Xatal

ELC, short for “Eligibility in the Local Context”, is California’s way of guaranteeing you admission into one of the 9 University of California campuses (not the CSUs — know the difference).

ELC is given out to roughly the top 4% of every high school senior class based on the grades and classes of students. However, to me it seemed like far more than the top 4% were finding out. I came from a class of 450 students — 4% of that is 18, and I know more than 18 kids who received letters. So you might have a better chance of receiving a letter than the 4% implies, I’m not too sure.

My letter came around October 20th. Yours probably will too. What that letter will say is something to this effect:

As an ELC student, you are guaranteed admission to one of our nine outstanding campuses

What does this mean?

Exactly what it says. If it’s your life’s ambition to go to a UC, then be happy! You’ll definitely be admitted into at least one. Unfortunately, this doesn’t guarantee you into every UC (sorry, no instant admission into UCLA just yet!), but the fact that you even got one of these letters already signifies that you have excellent chances of getting into some of the less-competitive schools and even some of the more-competitive ones.

Be ready for some more mail.

You might be thinking, “Big whoop, I figured I’d at least get into Merced or something”, but the ELC program will do far more than guarantee your admission into one school.

After receiving the initial ELC letter, within the next couple of weeks I started to get mail from some of the UC campuses encouraging me to apply or, in most cases, directly guaranteeing me admission into the school. Here’s what I ended up receiving:

1. UC Davis: Guarantee of admission, as well as guarantee of first-choice major.
2. UC Irvine: Guarantee of admission into nearly all majors
   
3. UC Merced: Guarantee of admission
   
4. UC Riverside: Guarantee of admission
   
5. UC San Diego: Encouraged to apply
   
6. UC Santa Barbara: Guarantee of admission

To be honest, I’m not positive about UC Riverside. For the others, I kept my original letters but I remember UC Riverside sending a smaller postcard saying “You’re guaranteed!” If anyone can verify this, I’ll be very thankful. I also don’t recall ever getting anything from UC Santa Cruz, which seems odd. Did anybody else?

But anywho, as you can see already I was guaranteed into five of the nine campuses. Not too bad for not having even turned in an application. I found out that my fellow students did not necessarily receive guarantees — some were only encouraged to apply. However, even if you’re encouraged to apply, I believe that you’re already pretty much set for admission, provided you don’t go to pieces.

Filling out your UC application

When it comes time to fill out your actual UC application, if you were an ELC student, you’ll be sent a special login code to use on the website. Some of the basic information will already be filled out for you, but only the obvious and easy questions: name, age, address, etc. All of the harder (and more tedious) stuff will still be yours to work out, I’m afraid.

If you’ve already started a separate UC application by that time, then I’m sorry! As I said, the letter came during late October, and by that time many people have at least done the basics of an application. But the ELC program will want you to use the designated login, so you’ll have to start over. At least you can still copy and paste…

The ELC program as a whole is a great way to get your morale up going into college applications. These guarantees are easy to keep, provided you follow through on your senior year. For more information on the ELC program, check out the ELC website.

What I have been wondering is if any other states offer anything similar to the ELC program? Do other state universities offer guarantees of admission?