LOS ANGELES _ For four years, Ashley Gonzalez skimped on sleep, family outings and hanging out with friends to excel at John Marshall High School in Los Angeles. Her work paid off when she achieved her lifelong dream of admission to the University of California.
Then UC Irvine, her campus of choice, abruptly rescinded its acceptance, just two months before the start of the fall quarter.
"I felt I was going to pass out. I couldn't stop crying," the 18-year-old said in tears as she recounted her story in an interview.
UCI's stated reason for the rescission, Gonzalez said, was that the campus had not received one of two required transcripts on time _ though she and her mother say they mailed out both documents in the same envelope two weeks before the July 1 deadline.
Gonzalez, who has filed an appeal, is one of 499 UCI students whose offers of admission have been withdrawn for this fall _ 290 of them for transcript issues and the rest for poor senior year grades, according to campus data.
The withdrawals have kicked up a storm of protest on social media, with scores of students expressing outrage and pleading for help on Twitter, Reddit and the UC Irvine Class of 2021 Facebook page. Many insist the rescission notices cited reasons either minor or bogus or gave no reason at all. They speculate that the campus simply was coming up with excuses to solve a problem after more students than expected said they planned to attend.
"UCI overenrolled freshmen so they might be withdrawing admissions on purpose to kick as many students out," said Emily Roche, 18, who was told her acceptance was canceled because her transcript had not arrived on time.
One widely discussed Reddit post by someone using the name UCIrvineCompany, who claimed be "in touch with the Office of Admissions," said about 800 more students than expected accepted UCI's admission offers.
Brent Yunek, associate vice chancellor of enrollment services, confirmed that more students signed formal statements of intent to register than anticipated _ the share of California freshmen who did so, for instance, rose to 26.4 percent from 24.6 percent last year, he said.
Overall, about 7,100 of the 31,103 freshmen offered admission to UC Irvine for this fall accepted it as of May, according to the UC Office of the President. That amounts to 850 more students than UC Irvine's planned freshman class of 6,250, though some are expected to decide to enroll elsewhere this fall in what is known as "summer melt." Still, in the last two years, the summer drop-off has been only about 250.
Yunek said, however, that the campus planned to accommodate every student who met all final admission requirements and was not looking for ways to squeeze them out.
"Of course we're not revoking enrollments or admission for bogus reasons," he said. "We're very sensitive and considerate to families. We're only withdrawing admission where students have not satisfied conditions" of their freshman admission contracts.
Those conditions include receiving a high school diploma, maintaining a weighted 3.0 senior-year GPA with no D's or F's in UC-approved courses and meeting deadlines for submitting all official high school and college transcripts and test scores.
Yunek, associate vice chancellor of enrollment services, said data for previous years were not immediately available so he could not say whether this year's rescissions were unusually high. All colleges and universities set conditions that admitted students must meet or face rescissions _ one reason schools warn against "senioritis" _ and UC campuses vary widely in their cancellations. UC San Diego, UCLA and UC Berkeley usually revoke a handful of acceptances every year while UC Davis rescinds about 150.
At UC Irvine, admissions officials worked hard to process appeals quickly, Yunek said _ and 56 of 265 students who filed them have had their acceptances reinstated so far.
"In any case where we've identified administrative errors on our part, we're correcting them," Yunek said. "The guiding principle we're using now is that we're trying not to hold students accountable for situations out of their control."
The executive cabinet of the Associated Students of UC Irvine has rallied behind the students, demanding that officials apologize for any admission errors, provide clear explanations for each rescission, return all related payments and establish a special process for those formerly accepted students who will now wind up at community colleges to transfer to UC Irvine after two years.
A petition stating these demands had been signed by more than 640 students, relatives, alumni and community members as of Thursday afternoon.
"We are so sorry that UCI admin has decided to ruin students lives ... They NEED to be held accountable for their actions, and they need to know that we will not just sit back and allow them to take advantage of students," a separate student body statement said.
Roche, who graduated this spring with a 4.11 GPA from William S. Hart High School in Newhall, said she learned of her rescission only after seeing the uproar on Facebook and checking her UC Irvine online portal last week. When an admissions officer subsequently told her the campus never received her high school transcript, she got a note from the high school registrar saying that the transcript had been sent on June 20 and appealed the rescission.
Another student said a campus official told him that he had violated a freshman admission requirement but could not tell him which one. He asked to be identified only by his first name, Carson, to avoid jeopardizing future admissions prospects.
"They're pretty much leaving us in the dark," said the 22-year-old, who had planned to major in neurobiology after completing four years with the U.S. Marine Corps. "They seem like a monolithic bureaucracy and students are completely powerless. When I talk to them, it's like talking to a wall."
He said he turned down an offer from UC San Diego and a $30,000 scholarship from UC Santa Cruz in favor of UC Irvine, but those options are no longer available. He's appealed his rescission but is also making plans to attend Irvine Valley College if it fails.
Allen Chung is one of the lucky ones whose appeal worked. The Loyola High School graduate said he was shocked to receive a rescission notice after he had signed up for orientation, applied for student housing and even bought furniture for his dorm room. After multiple calls to the admission office _ and getting recordings asking him to call back later and 90 minutes on hold _ he said he finally was told that his transcript was missing a graduation date.
Loyola gave Chung a copy of his transcript _ which he said always included the graduation date _ along with evidence that it was sent on time and a letter of support from the principal. Chung drove to Irvine last week to deliver the documents personally. He was readmitted two days later.
"It was a huge weight off my back seeing my future revived," he said.
Gonzalez, meanwhile, is still awaiting a decision.
Her parents are Guatemalan immigrants who never attended high school and work as an auto technician and housekeeper. She said she has long seen the UC as her path to a better life and a bigger home for her family.
To try to get to UC Irvine, she earned a 4.0-plus weighted GPA in honors and Advanced Placement classes, mentored younger students and volunteered at an animal shelter and wellness foundation. She said she sometimes studied until 5 a.m. and missed every family party during her junior year.
When her acceptance was rescinded, she said, "I thought my future was over. I worked so hard. I felt it wasn't fair."
Asked what she would do if her appeal failed, she was silent as her eyes filled with tears.
