2025-2026 UCLA (Geffen)

Started by chilly_md
BU Medical Sciences
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Just got my waitlist today, does anyone know how often people get off the waitlist and whether or not I’m at the “top”
 
tryingtogetaccepted123 said:
Just got my waitlist today, does anyone know how often people get off the waitlist and whether or not I’m at the “top”
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here are the 2 versions of emails I have seen on admit:

Top of the WL: “Your application to the 2026 entering class has been carefully and holistically reviewed by our Admissions Committee and while it was not selected for one of the limited spaces available for an admission offer, the Admissions Committee is pleased to offer you the option to remain on our alternate list.  As your application is near the top of our list, you will be among the first to receive a space should one open in our 2026 entering class."

regular WL: "Your application to the 2026 entering class has been carefully and holistically reviewed by our Admissions Committee and while it was not selected for one of the limited spaces available for an admission offer, the Admissions Committee is pleased to offer you the option to be placed on our alternate list. Candidates from the alternate list will be offered admission should class spaces open prior to the start of classes in August 2026. "

there may be more versions but you can clearly see if you are at the top or not!
 
nodoseganglia said:
here are the 2 versions of emails I have seen on admit:

Top of the WL: “Your application to the 2026 entering class has been carefully and holistically reviewed by our Admissions Committee and while it was not selected for one of the limited spaces available for an admission offer, the Admissions Committee is pleased to offer you the option to remain on our alternate list.  As your application is near the top of our list, you will be among the first to receive a space should one open in our 2026 entering class."

regular WL: "Your application to the 2026 entering class has been carefully and holistically reviewed by our Admissions Committee and while it was not selected for one of the limited spaces available for an admission offer, the Admissions Committee is pleased to offer you the option to be placed on our alternate list. Candidates from the alternate list will be offered admission should class spaces open prior to the start of classes in August 2026. "

there may be more versions but you can clearly see if you are at the top or not!
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Does anyone have an idea why someone would be waitlisted or not, I thought my interview went pretty well with my interviewer even saying “you’re in a pretty good spot” so it’s disheartening to see :/
 
tryingtogetaccepted123 said:
Does anyone have an idea why someone would be waitlisted or not, I thought my interview went pretty well with my interviewer even saying “you’re in a pretty good spot” so it’s disheartening to see :/
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I'm reading in previous years' threads that there are two waitlists. The "top" WL is ranked. The regular WL is unranked. They go through all of their top WL applicants by rank order, and then pull from the regular WL at random if they still have vacancies.
 
polymerization said:
I'm reading in previous years' threads that there are two waitlists. The "top" WL is ranked. The regular WL is unranked. They go through all of their top WL applicants by rank order, and then pull from the regular WL at random if they still have vacancies.
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damn that's not promising as a non top WL
 
How much do stats continue to matter even after an interview invite cuz ngl my stats aren’t the greatest but I would’ve assumed after the interview it shouldn’t matter anymore
 
Anyone have any good info on chances being accepted on either WL? I think I’ve heard if you’re on the priority WL you have pretty good chances of getting off but very few regular WL people get in. Does that sound right
 
mamba-mentality1 said:
Anyone have any good info on chances being accepted on either WL? I think I’ve heard if you’re on the priority WL you have pretty good chances of getting off but very few regular WL people get in. Does that sound right
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also on regular waitlist IS. Hoping chances are good but still pretty bummed since it sounds like Top of the list has to all be admitted before getting to us.
 
Trying to better understand the waitlist -- do they do any post interview Rs? Feels like a very large percentage of people were waitlisted.
 
tired-1 said:
Trying to better understand the waitlist -- do they do any post interview Rs? Feels like a very large percentage of people were waitlisted.
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From my understanding (but I could be wrong), it seems like for the past two cycles, no one has been rejected outright post-II for regular MD decisions. Either regular waitlist or "top of" waitlist. But for the '22-'23 cycle, there were post-II rejections. I guess we won't know for sure if this year they are doing post-II rejections, until someone reports a rejection.
 
cantaloupelover23 said:
From my understanding (but I could be wrong), it seems like for the past two cycles, no one has been rejected outright post-II for regular MD decisions. Either regular waitlist or "top of" waitlist. But for the '22-'23 cycle, there were post-II rejections. I guess we won't know for sure if this year they are doing post-II rejections, until someone reports a rejection.
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Based on my neurotic search through old threads, if there will be post-II Rs, they are coming in hot much sooner rather than later, too. Hold on to your hats, folks.
 
cantaloupelover23 said:
From my understanding (but I could be wrong), it seems like for the past two cycles, no one has been rejected outright post-II for regular MD decisions. Either regular waitlist or "top of" waitlist. But for the '22-'23 cycle, there were post-II rejections. I guess we won't know for sure if this year they are doing post-II rejections, until someone reports a rejection.
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So basically if you got regular waitlist you basically got rejected?
 
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tryingtogetaccepted123 said:
So basically if you got regular waitlist you basically got rejected?
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I think it depends on the cycle, so we will have to see. It seems like last cycle there was little to no regular WL movement, but 2 cycles ago there appeared to be some regular WL movement. Fingers crossed there's more regular WL movement this year!
 
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tryingtogetaccepted123 said:
So basically if you got regular waitlist you basically got rejected?
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Didn't someone say earlier that UCLA sent over 370 acceptances last year from US News? That's about 200 from the waitlist. I think people just didn't report it. UCLA isn't cover second look day this year, so that's probably going to hurt their yield. Not to mention the lawsuit; that would definitely hurt their yield. And then there's also people who withdraw from the WL.
 
Got some messages regarding how much WL movement happens.

It obviously changes year to year, but my class had significant WL movement. I know at least 10+ folks (me included) who got an acceptance offer from the 'regular' waitlist. Keep in mind that the 'top of waitlist' group is relatively small and tend to have competitive offers at other schools. Considering recent changes to federal loan amounts, maybe WL movement will be high this year as students will reasonably turn towards schools that offer more scholarships.

Edit: Personally, I took the waitlist as a sign to move on elsewhere and was pleasantly surprised when I got the acceptance notification later in the cycle.
 
Morningnight said:
Got some messages regarding how much WL movement happens.

It obviously changes year to year, but my class had significant WL movement. I know at least 10+ folks (me included) who got an acceptance offer from the 'regular' waitlist. Keep in mind that the 'top of waitlist' group is relatively small and tend to have competitive offers at other schools. Considering recent changes to federal loan amounts, maybe WL movement will be high this year as students will reasonably turn towards schools that offer more scholarships.
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Is the "top" of the WL small enough that we can bank on receiving an A and start making path-dependent plans on? My partner is considering starting to apply to jobs in the area, but I wouldn't want to have him go through that if there is a good chance that I never get the call...

Related, do you know anything about the loan situation out there? I know UCLA is not very generous these days, but I do see they offer institutional loans. I'm not sure if that means students are able to access enough loan funding to cover COA, though. Are they bridging the difference the OBBB creates with the loan caps? I'm FGLI so this stuff really matters.

(And thank you! I'm grateful you stuck around on SDN. My neurotic scrolling went all the way back to when you were applying yourself!)
 
Morningnight said:
Got some messages regarding how much WL movement happens.

It obviously changes year to year, but my class had significant WL movement. I know at least 10+ folks (me included) who got an acceptance offer from the 'regular' waitlist. Keep in mind that the 'top of waitlist' group is relatively small and tend to have competitive offers at other schools. Considering recent changes to federal loan amounts, maybe WL movement will be high this year as students will reasonably turn towards schools that offer more scholarships.

Edit: Personally, I took the waitlist as a sign to move on elsewhere and was pleasantly surprised when I got the acceptance notification later in the cycle.
Click to expand...
Is it true that the regular WL is unranked and given offers at random (should spaces open up)? Thanks so much for your insight!
 
polymerization said:
Is the "top" of the WL small enough that we can bank on receiving an A and start making path-dependent plans on? My partner is considering starting to apply to jobs in the area, but I wouldn't want to have him go through that if there is a good chance that I never get the call...

Related, do you know anything about the loan situation out there? I know UCLA is not very generous these days, but I do see they offer institutional loans. I'm not sure if that means students are able to access enough loan funding to cover COA, though. Are they bridging the difference the OBBB creates with the loan caps? I'm FGLI so this stuff really matters.

(And thank you! I'm grateful you stuck around on SDN. My neurotic scrolling went all the way back to when you were applying yourself!)
Click to expand...
Yes for the WL.

Regarding UCLA not being very generous, this is I look for data and don't trust rumors. Here's UCLA's average debt. They did have the Geffen Scholarship back then, but it funds 20% of their class. If you adjust the numbers, it comes out to about $200k of debt for the average student or about half of their COA. That's pretty generous aid. And this is why I called the "treat regular waitlist as a rejection" rumor as BS and I was right.

1772942767121.png
 
premedlightyagami said:
Yes for the WL.

Regarding UCLA not being very generous, this is I look for data and don't trust rumors. Here's UCLA's average debt. They did have the Geffen Scholarship back then, but it funds 20% of their class. If you adjust the numbers, it comes out to about $200k of debt for the average student or about half of their COA. That's pretty generous aid. And this is why I called the "treat regular waitlist as a rejection" rumor as BS and I was right.

View attachment 416100
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Average debt isn’t the best metric to look at as it takes into account people who are able to pay out of pocket for some/all of the costs.
 
spork3546 said:
Average debt isn’t the best metric to look at as it takes into account people who are able to pay out of pocket for some/all of the costs.
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Are there any data on those people? How much they make up medical students would affect how much the data is skewed.

There's also the fact UCLA gets $10 billion in endowments a year.
 
i noticed a UID number pop up in my portal last week and regular WL yesterday. does the UID mean anything, or does everyone get that number
 
polymerization said:
Is the "top" of the WL small enough that we can bank on receiving an A and start making path-dependent plans on? My partner is considering starting to apply to jobs in the area, but I wouldn't want to have him go through that if there is a good chance that I never get the call...

Related, do you know anything about the loan situation out there? I know UCLA is not very generous these days, but I do see they offer institutional loans. I'm not sure if that means students are able to access enough loan funding to cover COA, though. Are they bridging the difference the OBBB creates with the loan caps? I'm FGLI so this stuff really matters.

(And thank you! I'm grateful you stuck around on SDN. My neurotic scrolling went all the way back to when you were applying yourself!)
Click to expand...
Really bad time for the lawsuit to happen; UCLA must be scrambling to charm the money out of their donors like Geffen and the lawsuit isn't helping them.
 
premedlightyagami said:
Yes for the WL.

Regarding UCLA not being very generous, this is I look for data and don't trust rumors. Here's UCLA's average debt. They did have the Geffen Scholarship back then, but it funds 20% of their class. If you adjust the numbers, it comes out to about $200k of debt for the average student or about half of their COA. That's pretty generous aid. And this is why I called the "treat regular waitlist as a rejection" rumor as BS and I was right.

View attachment 416100
Click to expand...

I want to believe you (for my own sake) but I am going to take a wild guess that you're speculating just like me.

Hey, at least you have good taste in anime. 👹🍎:bookworm:
 
polymerization said:
Is the "top" of the WL small enough that we can bank on receiving an A and start making path-dependent plans on? My partner is considering starting to apply to jobs in the area, but I wouldn't want to have him go through that if there is a good chance that I never get the call...
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I hate giving this answer but it truly does depend and no one can tell you what'll happen because it's completely dependent on whether students who've gotten acceptances will relinquish them and decide to go to other schools. There's years where schools have a tough time filling up their spots, and there's other years (COVID year most recently) where some schools had close to zero waitlist movement. Decisions are tough when partners get involved. My take is that wherever you end up for medical school that you might be moving there first and your partner will join you a few months after.

polymerization said:
Related, do you know anything about the loan situation out there?
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Apologies, but I was grandfathered into the old rules and don't really know anything about financial aid for the later classes. Hopefully there's an MS1 out there scouring this thread who can help answer for everybody. I can tell you that I had a FAFSA EFC of 0 and received about half of tuition in need-based scholarships.

hell0_world said:
Is it true that the regular WL is unranked and given offers at random (should spaces open up)?
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I wouldn't say that it's completely random. In a really dumbed down sense, you can imagine that there's some students on the waitlist that admissions has decided that if spots open up, then we're going to give these students offers no matter what. If more spots open up, then we may want to fill those spots with similar profiles to the students that relinquished their acceptance offers. For example, if someone who is clearly research-focused drops their acceptance, then they may want to fill that spot with someone who is equally research-focused. If someone who is more community, grassroots work-inclined drops their spot, then they may want to fill that spot with someone who is equally community work-focused.
 
Well, you know I had to try! Thank you for getting back to me, this period of time is stressful to say the least.

Morningnight said:
I can tell you that I had a FAFSA EFC of 0 and received about half of tuition in need-based scholarships.
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I laughed when I saw my EFC was -1500. I don't even know what that means. :laugh: Here's hoping that UCLA can sweeten the pot for us given the financial challenges imposed by OBBB... I'd really like to attend.
 
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polymerization said:
I want to believe you (for my own sake) but I am going to take a wild guess that you're speculating just like me.

Hey, at least you have good taste in anime. 👹🍎:bookworm:
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Yes and no. The top gets cleared every year and I refer you to the data from last year I posted above. You're free to doubt me but I will say "I told you so" every day for 4 years. UCLA isn't covering Admit Day, which will hurt their yield and the lawsuit also adds more yield depression and we're already seeing people decline acceptances and their waitlist positions. But we can't deny the event UCLA is waitlisting more students this year to compensate for their yield depression, but that doesn't matter if you're top.

I'm guessing your name also came from an anime.
 
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polymerization said:
Well, you know I had to try! Thank you for getting back to me, this period of time is stressful to say the least.



I laughed when I saw my EFC was -1500. I don't even know what that means. :laugh: Here's hoping that UCLA can sweeten the pot for us given the financial challenges imposed by OBBB... I'd really like to attend.
Click to expand...
That's your financial aid score, it means you qualified for maximum needs-based aid.

Regarding the OBBB, that's why they invested in financial aid officers to guide us through this. You've got nothing to worry about.
 
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