On Friday, Sept. 19 at 4:41 p.m., fresh out of his transfer orientation, newly-admitted student Shourov Hossain received a notice that UC San Diego had withdrawn his admission. When he called the admissions office that following Monday, representatives informed him that there was no appeals process. When he visited in person on Tuesday, they told him they could not give any information about the decision, even about matters like his financial aid and on-campus housing. The conversation — and Hossain’s short tenure as a UCSD student — ended with the office telling him they have the right to refuse service to anyone.
Admissions cancellations are rare, but not impossible. According to a written statement to The UCSD Guardian from Jen Jordan, associate communications director for Student Affairs, Organizational Transformation, and Academic Affairs, UCSD Enrollment Management reported that the school cancelled 3% of first-year admissions and 5% of transfer admissions this year, but they “do not maintain precise records on this” year to year.
Jordan told The Guardian that Enrollment Management suspects a high number of these cancellations were “likely related to visa delays or denials, as well as students who decided not to enroll at UC San Diego, but never formally declined their admission offer.”
In Hossain’s case, neither was true. The admissions office cited discrepancies in his academic record: He forgot to send records of his courseload at Ohio State University — which he attended for about two weeks before he dropped out — and the community college classes he took in high school over seven years ago.
“It was an honest mistake,” he said. “It wasn’t out of malice. And it was, you know, less than 10 credits of work. I didn’t think it was important, because, especially because I did the last … one and a half years at community college this past year.”
An anonymous admissions worker indicated to The Guardian that in addition to the typical cancellation reasons Enrollment Management listed, there is internal ambiguity in UCSD records processing policies that contribute to admission cancellations, especially in handling unofficial or unsealed transcripts.
“I’ve literally felt so bad, like [I] heard my co-workers answering phone calls after the cancellation thing, people crying,” they said. “Unfortunately, that’s the one thing I really hate about this system.”
To properly enroll, UCSD requires admitted students to submit their transcripts by July 1. Under the school’s current policy, UCSD does not notify students if they submitted transcripts incorrectly. Rather, students’ admissions portals only state that transcripts were not received, with no indication as to what, if anything, went wrong. Students are left with only confirmation of receipt if they nailed the process on the first try and are not notified if the University processed but rejected their transcript.
After July 1, with either no transcript or an unacceptable transcript submitted, the school places a hold on students’ accounts without specific explanation, which can cause stress and confusion for many. Sept. 5, when waitlists end, is the hard deadline to submit documentation reversing the hold. But this deadline often passes with many students unable to communicate with the admissions office to even identify their initial error.
The admissions worker speculated that the vagueness in this process is related to a Fall 2023 change in admissions systems and budget cuts that have caused labor shortages at the admissions office.
“The only way we can tell them is if they call us,” the admissions worker said. “I’ll be able to help people because I have a processing job, but then my other coworkers may not be able to.”
After Sept. 5, admissions officers take leave, meaning that only two to three professional staff are responsible for handling all admissions-related matters. The admissions worker says that this short staffing is likely a reason for why the portal does not have a better feedback system for informing students of their enrollment status.
Admissions told The Guardian it typically cancels registrations in mid- to late-August after notifying students of discrepancies by email and giving them five days to appeal. The admissions worker also claims that the office gives leniency to those who have contacted it before.
However, admissions only informed Hossain of his record submission errors on Sept. 10, five days after the deadline to appeal had passed. With the guidance of the admissions office, Hossain spent the next week sending in the missing transcripts — which he had to pay extra for — and providing a written explanation for his mistakes. On Sept. 19, UCSD still cancelled his admission. At this point, he had already moved into on-campus housing.
“If they had withdrawn me even like the beginning of September, then I could have applied to community college courses,” he said. “They just let me know so late into the year that my options are very limited. And like, I lost my housing. I lost my financial aid. All at, like, times where I can’t get those things back.”
Hossain is not the only student who has faced this dilemma. Every year, when enrollment occurs, the UCSD Reddit page is spammed with questions asking about rescissions and transcript issues. In the most unfortunate cases, like Hossain’s, the University will not reverse these decisions.
In a comment on the UCSD subreddit’s admitted students megathread, user tarogorl shared her brother’s rescission experience:
“We were preparing to move him in next Saturday, he has been texting his future roommates, and was even notified earlier today that his health insurance waiver was approved,” she wrote. “Now today, just almost a week before move-in and orientation activities, he was rescinded. … It hit us all like a truck today because it was truly out of nowhere. He was so excited to start school and get to go to UCSD.”
UCSD admissions is undergoing massive expansion, with the University of California Board of Regents approving a new cap of 56,000 students by 2040. This comes amid massive federal and state budget cuts to the UC system.
