It’s that time of the year again, and if you’re reading this, it probably means you didn’t fare as well as you’d have hoped for admission to the University of California, San Diego Class of 2029. Now is not the time to throw in the towel. The battle to get you onto the campus of your dreams is just getting started, but time is of the essence. Read on to learn how you can optimize your odds of getting off the waitlist and onto this gorgeous Southern Californian dream of a campus!

UCSD Waitlist Acceptance Rate and Statistics

To get started, let’s sift through the waitlist data available to us from UCSD’s Common Data Set releases:

UC San Diego Class Year	Number of Students Waitlisted to UC San Diego	Number of Students Who Chose to Join the UC San Diego Waitlist	Number of Students Accepted Off the UC San Diego Waitlist	UC San Diego Waitlist Acceptance Rate
Class of 2029	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
Class of 2028	Not Published	Not Published	Not Published	Not Published
Class of 2027	29,087	19,373	2,616	13.50%
Class of 2026	51,350	36,113	2,400	6.65%
Class of 2025	25,419	8,835	0	0.00%
Class of 2024	19,714	14,265	5,282	37.03%
Class of 2023	19,976	12,426	4,213	33.90%
Class of 2022	Not Published	Not Published	Not Published	Not Published
Class of 2021	9,465	5,998	967	16.12%

So, what’s the moral of this story? The UCSD waitlist is prone to a lot of variation. In some years, like for the Class of 2025, no students were pulled from the waitlist whatsoever. During other years, like just one year earlier, for the Class of 2024, a healthy 37% of waitlisted applicants ultimately earned admission. What accounts for all of this temperamental back and forth in the waitlist acceptance rate?

It’s all determined by a little-known factor called yield rate, or the ratio of admitted students who end up enrolling. Some years, admissions officers at UCSD overestimate this ratio, and they must dip into the waitlist to make up for it. Even though we at Ivy Coach cannot predict the yield rate for the Class of 2029, we can put you in a position so that should admissions officers need to dip into the waitlist, you’re the first person they choose to admit. Here’s how:

How to Improve Your Chances of Admission Off the University of California, San Diego Waitlist

Ivy Coach’s two-step process for waitlisted students has a track record of helping countless students earn admission into the UC system post-waitlist. As you read through our two-fold process, remember that time is of the essence, and you should spring into action as soon as you receive word of being waitlisted to make the greatest impact possible.

1. Complete Ivy Coach’s PostMortem application review. We must see what a student did right and what they did wrong. The story we help craft can’t present a different applicant. Instead, there must be a throughline between the narrative shared on the UCSD application — just told much more powerfully.
2. Submit a compelling Letter of Continued Interest. Most students correctly know they should submit a letter after being placed on UCSD’s waitlist if they hope to earn admission. And most know they should do so promptly. But most students send the wrong kind of letter. Ivy Coach’s letters to UCSD contain no brags or updates. It’s a big reason why students who first come to Ivy Coach after being waitlisted have the success they do. We motivate UCSD admissions officers to want to go to bat for our students. Our students effectively dare admissions officers not to offer them admission.

Getting Started with Ivy Coach on Approaching the UC San Diego Waitlist

If you’re interested in giving your child the best possible shot at admission off the UCSD waitlist for the Class of 2029, how they approach admissions officers in the days following the waitlist decision is absolutely crucial. So fill out Ivy Coach’s complimentary consultation form, indicate that your child has been waitlisted, and we’ll be in touch to delineate our UCSD waitlist service.