Are many/most state schools as competitive as the University of California system?

Applying to College
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It’s been interesting reading all the posts about school visits for 2023 admissions from across the country. It seems like many of them are about private universities.

I’m curious, as someone who does not know much about universities outside of CA, if state schools in other states are as competitive for students as the UC system is here?

I understand that we are a big state (population wise), but, for example, are SUNY schools or Florida State schools or Ohio State schools as competitive as the UC"s for admissions with low rates of acceptance?

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Students who just want to go to a UC may find that UCM and UCR are not that competitive for admission.

But also, the state schools in California include the CSUs, which enroll about twice as many undergraduates as the UCs, and are mostly less competitive (with a few well known exceptions like CPSLO engineering and SJSU CS/CE/SE).

Relative to state populations, the rough equivalents in undergraduate enrollment would be:

  • Florida: UF, FSU, USF
  • New York: all of the doctoral granting campuses (including the semi-public parts of Cornell) plus half of the comprehensive colleges
  • Ohio: The Ohio State University, Ohio University, Miami University

It does look like New York is the outlier, among these states, since the total undergraduate enrollment in its public universities relative to the state population is rather small compared to the other states. In the other states, the rough equivalents (in numbers) to the UCs enroll a minority of the undergraduates in public universities, while in New York, the rough equivalents (in numbers) enroll a majority of the undergraduates in public universities. But New York is in the northeast, where private colleges and universities are more common and popular.

So a fair comparison of admission selectivity would be, is it easier or harder to get into a UC (including UCR or UCM) as a California resident, versus one of UF, FSU, or USF as a Florida resident, or a SUNY as a New York resident, or one of tOSU, OU, or Miami as an Ohio resident?

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Agreed (about UCR and UCM), but I was thinking of the more competitive UC’s - UCLA, UCSD, UCB.

Ultimately, your question is my question- I wonder if a SUNY like Buffalo for a NY student is as selective as, say, UCSD for a CA student.

I suppose it doesn’t matter, just curious.

4

U of WI-Madison. I know many instate high stats kids who were rejected.

5

In California, some UCs have low acceptance rates, while others have higher acceptance rates. Moreover, CA has the Cal State system as well.

The difference between UC Berkeley, UCLA and now UCI and UCSD and universities such as UT Austin, UNC, UVA, GTech, and Michigan is that the UCs do not have 70%-80% of their seats reserved for in-state applicants.

Texas also gives the top 6% of graduating students auto-admission to UT Austin, so these students are not competing.

So, in 2021, UT Austin got some 66,000 Applications, and roughly 19,000 were accepted. However, of those 19,000, around 14,250 are in-state students who were auto admitted. So there were roughly 4,750 who were not auto admitted, and they were selected from 51,750.

So for OOS applicants and in-state applicants who were not in the top 6% of their class, which is a 9.2% acceptance rate.

For a OOS applicants, UT Austin, Michigan, UVA, W&M, UNC, and GTech are about as competitive as Berkeley or UCLA. However, UCLA and Berkeley are unique in that they are just that competitive for in-state applicants as well.

One should remember, however, that CA has 430,000 high school students graduating each year, while #2, Texas, has some 360,000.

6

At a time when standardized scoring was widely required, Georgia Tech, Berkeley, Michigan and William and Mary were the top four public universities by this standard:

You can read further through this ranking for perspective on public universities nationwide. However, note that the median SAT scores reported in the list reflect a former calibration of the exam.

2 Likes
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All of these responses are very helpful to me! Thanks to all of you who shared your knowledge - CC continues to be such an amazing ‘brain trust’ for all things college! :pray: :love_letter: :books:

1 Like
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I have so many issues with this ranking!
But my comments would be off -topic so I’ll pass.

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As mentioned above, there is the CSU system and UC Merced and UC Riverside that are less competitive in California. But many of the competitive public universities in CA have a high percentage of international students and out-of-state students that apply. Also, the location of these schools makes students of certain majors like CS more likely to apply and therefore reduces acceptance rates.