Though a record number of high school students submitted applications to the University of California in November, new statistics released by the UC Office of the President show that the number of applicants to UCSD dropped for a second straight year.
The campus received a total of 49,684 applications, or a 3-percent drop from a year ago. Systemwide, the number rose by 0.9 percent to 100,138 applicants, including those who appied to more than one campus.
“I think the more selective UCSD becomes, students are thinking more strategically about how they’re spending their application fees,” Assistant Vice Chancellor of Admissions and Enrollment Services Mae W. Brown said. “For those students who don’t feel they are competitive, they may think twice before applying.”
Applications to UC Davis posted the largest decline, falling 4 percent from last year, at least in part due to cuts in state funding for academic preparation, or “outreach” programs, according to the school’s Director of Undergraduate Admissions Pamela Burnett.
“The state budget reduced the money we had available to reach out to high school students with school visits, academic preparation programs and campus tours,” Burnett stated in a university press release.
Despite an overall increase in applications, the number of community college students seeking to transfer to a UC campus fell 2.7 percent, according to the data. In addition, the number of out-of-state applications dropped by 7.1 percent across the system, while international applications decreased by 3.9 percent, the result of higher fees for students from outside the state and cumbersome visa restrictions for travel into the country, according to Brown.
At UCSD, the number of transfer students fell 5.4 percent.
The number of black applicants to UC campuses rose 2.1 percent, after dropping 1.2 percent in the previous year. Out of all racial groups, Chicano and Latino students posted the biggest gain, climbing 5.9 percent from last year — a total increase of 11 percent since 2003.
However, because fewer students refused to disclose their ethnicity than in the previous year, the numbers did not indicate whether the gains for minorities were the result of an increased number of applications or an increased willingness of applicants to state their race.
At UCSD, the number of black freshman applicants fell by 4.9 percent on top of an 11.3-percent decrease from the year before. Only UC Santa Cruz saw a larger one-year drop in the number of black applicants, falling 9.9 from last year.
“It does greatly concern me to see the drop in African-American applications, and we will continue to look at the data to see if we can identify any trends and see how we can impact and reverse them,” Brown said, pointing to cuts in academic preparation programs as a key worry. “This is a national university and we want to make sure that this campus truly reflects diversity in all areas.”
A.S. Commissioner of Diversity Affairs Christopher Sweeten said he agreed outreach programs were essential for minority students to obtain access to the university, but also said administrators had to work on the atmosphere of the campus.
“At the UCSD level, reaching out to the African-American student population hasn’t been that great,” Sweeten said.
More than 10 percent of all graduating high school seniors who sent in applications to the UC system indicated interest in UC Merced, the university’s newest campus. The campus is scheduled to open next fall and is the only University of California site located in central California. For the 1,000 seats available in its first year, the university received a total of 8,883 undergraduate applications, it announced in a statement.
“We are thrilled with this response from students and pleased to say the number of applicants has even exceeded our expectations,” UC Merced Chancellor Carol Tomlinson-Keasey stated. “These results are a clear validation of the UC regents’ decision in 1988 to plan for a new UC campus in the San Joaquin Valley.”
North-central California posted the largest regional increase of 13.7 percent, followed by the Fresno and Kern County areas, where applications increased by 12.9 percent.
