expensive. Starting off with the most expensive option for the first four years to me seems like a really bad idea for someone who might be looking at 8 years of university.
The last time that I saw a doctor I might have known where she got her MD, and where she did her residency. I do not know where she got her bachelor’s degree. There are a LOT of universities that are very good for a premed student, or for a student that wants to go into some other biomedical career.
Many years ago I refused to pay for a daughter’s most expensive acceptance. I had a frustrated high school senior. 4 1/2 years later I had a university graduate with no debt who got a dream job that she could only take because she had no debt. She thanked me for not letting her take on debt for a bachelor’s degree. Three years later my wife and I were able to help a DVM student pay for the cost of her DVM. Now I have a daughter who is a veterinarian who is very glad that I was stubborn multiple years ago regarding the cost of a bachelor’s degree. You and your spouse need to be the adults in the room here.
The University of Wisconsin is a very good university. It is not worth paying 4 times the cost, or even twice the cost, when an alternative is UC Riverside in-state (or UCSC or Santa Clara with substantial aid). The exception would be if you are VERY wealthy (like “$800,000 is not all that much” wealthy). I do know someone who is that wealthy. Their only child went to an in-state public university (but a very good in-state public university).
Appreciate the honest feedback. Yes, we made mistakes as parents. Many, many mistakes. We should have only applied to the wide variety of options in Cali. Made that clear.
I personally love the UCR option. Fantastic pre-med programme that guarantees Med school provided you meet certain requirements. That is incredible!
But also, HS kids do things for “image”. Looking cool. And they have no understanding of how hard we have worked to earn every penny.
just curious, are the waitlist numbers here just for freshmen or does this include transfers? and do freshmen and transfers compete for the same seats, or are there designated numbers for freshmen and transfers separately
