January 10, 2026
Admissions Hunger Games
How your high school affects your chances of UC Admission
Top schools get snubbed, local underdogs score big — parents are fuming
TLDR: Data suggests UCSD admits fewer students from ultra-competitive high schools while local schools score more, partly because more students apply. Comments split between “hard quotas,” “yield protection,” and the simple math of application volume, with parents demanding out-of-state data and everyone debating fairness and strategy.
UC San Diego (UCSD) just got framed as the “Admissions Hunger Games,” and the comments are absolute chaos. In Paul Gardiner’s post, data shows high-performing schools like Lynbrook get fewer admits than nearby underdogs like Crawford — and the crowd erupted. One camp says this is old news: elite schools flood UCSD with applicants and get penalized for it. Another camp cries “yield protection” — the idea that UCSD dodges superstar kids who might ditch them for Ivy League offers. Meanwhile, a practical crowd points to the buried line: more kids at local San Diego schools simply apply more, so more get in. No mystery, just math.
The spiciest take? “Hard quotas per high school.” No proof offered, but it lit the thread on fire. A parent demanded data on out-of-state admits, wondering if that changes the odds. Others joked it’s a “UCSD lottery” — buy more tickets, win more seats. A tense side-note: some noticed that many of the mega-applicant schools have lots of Asian students, raising thorny fairness questions, though most kept debate on school volume, not ethnicity. And yes, people are side-eyeing the stat that 8.5% of UCSD freshmen needed remedial math, asking if the admissions strategy is backfiring. Drama level: off the charts.
Key Points
- •UCSD admissions show weak alignment between a high school’s academic proficiency rates and its students’ chances of admission.
- •In 2024, Lynbrook High (86% proficient) had 37 UCSD admits, while Crawford High (8.6% proficient) had 38 admits, illustrating the mismatch.
- •Selective schools with similar high proficiency saw divergent UCSD outcomes: CAMS (~40% seniors admitted) vs. Whitney and Oxford (<20%).
- •Local San Diego schools (Preuss, Gompers, Crawford) had more admits than expected, partly due to higher application rates to UCSD.
- •From 2022–2024, overall UCSD admit rate was ~26%, but schools with <25 applicants/year exceeded 40% admits, while >200 applicants/year averaged 18%. The largest applicant group at 55 of these 63 high-volume schools was Asian students.