Many applicants to the most selective university programs share high grades, high test scores, solid recommendations and generous doses of community service and volunteer activities. Yet, if they want to set themselves apart from the pool of exceptional students, a significant research experience in STEM or the social sciences helps.
University of California System
The UC admissions readers need a well-wrought set of activities to appraise your application.
A candidate can submit 20 activities with up to 500 characters to describe each. An activity list can possibly reach a maximum of 10,000 characters, around 1,600 words or 3.5 pages. Now imagine being a UCLA admissions reader at 2am on a Saturday morning coming upon her 1007th description of an ASB council member heading up a beach cleanup? Yes, it’s part of the job description, but show a little mercy.
Hot off the press! We've had a chance to review the Fall 2018 admissions data released recently by the University of California and thought it would be helpful to summarize it and share our key findings.
Overall freshman admission rates are up for non-residents and down for residents as the University of California continues to settle on a new normal that accommodates a larger mix of out of state and international students. If you're an out of state or international student, pay close attention...there continues to be a window of opportunity to take advantage of favorable odds at several UC campuses.
The flood of applications into the UC System continued unabated for the fall of 2018.
More than 200,000 students applied for undergraduate admissions. This means the number of applicants increased an average of 5.7% across the 9-schools that incorporate the undergraduate UC System. You can see a campus by campus comparison of freshman applicant composition at the UCOP (UC Office of the President) website. https://www.ucop.edu/institutional-research-academic-planning/_files/factsheets/2018/fall-2018-applications-table2.2.pdf
UC Berkeley announced that it will begin accepting two recommendation letters from its freshmen applicants beginning this fall.
UC Berkeley undergraduate admissions has not welcomed recommendations since it opened its doors in 1868, yet admission criteria to the UCs (and Berkeley) have been in the throes of change over the last years.
As applications surged into the UC System, Janet Napolitano, the UC System president, announced a plan to raise UC tuition at a 5% annual clip over the next five years.
The tuition hike is scheduled for the 2015-2016 term, raising tuition by $612, and will take tuition from the current $12,192 to $15,563 in 2019-2020. Out of state tuition would rise to $36,828 next year and ascend to $44,766 by 2019-2020.
The UC proposal breaks with the 4-year budget deal that has annually increased state funding in return for a tuition freeze. State funding has increased 5% in each of the past two years.
Napolitano has several reasons for the proposed tuition increase and believes the tuition hike is essential to maintaining the quality of a UC education.
For the first time in recent history, the UC Admissions site goes live on the same day as the Common Application: August 1st.
If you’re going to be a senior next year, it might not be a bad idea to celebrate by writing the first draft of your UC Personal Statement now. As the websites at most the UC campuses advise, applicants should take ample time to brainstorm, write, revise and burnish their essays. It is essential to do as good a job as possible on the personal statements as they are key components in the UC selection process at most of the campuses.
On November 1st, the University of California began accepting applications for fall 2014. This column contains a number of frequently asked questions (FAQs) regarding the application timeline and details, selecting majors, submitting test scores and the UC Personal Statements. Although many of the answers can be found on the UC Admissions site, most applicants have little time to scour a 45 page PDF to unearth them. I, on the other hand, run into many of these every day.
