The University of California system largely attracts many hopeful high school students across the US and across the globe every year. Last year, we saw a drastic increase in the number of applicants, which resulted in a significant drop in record-breaking admission rates.
This year, the number of applicants has rose for some UC schools and declined for others. The following are the released admissions information for each UC school (data for Riverside and Merced have not yet been released).
Overall UC System:
Freshman applicants : 176,530 (3% decrease from 2018)
Transfer applicants: 41,120 (0.1 percent increase from 2018)
(Source: Mercury News)
UCLA:
(Admission rates/data have not yet been released; Will be released on 3/22)
111,000 freshman applicants (~2% decrease from 113,695 in 2018)
Out-of-state applicants rose by 1%, in-state dropped by 3%, international dropped by 4%
(Source: Daily Bruin)
UC San Diego:
(Admission rates/data have not yet been released; Will be released on 3/22)
~99,000 freshman applicants (118,372 freshman + transfer students)
~1.6% application increase from 116,452 freshman + transfer students
Over 65% of freshman + 80% of transfer applicants were in-state
10% more art majors, 8% more humanities majors for freshman applicants
10% more art majors, 5% more humanities majors for transfer applicants
(Source: UCSD Guardian)
UC Irvine:
95,000 freshman applicants (116,000 total applicants, 11.5% increase)
29,978 underrepresented minorities
48.5% of in-state first-year applicants are first generation students
(Source: UCI News)
UC Santa Barbara:
93,423 applicants (1.2% increase from 92,294 in 2018)
44.4% freshman applicants are underrepresented minorities (compared to 43.9% in 2018)
42% freshman applicants are low-income (compared to 40% in 2018)
Decline in number of in-state applicants
Hypotheses for application rate fluctuations among in-state applicants:
Many prospective applicants may have been affected by the CA wildfires
Students are aware of the increasing selectivity of UC schools and are more careful to where they choose apply
(Source: Daily Nexus)
UC Berkeley:
87,000 freshman applicants (2.5% decreased from 2018)
19,063 transfer applicants (slight decrease from 19,199)
32,895 out-of-state applicants (1.7% decrease from 33,467 in 2018)
Average weighted GPA of applicants: 4.13
Average SAT score of applicants: 1347
Average ACT score of applicants: 29
(Source: The Daily Californian)
UC Davis:
95,207 total applicants (record-breaking number, 8.6% increased from 2018)
77,727 freshman applicants
10% increase in in-state freshman applicants and account for 72.6% of all freshman applicants
36% of freshman applicants are underrepresented minorities
41.5% of freshman applicants are first generation
37.6% of freshman applicants are low-income
20.7% of freshman applicants are from schools low on the Academic Performance Index
(Source: UC Davis News)
UC Santa Cruz:
55,500 freshman applicants (1.3% decrease from 2018)
11,700 transfer applicants (0.6% decrease from 2018)
(Source: Mercury News)
Congratulations to everyone who has already been accepted!
