The College Conversation:

Here’s a conversation starter: The University of California was selfish this year.

More than 10,000 high school students are stuck in limbo right now, waiting with bated breath for the ever-so-slight possibility they have a chance of admission to the UC institution that wait-listed them. In a completely self-serving move, the UC chose to implement a wait-list system that selective private universities have been using for years. This decision was made in the same year that one in four UC admits was an out-of-state or international applicant.

As the University of California works to protect its bottom line, unsure of how the economy will ultimately affect its enrollment numbers, students are strung along and forced to wait until the end of this month when they will most likely learn they’ve indeed been rejected. It’s true that some will get in. Some already have. But it’s not worth the stress this prolongation adds to thousands of students and parents.

For the UCs to survive the downturn in the economy, freshmen seats cannot sit empty and over-enrollment can spell disaster. Too few students mean layoffs for faculty, dissolving underrepresented majors, and less academic support. Too many packed classes, lack of space in the dorms, and impacted majors and classes, further ensuring the unrealistic goal of graduating from college in four years.

Not surprising, each UC campus developed its own wait-list policy and FAQ handout, but none addressed its process for determining how students, if any, will be moved off the wait list. Instead of reading between the lines, we called a few of the UCs and addressed that very question.

Our call was tossed around at UC Berkeley, from one department to another, and eventually parked on hold for 20 minutes before we couldn’t handle the suspense any longer and chose to hang up. UC San Diego was more forthright, telling us “chances are we aren’t accepting students off the wait-list.”

When asked how they would determine which students indeed might be granted admission, they explained that the eligibility index used to rank students for admission remained in place, and the higher the student’s academic achievement, the higher the ranking on the wait-list. Students wait-listed at UCSD should expect a letter “in the next day or two.”

UC Santa Barbara has taken quite a few students off the wait-list already, and will continue to do so. UCSB purposely admitted a lower number of students and will draw carefully from the wait-list so as to avoid over-enrollment. Their process differed in that the names on the wait-list were not ordered. Choosing whom to enroll would depend on the institution’s needs at that time.

Anyone a tuba-playing female engineer?

UC Santa Cruz has sufficient enrollment as of May 1 and despite establishing a wait-list, it does not plan to draw from it. They have enough Banana Slugs.

There is no student benefit to college wait-list policies. It’s a terrible position to be placed into, and unfair to students who’ve worked so hard throughout high school, only to hear they have to wait weeks and sometimes months to learn once more that they aren’t good enough.

Keep in mind that if you are eventually offered a spot, you’ll have one week to make a decision. Make sure student housing is available in a freshman dorm, financial aid is not dried up and there is space in student orientation.

My advice is simple. Submit your housing deposit and roommate questionnaire to the college where, as of now, you will be attending in the fall. You were excited about this college enough to put it on your list in the first place and deserve for this admissions cycle to be over. Buy that college gear.

Quack like a Duck, swim like a Beaver, run like a Torero, and roar like a Lion.

LISA MCLAUGHLIN is the founder and executive director of EDvantage Consulting Inc., an independent college admission counseling firm in South Orange County. Her column runs on Saturdays. Please send college admissions questions to [email protected].