Emily Smith
Gary Clark has 175,000 applications landing on his desk every year as Associate Vice Chancellor for Enrollment Management at UCLA. He's also one of the loudest voices in higher ed arguing that selectivity is not a proxy for quality.
In this episode of The VineDown, Emily sits down with Gary to pull apart the pressure cooker that college admissions has become, why the system is producing "college farmers" instead of curious humans, and what he'd actually tell his own kid about where to go to school.
What you'll take away:
- Why the head of UCLA admissions thinks prestige is overrated, and why he's one of the few people with the standing to say it out loud
- What a "college farmer" is, why admissions offices can spot them immediately, and what Gary would tell students and parents who are building a resume instead of a life
- How UCLA actually reads 175,000 applications
- The strongest case for community college you'll hear from anyone inside a flagship university, including why 93% of UCLA's transfer students came through that path
- What Gary tells incoming students about surviving their first year at a place the size of UCLA and why feeling lost doesn't mean you don't belong
- The hard truth Gary is sitting with about the next generation of enrollment leaders, and what he hopes they hear from people like him
- Where AI fits (and doesn't fit) in the future of admissions and the parts of the process Gary says will stay human
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