Because of a demographic bulge, applicants to all the University of California's nine undergraduate campuses faced somewhat worse odds of getting admitted as freshmen this fall, officials reported Monday.
Still, 60,008 California students, a record high, were offered coveted freshman spots by at least one UC school.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday, April 16, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 58 words Type of Material: Correction
UC admissions: A headline on an article in Tuesday's California section about freshman admission to the University of California said, "As more applied to UCs, fewer got in." In fact, as the story said, a record number of California applicants were offered freshman admission to the University of California, although the percentage of applicants who were admitted declined.
The UC system accepted 75.3% of its California applicants, down from 77.4% last year.
That change was attributed mainly to the rise in the number of high school seniors, a trend that is expected to peak next year and then decline.
"This was a particularly difficult year for freshman admissions," said Susan Wilbur, the UC system's director of undergraduate admissions, citing both the increase in applicants and the threat of reduced state funding to provide for them. Overall, the number of in-state applications rose from 74,056 last year to 79,661.
"We are in a very challenging environment but we did everything we could to provide access to the high-quality education that our students in California have come to expect," Wilbur said.
It was somewhat harder this year to get into UC campuses, but administrators say no students who met the academic entrance requirements were fully turned away. But they might not have gotten into their top choices, and 8,400 of them were offered enrollment at two campuses to which they didn't even apply, Riverside and Merced.
UCLA again had the most applicants and was the least likely to open its gate, with only 22.1% accepted there. That was followed very closely by UC Berkeley's 22.2%. The highest rate of acceptance was at UC Riverside, with 76.9%.
Last year, about half of all admitted applicants actually showed up at a UC campus in the fall, and administrators are hoping that rate does not increase much this year.
Admitted students generally have until May 1 to notify schools whether they will enroll.
If the deficit-driven budget cuts proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger are upheld by the Legislature, the UC system may have to freeze or cut enrollment for the 2009-10 school year.
Statewide, UC admission offers to Latinos and African Americans increased somewhat. Latinos constituted about 21% of admitted students and blacks about 4%. Asian Americans made up 34% of the accepted pool and whites 34.4%, both slightly down from last year.
