Venting Thread Class of 2030!

[SJ2727]

@MWolf

They consider the effects of growing up in a low income home on academic achievements

@ucbalumnus

They look at achievement in context of opportunities. Opportunities are commonly correlated to parent income, since parents with money commonly use it to increase educational and other opportunities for their kid

From the horse’s mouth, to back these up.

Academic accomplishments in light of your life experiences and special circumstances, including but not limited to: disabilities, low family income, first generation to attend college, need to work, disadvantaged social or educational environment, difficult personal and family situations or circumstances, refugee status or veteran status.

Location of your secondary school and residence.

The first quote clearly mentions income as a consideration. Location of your residence is also an indicator of income, one I assume they use to assess whether a student is low or high income relative to their school. I have heard of people deliberately sending their kids to lower-income schools so that they stand out more, and obviously sometimes there are lower-income kids going to school in a high-income neighborhood.

How applications are reviewed | UC Admissions

[worriedmomucb]

@Guy_Rien

The Valedictorian that gets denied from all the top UCs probably got the admissions reader who wasn’t paying attention or was probably reading an app whilst watching TV because you can get paid more flipping burgers (and get benefits!).

If they applied to multiple UCs then they got multiple readers (it’s not one reader reviewing the application for all campuses, each campus has its own readers). Also, my understanding is that even for each individual campus two readers usually score the application and, if their scores diverge, then it undergoes further review, so there are some checks and balances in place. Maybe that is no longer the case? At any rate, it is not an issue with a single distracted reader causing a student to get declined from multiple campuses. The application undergoes multiple reviews by multiple people.

[worriedmomucb]

@MrCheapo

They all had the same opportunities at the same school, some choose to take them and others didn’t.

But that’s not true according to Guy_Rien’s post in the other thread, although your school of course may be different.

But the non-IB kids can’t do most of these classes (they are capped and enrollment by invitation only at my school)

So at least at some IB schools, non-IB kids do not have the opportunity to take the same classes and can’t simply choose to take them as they are by invitation only.

@Guy_Rien

@MrCheapo

Their small group taking the IB who have a GPA approaching 4.75 and a larger group who just take non-AP/IB classes whose GPA is closer to 3.75. The counsellor told them last year that more kids from the larger (lower GPA) modality got into the top UCs then their group.

Am I allowed to ask if the two groups have vastly different demographics? Seems absurd that kids from the same school are admitted to a UC with a GPA a full point less than another kid that is denied.

But that’s weighted uncapped GPA, I assume. The UCs also look at unweighted GPA (and weighted and capped), so it possible they would both have an unweighted 4.0 or 3.9 or whatever, and it would not be a full point lower. And even where there is disparity, lots of things could account for that aside from demographics. Intended major, for one thing.