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socalmike
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Calling All UCLA 2011 Applicants! 17 Mar 2011, 21:28
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Stele
I know enough people that went to the UC schools to know it is significantly easier to get into as in-state, and no, you don't have to be necessarily top Ivy material.
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First, most Californians know that UC Berkeley and UCLA are top 2 UC schools. So classifying all UC schools as the same is not fair since the overall quality of UCB/UCLA is much stronger than that of UC Riverside/Santa Cruz/Merced.

Second, obviously it's much easier to get into as an state resident and yes not every student at UCLA/UC Berkeley is ivy league material (stat wise) as well. But that's not my point. My point is to show that UCLA is not some "mad easy" school to get into in-state or not. The fact that Alexandra Wallace got into UCLA when she barely has the intelligence of a 4th grader is what makes this whole incident shocking. That's my point.
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Calling All UCLA 2011 Applicants! 17 Mar 2011, 21:37
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Those are the 2009 SAT 25-75% percentiles. Now I know SATs are an even more meaningless stat than GMATs when it comes to assessing intelligence because the system can be gamed, but I think she can easily fall into the lower percentiles, which I know for sure is represented by more in-states.

SAT Critical Reading: 560 / 680
SAT Math: 590 / 720
SAT Writing: 580 / 700
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socalmike
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Calling All UCLA 2011 Applicants! 17 Mar 2011, 21:45
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Stele
Those are the 2009 SAT 25-75% percentiles. Now I know SATs are an even more meaningless stat than GMATs when it comes to assessing intelligence because the system can be gamed, but I think she can easily fall into the lower percentiles, which I know for sure is represented by more in-states.

SAT Critical Reading: 560 / 680
SAT Math: 590 / 720
SAT Writing: 580 / 700
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Personally, I think she's far below these stats. I think UCLA must have had a "dumb fake blonde bimbo" quota to fill that year.
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Calling All UCLA 2011 Applicants! 17 Mar 2011, 22:52
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Stele
I know enough people that went to the UC schools to know it is significantly easier to get into as in-state, and no, you don't have to be necessarily top Ivy material.
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I can't agree with this statement 100%. While everyone probably knows and agrees that top Ivy students are the king of all kings, it's not exactly "mad" easy to get into berkeley or UCLA. True, chances are it's going to be easier for in-state student, but one thing you have to understand is that most of the applicants are going to be in-state students. And to call it mad easy to get in Berkeley would truly be a misnomer. A quick search of the average incoming undergrads for Berkeley shows to be 3.93 (unweighted). I chose UPenn to be one of the top ivy, but couldn't find an average GPA posted. However, even if it's higher than 3.93, it can't be much higher since unweighted GPA caps out at 4.00. With that said, it's still harder to get in Penn because Penn simply admits fewer folks. So yes, I agree that it'll be harder for anyone to get in top Ivy, but it certainly will not be a walk in the park for someone to get in Berkeley either. And just to recap, since most of the applicants are in-state, what you'll see as a majority of the students there would be in-state students; therefore, creating a false sense of in-state admission being easier than out-of-state. But in full view, here's the number comparing in-state and out-of-state admission to Berkeley:

California residents total applicants: 38,443 and admitted 9,495 in-state applicants.
Out-of-state total applicants: 7,189 and admitted 2,468 out-of-state applicants.

The admission proportion comes out to be 24.7% in-state admission and 34.3% out-of-state admission.
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Calling All UCLA 2011 Applicants! 17 Mar 2011, 23:09
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Not sure if you're international or not, but you have to take into account CA's K-12 public school systems has traditionally had a horrid reputation. I think it's bottom 10 of all states but I'm not going to bother digging that up. I know a few CA people that coasted to the top of their HS classes effortlessly. While most of the UCs are definitely reputable U.S. undergrad schools, you have to look at the fact it's there primarily to serve the student population of that education system. All the top publics have this problem. The segmentation of student applicants creates a lot of opportunities for kids that are raised by highly disciplined parents or parents that grew up under much more competitive systems. No, it's not easy for an average American to get in...but is that really setting the bar very high knowing what we know about the state of K-12 education in this country?

Heh, I keep on editing this post cause this is one of my favorite pet rants, but this will be seriously the last comment. Since what prompted all this was about UCLA's demographics, think about this for a moment. UCLA's undergrads are probably about 40% Asian give or take. CA is only 13% Asian. How many of those Asian students do you think will make it to a top 25 undergrad institution, which UCLA and Cal definitely are, in their ancestral countries if they were still there? This isn't a knock on those kids but on the education system.
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Calling All UCLA 2011 Applicants! 18 Mar 2011, 04:16
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The reality is CA overall has a bad public k-12 system, but it also has a lot some top public HS schools as well and this is mostly related to areas income level (property tax) that funds those schools. A disproportionate number of students at the top UC schools comes from one of these high schools.
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Calling All UCLA 2011 Applicants! 18 Mar 2011, 05:32
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Stele
I know enough people that went to the UC schools to know it is significantly easier to get into as in-state, and no, you don't have to be necessarily top Ivy material.
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I know Ivy students who would never survive the UC systems since we don't inflate grades and the UCs already being packed to the brim are fine with weeding out students. This is obviously only from my engineering experience at both sides of the equation.

Stele - the top 3% of ALL CA state schools are guaranteed a spot in the UC. And yes, they take from across the board, every year. This does mean that there will students from the top of the top schools as well as the poorer performing schools because of this. there will always be perfect 4.0 valedictorian class presidents that will be rejected from UCs as the schools don't want 10,000 of the same students. This girl probably fell into the other side of the spectrum and brought something else to the table - what I do not know.

I feel she has paid her price for the next few years. She's a junior and in the event she is not expelled or at least forced to leave just for the fear of her own safety, I would like to see how to makes it through recruitment come fall.
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Calling All UCLA 2011 Applicants! 18 Mar 2011, 06:40
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socalmike
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I can't believe someone like this even got into the school in the first place. I have HS friends who got into an ivy school or Berkeley but not UCLA back in the early 2000s.
I thought the UC schools were mad easy to get into if you were in-state? And the Ivy League is more and more just a sports conference these days. You can not say Harvard/Yale/Princeton is remotely close to Brown/Cornell, even though they are associated.

Lol at the song btw.

The CSU system, the other California state system, is "mad" easy at almost any school except maybe Cal-Poly SLO. Top UC schools are tough to get into even for in state residents. My HS friend who went to Penn got rejected by UCLA, and that ended up being better for him since he ended up in Wharton UG and at a hedge fund. Another friend who was devastated at the time about his UCLA rejection got into Berkeley and ended up in Haas UG. This also worked out better for him because Berkeley's IB (Haas) placement is a lot better than UCLA's (Business econ).
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To add a bit more insight, I graduated from the mechanical engineering program at Cal Poly SLO and by the time I graduated, it was VERY difficult to get into the engineering program there. It is definitely one of the top notch engineering programs in the country.

As for the UC vs. Cal State debate, I agree that the UC system is much more difficult to get into.
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Calling All UCLA 2011 Applicants! 18 Mar 2011, 07:03
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Have people received decisions today?
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bakfed
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Calling All UCLA 2011 Applicants! 18 Mar 2011, 08:12
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I think everyone has a point in terms of the public education, especially the UC system, which we have probably the highest number of publicly-funded universities within the entire country. I think that yes, you'd have an advantage if you're in-state applicant, and yes, these UCs will take the top 3% of every high school (whether it's a high school in the slums that don't offer AP/IB, or it's a prestigious high school where everyone works his/her a$$ off to gain a seat in the AP classes, I think that's beside the point). I think that, while the above points are true, some seats are going to be harder to get in. Berkeley's business program will certainly not take anyone in; UCLA and UCSD will probably not take every pre-med student in and that in order for students to truly make it to these programs, it would take more than just "coasting through high school" to receive an acceptance letter.

*p.s.: in-state applicant, graduated from UCSD (I cannot believe that the chemistry track at UCSD is anything less than UPenn's chemistry track). I know plenty of folks who didn't get in the top UCs, but work competitively and definitely had competitive grades in high school. But I guess the same could be said when one turns the argument around. I also know of plenty of folks who got in whom I didn't think would get in in the first place.
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Calling All UCLA 2011 Applicants! 18 Mar 2011, 09:14
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bakfed
these UCs will take the top 3% of every high school (whether it's a high school in the slums that don't offer AP/IB, or it's a prestigious high school where everyone works his/her a$$ off to gain a seat in the AP classes, I think that's beside the point).
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Even though the top 3% of each high school is guaranteed a UC school, that doesn't mean you are getting into UCB/UCLA/UCSD...if your stats are more in line with UCSC or UCR, there's your guaranteed UC school.
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Calling All UCLA 2011 Applicants! 18 Mar 2011, 09:37
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plohani
Have people received decisions today?
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Nothing today. I looked at last year's forum and it looks like decisions were released one and two weeks before the decision date. Maybe the next set of decisions will be released Wednesday. Hopefully sooner though.
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pbj2010
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Calling All UCLA 2011 Applicants! 18 Mar 2011, 10:16
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anitac96
plohani
Have people received decisions today?

Nothing today. I looked at last year's forum and it looks like decisions were released one and two weeks before the decision date. Maybe the next set of decisions will be released Wednesday. Hopefully sooner though.
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Hopefully... :? It's quieted down a bit since the first round of releases...
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Calling All UCLA 2011 Applicants! 18 Mar 2011, 10:24
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socalmike
bakfed
these UCs will take the top 3% of every high school (whether it's a high school in the slums that don't offer AP/IB, or it's a prestigious high school where everyone works his/her a$$ off to gain a seat in the AP classes, I think that's beside the point).

Even though the top 3% of each high school is guaranteed a UC school, that doesn't mean you are getting into UCB/UCLA/UCSD...if your stats are more in line with UCSC or UCR, there's your guaranteed UC school.
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Agree with this.
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Calling All UCLA 2011 Applicants! 18 Mar 2011, 11:46
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This wait is killing me....

Post interview nail biting syndrome.
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Calling All UCLA 2011 Applicants! 18 Mar 2011, 13:41
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Is there any relationship on the chances of being accepted to when you are interviewed?
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Calling All UCLA 2011 Applicants! 21 Mar 2011, 08:37
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No e-mails or calls this Monday morning???
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Calling All UCLA 2011 Applicants! 21 Mar 2011, 09:22
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pbj2010
No e-mails or calls this Monday morning???
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Nothing here. Maybe this Wednesday?
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Calling All UCLA 2011 Applicants! 21 Mar 2011, 09:29
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I'm betting on Wednesday as well. 4:15 AM wakeup!
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Calling All UCLA 2011 Applicants! 21 Mar 2011, 09:30
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marketingchick
pbj2010
No e-mails or calls this Monday morning???
Nothing here. Maybe this Wednesday?
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Pure speculation, but since it's so close to the final decision date, I would assume all remaining decisions (admits, dings, WLs) are going to go out on the 30th? Good luck all!
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