I made a thread when I heard from UCLA and got wait listed you can check my stats out on that.
But wait listed to Berkeley, UCLA, Davis, and Cal Poly? Seriously, something is up. Whats up?
Maybe they are all selective…
That’s why you always apply for a range of universities. I failed to get into all of the schools I applied to except my “backup” school. Of course I aimed high and assumed my GPA combined with a 99th percentile SAT would get me in. I eventually worked my way up from undergrad to RPI for graduate school, crashed courses at Yale as a non-student with the full knowledge of the professors, and then got into UC Berkeley as a post-doc. Just take it step by step, apply broadly each time, and take the best opportunity that presents itself. In my firsthand experience, no professor from a top tier university kicked me out when I sat in on his class. No professor I have ever approached has ever closed the door on me (except to tell me to come back during office hours) when I tried to engage him about his research. I’m not advocating doing anything crazy like sleeping in the hallways at UCB. I crashed Yale only while I was working on a Ph.D. at RPI. I wouldn’t have spent time at Yale if I couldn’t find more certain value elsewhere. I considered any help from Yale a long shot, but knowing world-class researchers at multiple institutions can open doors. And extra time at alternative institutions costs nothing but time and it might get you educated along the way.
You probably won’t have time to audit other universities as an undergrad, but as a graduate student you have more control over your time. So I just ask that you take the long view.