These numbers are undoubtedly true, but they are deceptive nonetheless because they don’t take into account your local context (ie your high school admission data). A better way to gauge your odds is to look at the recent 2021 admit data for your specific high school. You can get that information from this link and make sure to see the Freshman admission by GPA tab:
A bigger undisclosed factor is admission by division or major, which is done at many UCs for some majors (particularly popular ones like CS and engineering).
Regarding the financial argument, I bet parents are willing to pay more tuition rather than send their kids out of state. Give same level of tuition and financial aid to deserving students in need, and for all the others raise tuition by $5K a year and it would still be a great deal compared to going out-of-state universities.
This is true, but since our tax dollars subsidize those schools, California kids should be prioritized. I think we should have a 10% cap for all of the competitive UCs. My D17 got waitlisted at 2 UCs, accepted to none. We were thrilled with her acceptance at Cal Poly slo. Oddly enough, she was accepted at UT Austin too which caps out of state at 10%.
… at the campuses that many applicants limit themselves to. It is not like UCSC, UCR, and UCM are hyperselective, although that may be because many applicants exclude those campuses from their application lists.
Not median, but average according to the footnotes. Here is what else the table notes say: “Mean high school and transfer GPA are presented for freshman and transfer applicants, admits, and enrollees respectively by source school.” The fact that they used the word mean, not median, is instructive.
I would like to point out that the 82% cap for in-state students is in line and in fact a lot more than other state school caps for in state students. CA students have in fact much better options and ability to get into in state schools than most other states. When you look compare what you pay for public schools and how many kids get into public schools- CA is one of the best states to be in.