Fall 2014 Freshman Waitlist/Appeal/Cancellation Numbers
Looking for more recent stats? Find them here.
These numbers were obtained during the UC Counselor Conference back in September 2014 … I got up and asked for the numbers at the end of a panel presentation from admission directors of each campus. Remember that the waitlist numbers can change dramatically from one year to another and the Fall 2014 numbers are not predictive of what will happen this year.
Campus | Waitlist | Appeal | Cancellation* |
Berkeley | 3,375 offers 2,143 opt-ins 437 admits 249 SIRs | Less than 30 admits | 9 |
Davis | 6,352 offers 2,177 opt-ins 8 admits 7 SIRs | 608 appeals 7 admits | 148 |
Irvine | 3,260 offers 1,479 opt-ins 1,170 admits | 967 appeals 68 admits (mostly errors in initial screening or death) | 57 |
UCLA | 3,700 offers 2,100 opt-ins 150 admits (120 CA; 30 OOS) | 1,200 appeals 61 admits | 30 |
Merced | No waitlist | 30 admits | 97 condition 97 document |
Riverside | 4,600+ offers (only certain selective majors) 58% opt-ins 257 admits | 448 appeals 58 admits | 76 |
San Diego | No admits | 629 appeals 54 admits | 35 condition 109 document |
Santa Barbara | 142 admits | 925 appeals 95 admits (66 were already on waitlist) | 28 condition |
Santa Cruz | 1,400 opt-ins 0 admits | 305 appeals 54 admits (half were already on waitlist) | 356 condition 215 document |
* Failure to meet conditions or submit required documents.
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74 Comments
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Can I call UCSD Admissions Office to find out why I was rejected?
If I appeal, I know UCSD will look at the entire application again. But will they also look at the supplement I filled out again too?
They should. The submitted supplemental questionnaire becomes a part of your application file.
You can try.
Do the different UC campuses “share” application information? So if I was rejected from Davis, could it be because admissions knows another campus (UCLA?) will accept me?
Not in the way you describe. Each UC campus makes admission decisions independently. Trying to coordinate the decisions between the nine campuses would be a logistical nightmare and, quite frankly, the UCs don’t have the money, time, or enough staff to deal with something like that.
My daughter has been wait listed for UCLA. She has been asked to submit a wait list statement within 200 words and her fall grades. Her fall grades are better than what she submitted at the time of applying. She has been accepted in UCSD. But she is interested to go to UCLA. Please advice how you can help. I am Chow and my email address is mclbd1@gmail.com. Thank you.
The UCLA waitlist statement should be capped at 7,000 characters. I offer a Waitlist Statement Service if you are interested in having me work with her directly. If not, you can find free resources to get her started on her waitlist statement in my blog entry UC Freshman Waitlist Information + Waitlist Statement Guideline.
Maybe I didn’t read about this before, but do the admissions staff consider wait listed students before students that appealed their rejection, or are the two lists independent of each other?
It seems that wait listed students would have priority because they are technically qualified for admission but due to space constraints weren’t admitted, while those students that appeal didn’t even make the wait list cut. Is this right?
Also, if I appeal, does the admissions staff consider my grades for Fall semester to be “new and compelling evidence”? At the time of the application, I could only enter that my classes were in progress, so now I have the grades. I did pretty well, getting a 3.9 – does this make any difference at all?
Senior year grades are not considered for admission evaluation and they are not considered for appeal either because that would give you “unfair advantage” (an extra piece of information that other applicants didn’t have a chance to present for admission evaluation). What the admissions office says is that you need to have compelling information that is previously unknown to the admissions office (so not new like recent, but new to the admissions office). In reality, I’ve seen a student here and there getting admitted on appeal with the thinnest “new” information imaginable. I don’t know why that happens, only that it does happen. So my mantra is “appeal if that’s what you want” (whether you want to pay me money to help you is a different issue).
The campuses claim that waitlisted students have priority. But in practice the two pools seem independent (if you look at the waitlist vs. appeal numbers).
UC application is known to have technical glitches that would scramble student information (thus the “errors in initial screening” … a roundabout way of saying “we screwed up”), so I can see how some appeals would be considered compelling (perhaps the student is really a valedictorian who started two nonprofit foundations). In such a case, the “correct” profile of the student may be significantly more competitive than students placed on waitlist.
With budget cuts this year, do you think that the chances of getting accepted through the wait list for UCI are slim? Also, is the wait list for UCI a first come first serve basis? Like whoever accepted a spot on the wait list first? How does the wait list work?
Opt in now since you don’t have to do anything other than saying yes. The campus claims the waitlist is not ranked or time-stamped, but who knows what the admissions office does behind closed doors? Supposedly the admissions office looks through everything again when pulling students off the waitlist, but I’m skeptical since they often make waitlist offers to several thousand students.
Hello! I was accepted into Irvine, Davis, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz, wait listed at San Diego, and rejected from Los Angeles yesterday. I am planning on writing an appeal to the university even though the numbers show that the chances of admittance are slim. I also opted in to the San Diego wait list. As for the appeal, would explanation of grades through clinical depression be considered new and compelling information? I mentioned going through a tough time in the additional information section, but was only recently given the diagnosis after submission of my application.
That is fine. Rather than just generally attributing your grades to the depression, try to quantify how your depression affected your academic performance (provide detailed examples).
What does SIR mean?? I’m not sure if I’m reading this correctly, did Davis really only admit 7 students out of 2,000 – some odd people?
Statement of Intent to Register; basically a form you fill out to commit to enroll at the campus. Davis actually said publicly that no one was admitted, but in reality a handful of people were admitted. I was kind of shocked that the director of admission gave me the actual numbers instead of going with the “press release” the campus had.
How exactly do I write an appeal letter to UCI? Also, does becoming Valedictorian in the fall semester qualify as “new information”?
I’ll post the appeal resources soon. I think becoming valedictorian is pretty significant.
In a comment above, you said several thousand students usually get admitted from the waitlist. Do you mean the waitlist for the UC’s in general or just Irvine?
The campuses often make waitlist offers to several thousand students, not admit.
I was waitlisted at Davis and after submitting the 200 word statement it says “please update your fall grades and provide your estimated spring grades”, so do I actually put the spring grades I think I will get at the end of the semester, or do I leave the spring semester classes as “in-progress”?
I think the instructions actually say to put the estimated spring grades in “additional comments.”
My dream school has been UCI for as long as can remember, however, today after about a week of stressing out about my application status, I was finally notified that I had been declined. I would like to appeal their decision but am unaware of how to actually appeal to them. Could I include my new leadership positions or further explain my application? I really don’t know how to go about this…
I will post free appeal resources on my blog soon or you can sign up for my appeal service.
How do I know if there was an error in the initial screening of my application?
Log back into your UC Application and check to see if there are any errors on it. If there are, appeal.
I opt-in UCI waitlist last week. Now, I would like to submit the letter of continued interest to UCI admission office. Can I send it through message center? Is it too late for it? Thanks
Go for it.
Hello, I am waitlisted for UCR. After seeing the stats & your reply to Jess, I’m worried that I won’t have a chance because they will pick the best off the wailist.. I saw people with better stats than me got waitlisted too..I applied for Neuroscience. My GPA is average but my SAT is below average :/ UCR is my last hope or I’ll have to go to CC..
Try appealing and provide information that you think will boost your qualification as an applicant to UCR.
My son was wait listed at UCB for EECS and opted in. Are there any statistics for acceptance from the waitlist? The good thing is that he is accepted to UCLA for EE.
Berkeley is more secretive than the other campuses (the situation has improved with the new director of admission, but not enough for me to get numbers for the previous application cycle), so I have trouble even just to get the overall numbers.
P.S. I’m assuming there’s a separate waitlist at UCB for EECS and probably less likely than the regular wait list.
Engineering admits by major, so my guess is that each engineering major has its own waitlist.
What does opt in mean?
opt in
phrasal verb [intransitive]
to decide that you want to do something or be involved in something
Source: http://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/opt-in
How does the UCB waitlist process work? Do they already have students they will immediately admit if there is space or are students chosen randomly?
That’s a good question, I haven’t tried asking the admissions office yet (I didn’t think they’d answer honestly).
I don’t know exactly how to appeal because I don’t have any new information:/
Think of something to say.
Will talking about my parents’ divorce and how that affected me academically be considered new and compelling information? Or would it be too much of a sob story?
I’d consider that compelling. Don’t make it into a sob story.
When appealing would it benefit if you change your major? My son applied under Bio engineering to Berkeley and was rejected, I assumed his 4.27 GPA and taking JC classes not AP classes would benefit him but apparently not.
Most UCs do not honor requests to change major in the appeal, but it doesn’t hurt to ask (leaves the option open if the campus decides to make an exception). Community college classes are as good, if not better, that AP classes. Engineering majors are evaluated differently than other “regular” majors, so specific academic preparation is required to be competitive for admission.
My son is wait listed at UCI, and opted-in last week.
Even though they don’t require anything, do you recommend to send a kind of appeal letter with senior’s grade(4.1)?
UCI allows appeal from students who are on the waitlist.
In UCSD, it shows 0 admits – was there a waitlist there?
Also would like to talk to you to seek your services – what is the best way
There was a waitlist but the campus didn’t take anyone off it. Please use the SERVICES tab above to locate the service you need and follow the instructions to contact me.
My son has been wait listed at UCB. Can you please help? His first semester grade has changed from 3.8 to 4 unweighted. Can we talk?
Berkeley is not reviewing appeals from students offered waitlist option. His best bet is to opt in and wait.
Hi Ms. Sun,
I was waitlisted at UCSD and have decided to appeal on the basis that my father passed away unexpectedly shortly after submitting my application. But I realize that most of my “new and compelling” information is that I maintain good grades in spite of this and I saw that you send senior grades are not considered for giving an unfair advantage. While I understand that, do you think I can still appeal on that basis? If not, do you have any suggestions?
Thank you
I’m just repeating what I hear from the admissions office. You won’t know unless you try.
Hi Ms. Sun,
Is there any benefit of SIRing early for any UC school or is it the same as SIRing a few days before May 1st?
You can SIR any time before May 1st.
Hi Ms. Sun! I was flat out denied to UCSB with a 3.5 GPA, so I decided to appeal my application because I’m more of the creative/artsy-type. My appeal letter overall is pretty strong and presents a lot of compelling information, along with examples of my art pieces that will hopefully get the admissions committee to reconsider their choice. I was just wondering if you could tell me how often/if its common that UCSB admits appeals to students who have a lower than average GPAs but have lots of talent in the arts, as a way for them to diversify the community? Also, do you know around what time appeal decisions will come out? I know its after May 1st.
Appeal decisions are difficult to predict as they are largely depended on space availability. You’ll most likely to hear back in the month of May, although I have heard of occasional cases of pending appeal decisions into June or July.
Hey so I have been wait listed for UCI, do you think I should send a letter of appeal as well, or should my spot in the waitlist be sufficient enough for me to not send the letter? Would the appeal make any difference to my wait list decision?
The freshman appeal deadline was April 15th.
Do you happen to know how the UCI waitlist admission works? I know for some colleges like UC Davis you’re required to write a 200 word essay on why you want to attend the school. I was told if you accepted the waitlist for UCI, they just review your application again. Is it mainly based off of how many spots that are available after everyone submits their SIR?
That would be my guess. UCI had a lot of issues with enrollment numbers the last couple of years, so I think not requiring a waitlist statement is meant to lower the barrier for opting in, since the campus tended to pull a lot of students off waitlist. I think the campus is still tweaking its admissions policy to get better yield (more admitted students to choose to enroll), but until the campus finds the right “formula” (maybe it’ll be this year) we can expect to see large number of students coming off the waitlist.
My son was wait listed at UCD and UCSB, he’s an Eagle Scout, Vintner, ER volunteer with a 3.9 GPA. Do you think he has a shot at the wait list or is it impossible from a realistic point of view? Also, do you think the UC’s wait listed a lot more people than normal because of their budgeting issues? Because I hypothesize they wait listed more than normal just in case they don’t have a large enough budget.
Thanks
This year is anomalous so I won’t even try to make a prediction. Davis made 9,000 waitlist offers this year, which is a 50% increase from last year (closer to 6,000). I had assumed the UCs made more waitlist offers because the campuses were super conservative in the number of students they admitted, so that they will HAVE to go to the waitlist (or simply to compensate for any fallout/backfire from this adjustment).
Hi Ms. Sun,
I was waitlisted for both UCSB and Davis and in my appeal letter to UCSB and 200 word statement to Davis, I talked about two new internships I’d been admitted to in January. These internships tie into my career goals, which I talked about in one of my UC essays, and also the major I selected for both campuses. Would you say that’s new and compelling information and will give me a boost?
Thanks.
Sure.
Hi, Ms. Sun
I opt-in UCI waitlist. Most of my teachers suggested me do not do extra work, like sending email or recommendation. However, I think my personal statement do not show all of my strong points. Should I send email to their Admission Officer or it is too late? What will you suggest to do since UCI is my first choice? Thank you for reading my comment.
Your only other option is to appeal and the appeal deadline has passed. You can try emailing the campus if you want; it may not help but it won’t hurt your waitlist status.
Hi I was wait listed at UCR and I know it’s not possible to find out accurately but what do you think are the chances of getting accepted?
Whether anyone gets off the waitlist has to do with UCR having room to accommodate more students. This is dictated by the number of admitted students who opt to enroll; something that is somewhat unpredictable and influenced by numerous external factors (economic trends, tuition increases, etc.). This is entirely out of anyone’s control.
How can appeal for uci freshman 2018
You can find UCI freshman appeal instructions here.
Hey I got rejected by UCI but I surpassed the grade requirement and completed all the required courses for transfer. Nonetheless I cannot help but think that the reason for this rejection is due to a failure to submit a requested transcript. Will the inclusion of my transcript be considered new information when appealing?
If you failed to respond to a transcript request, then your application is likely considered incomplete. You should check with UCI on what appeal process you need to use.