Speaking as a mom of son who was waitlisted, it’s definitely not better.
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D24 admitted, College of Letters and Sci. In-state public HS. 4.0/4.6+, 9 AP, 5 solid concurrent enrollment courses, 5-ish Honors, solid ECs including competitive sports, club founder, one internship, class cabinet. Her essays were really strong and may have helped. She was waitlisted at UCLA, accepted all others (UCD also offered Honors Program and sizable merit scholarship), just waiting on UCB. She is very grateful to have these amazing choices.
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He can change majors once he enrolls and attends UCSB however I would contact the ME department to determine if all requirements are met, will he be guaranteed admission into ME.
Admission by change of major into Mechanical Engineering is both limited and competitive. Petitions are required once students have been admitted through the change of major process
There is a post about this on the UCSB subreddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/UCSantaBarbara/s/SFMiTCOsp1
Thank you so much. Congrats! You have a very smart boy. I wish him the best.
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He can contact the department to find out what the admit rate has been lately, but even that can change two years hence. If he is confident he wants to be an ME and has an acceptance to ME at any other college he probably should take it.
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UCSB is no longer the party school it was years ago. The average GPA for incoming students is around a 4.4. It’s the same as every other school - maybe even less partyish as the students now visit other schools such as UCLA at Halloween ( it’s certainly not like the Cal poly slo St Fratty’s Day!). My son was shy and has meet an incredible group of friends through intramural sports. They work hard, are very supportive of each other, as social as you want to be - no-one pressures you if you don’t want to party and the location is just stunning. For dorms - the ones on campus are less social than Santa Catalina which is off campus but still a great place to be and make friends.
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Except the culprit at SLO was deemed to be “ students from a neighboring UC”. Aka UCSB
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Hi Ram_W, you stats is similar to Gaetano except no SAT score. Wonder if that’s the reason for your rejection?
UCSB is test blind so SAT score is not considered for admission purposes and would not be a deciding factor.
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It’s more than just numbers
They look at location, how the student did in context to the schools offerings and past success/averages, they look at ECs and then PIQs matter. Two kids could write about the exact same thing but the style and the audience involvement in the actual writing can make a huge difference. Plus what one reader likes a different admissions officer may not. Comparing stats is easy and it makes us want to look at those but I sure if the students all published their PIQs we could see glaring differences in content,style, engagement of the reader, time, errors, etc.
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I didn’t think of that possibility, but it does make sense. If admissions are random for qualified candidates, then inevitably with tens of thousands of applicants some great students will fall through the cracks at many and maybe all of the schools they apply to. On some level I wonder if it would be better for the UCs to actually coordinate admissions on some level if what you’re speculating is correct.
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Would early admissions decisions help with this? I have talked to my daughter about “If we knew then, what we know now” we never would have applied to so many schools. We appled to like 10 schools out of uncertainty over acceptances.
Same. Also the UC schools deadline is just before ED results. If the Ed ( common AP schools) came out earlier or UC deadline was later it would have save us a ton of money. D24 got into REA at Caltech. She said had I known …. But because admissions seems so random she applied to 4 CSUs and all the UCs except for two. So she applied to 13 total. But better safe than sorry. Huge moneymaker for the schools I think. 70$ per application and 150000 applicants estimated at these top UCs. That’s a lot of money even if you subtract those who get fees waived.
ETA she has already declined all offers except for two UCs. We are going to admitted students days at her top three schools before she makes final decision. She wanted to free up spots for others if that matters.
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And so painful for kids on waitlists. Mine got on 4 UC waitlists. I wish the UCs at least made kids pick their favorite after admitted student day so it opened up the WL sooner for the kids stuck in limbo.
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Alternatively, they could make it less easy to apply to all of the UC’s. Instead of the blanket 4 piqs how about 3 piqs for all, and then a 4th campus specific piq like why do you want to study X at UCSB, Y at UCR.
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My counselor’s son is in that program and absolutely loves, loves it. From her description of the program and his experiences the last two years, it kinda feels like an intense STEM and Liberal Arts education while getting the nurturing and mentorship of the professors. He’s got a great research gig this summer with a professor and I think they kinda served it up–he performed well academically there, of course. Congrats!! Physics is def a very strong program and highly recognized program.
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Anybody not heard anything from CCS yet? I’ve been confused all of this week and last week seeing other people get accepted/rejected from CCS Physics but I have not gotten a single email nor confirmation from them. I just want to know if other people have experienced this?
It is my dream school/program. I got accepted into UC Santa Barbara but my acceptance message read that I was in the regular Physics program.
According to https://ccs.ucsb.edu/sites/default/files/2022-12/CCSAdmissionsFAQs.pdf
We will notify you via email of the decision made about your CCS admission or denial. If you are a first-year applicant who applies by the priority deadline, most applicants will receive a CCS admissions decision via email in mid March after UCSB admissions decisions are released to the UCSB Admissions Portal.
So it’s a bit surprising you haven’t heard although “most” doesn’t mean “all”. Check your spam folder to make sure it wasn’t filtered out. If you can’t find it then call the dept and tell them you haven’t received yours, ask when it will be sent.
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Parent here- my son has been accepted into a dream program (College of Creative Studies) and visiting the campus it looks like an amazing environment.
I am unclear what the deal is with housing, it is an issue that means he should go elsewhere? He has offers to other amazing UCs, one of which is UCLA which has a four year housing guarantee.
What is it like to be at UCSB and locate housing after that first year in the dorms?
Is housing difficult enough that it would make sense to go to another school where all four years of housing are guaranteed?
We were only in Isla Vista briefly and it looked really fun.