Admission on the west coast?

[Gabby]

I'm from New York and I plan on applying to graduate schools out west, since my family will be moving out there in 2018. I heard it is easier to get into schools on the west coast than the northeast and east coast. Is that actually true?

[futureSpeechLP]

Unfortunately, Southern California is just at competitive as the northeast. If you are a resident then you can get resident tuition in Western states through WICHE - http://www.wiche.edu/info/publications/wrgpHandout.pdf

[jmk]

This topic brings up a fair amount of subjective opinions haha. Mine: For CA publics, I would say no.

• My school, and I would assume the majority, of the CA publics (aka the CSU system [San Diego State, CSU East Bay, etc.]), take a certain % of their own undergrads to fill the cohort. For a 30 person cohort I know of so far 9 seniors at my school who were accepted into our program. 
• Many school websites, like San Diego State, list the average cumulative GPA as a 3.8 for acceptance.
• Most CA residents are going to apply to at least some CA schools. 

Two folks from my department were admitted into Columbia Teacher's College, but denied multiple CSU admissions. Granted- Teacher's College takes 120 students, and the CSU's do not. 

 

[Cookie Hall]

I am from NY and I applied to schools in Cali as well as all across the nation because I wanted to start fresh in a whole new place and I did not get in anywhere. Meanwhile, all my friends who did apply to NY schools from NY all got into grad school. So I would have a mix of both just in case. 

[Gabby]

@futureSpeechLP @jmk what about schools in Arizona and Nevada?

[futureSpeechLP]

I'm not sure about Nevada, but two of my classmates got into Northern Arizona University. 

[jmk]

I am not sure about Nevada or Arizona either. You should look at programs and find ones that fit your interests. Some good advice I was told was that if you don't throw your hat into the ring, you have no chance at all. I think being informed and educated about admit rates of programs is a powerful tool to wisely compile a list of places to apply to especially if you have a lower GPA or GRE. For programs you are interested in, I would just email them if it isn't listed on their website. 

 

[CBG321]

No the West coast is extremely competitive.  People coming from these states often have to apply elsewhere to get accepted.  And students within these states tend to apply within their own state so the numbers here are very high.  Somewhere in the range of 500+ applicants for 30 spots in some schools, it's kinda nuts.

[Jolie717]

As far as West Coast, here is my experience with my two Pacific Northwest schools.  It appeared the University of Oregon did not necessarily show greater preference for their own graduates.  My guess would be 25% or less were previous UO students.  Conversely, based on my approximate count for UW, it appears the incoming graduate school class consists of 45% UW undergrads or postbaccs, and 55% students from other schools.

Edited June 4, 2016 by Jolie717

[QQQ1234]

According to my Professor (I went to a school on the East Coast), "Schools on the west coast are just as competitive (if not more so) than some East Coast schools or even some schools that are ranked highly on U.S. News Best Graduate Programs" haha.

 

 

I'm pretty sure she might've said that schools out West were more competitive... 

Edited June 7, 2016 by QQQ1234

[wcslp]

I'm currently in a California grad program and I'm not sure where you heard that west coast schools were easier to get into. For my application season, we had over 400 applications for maybe 28 spots, but this was a couple years ago so I can only assume it's gotten more competitive. The majority of the spots were taken from the program's own undergraduate class. We were told by the faculty that admission (in California, at least) was so competitive partly because there were so many people trying to apply from out of state, in addition to all the applicants from in state as well. I believe the average GPA was around a 3.85 (both in major and cumulative) for my cohort, but many students came in with 4.0s. The professor from our prereq courses in undergrad (at the same school) told us starting out that if we couldn't maintain at least a 3.8 GPA, it would be very difficult for us to get in. Similarly, many of the students in my undergraduate group had at least a 3.8, and many of them were rejected from multiple California programs and had to move out of state for their Masters. If you go to edfind, you can filter the programs by degree and state and find out how many applications were received and how many students were admitted for each cycle, along with average GPA and GRE score. I'm not sure how accurate these numbers are, but this was the site I was frequently referred to during my own admission process. 

 

At the end of the day, admissions can seem very arbitrary and random. If you have the means to do so, it can't hurt to apply. If you are tight on money or time, I would advise against applying to schools in southern california (I can't attest to the competition up north) as admissions here is just insane. 

[steveshooman]

On 6/2/2016 at 9:16 AM, jmk said:

This topic brings up a fair amount of subjective opinions haha. Mine: For CA publics, I would say no.

• My school, and I would assume the majority, of the CA publics (aka the CSU system [San Diego State, CSU East Bay, etc.]), take a certain % of their own undergrads to fill the cohort. For a 30 person cohort I know of so far 9 seniors at my school who were accepted into our program. 
• Many school websites, like San Diego State, list the average cumulative GPA as a 3.8 for acceptance.
• Most CA residents are going to apply to at least some CA schools. 

Two folks from my department were admitted into Columbia Teacher's College, but denied multiple CSU admissions. Granted- Teacher's College takes 120 students, and the CSU's do not. 

 

I agree with the above; in fact, many CSUs and even private universities will straight up tell you that a certain number of spots are reserved for their own undergrads. I've heard as high as 60%.

[Crimson Wife]

Did Cal Baptist receive ASHA provisional accreditation for their new program? If so, that might be an option that's less competitive than other CA schools.