So the numbers are out, and UCLA received 113,000 applications for the incoming freshmen class, up 11% from last year. Berkeley received 89,000 applications, up 5% from last year.
So, if UCLA’s Fall 2017 freshman admission rate was 16.1%, and Berkeley’s was 18.3%, what will this year look like? Guesses? I say:
UCLA: 14%
Berkeley: 17%
What will it mean to current high school students as UCLA slowly starts positioning itself as appearing to be “more selective” than its big brother?
It means that prospective students like the weather better in LA than the Bay area, or it means that more students think that they can get into UCLA more so than UCB, or …
Yes yes, UCLA received 24,000 more applications and already has a lower acceptance rate because its so famous for being easy to get into. Problem solved!
UCLA ranked higher than Berkeley in at least three major college rankings this year. This has never really happened before. I wonder how long people will be willing to try to deny that there is clearly a shift happening at the University of California…
In some recent years, San Diego State has had a lower acceptance rate than UCSD. What does that mean to current high school students?
Answer: not much. Why not? Because by multiple other measures, UCSD is the more selective institution.
It’s the same with Berkeley and UCLA. True, UCLA is now more selective in terms of acceptance rate. But by multiple other measures, like test scores or yield, Berkeley remains the more selective institution.
For long-time Californians, the biggest shift over the past 20-25 years isn’t Berkeley vs. UCLA. It’s USC, which has come from way back in the rankings and is poised to surpass both. In the 1990s, USC was ranked lower than Davis.
While USC and UCLA are apparently of similar selectivity from a cursory view, note that USC appears to like test scores while UCLA appears to like GPA. So an applicant who is significantly stronger on one aspect than the other may have very unequal chance of admission between USC and UCLA.
That difference is likely due to UC general tendencies to favor GPA over test scores (for various reasons based on UC research about predicting college performance as well as a mission to improve opportunity to lower SES students) and USC emphasis on test scores to move up in rankings (test scores are 65% of the USNWR selectivity portion of the ranking formula, versus 25% for class rank in the top 10%).
Well, of course I checked the figures. The difference is that I don’t care about the figures for the admitted students, which is what you are citing.
Admitting highly qualified students doesn’t make a school “selective”. No, what makes a school selective is actually enrolling highly qualified students.
So let’s take a look at the latest available stats for enrolled students, using the most recent Common Data Sets, which reflect freshmen entering in Fall 2016:
SATs, CR+M:
1300 - 1530 Berkeley
1150 - 1440 UCLA
ACTs, Composite:
29 - 34 Berkeley
25 - 33 UCLA
Yield:
43.3 % Berkeley
37.5 % UCLA
Do you think that no one knows the difference between “admitted students” and “enrolled students”? Honestly just asking.
Data on scores and GPAs of the students who choose to enroll? That’s…different. Link to that info, please? I’ve never come across such data for any school, ever, in the last 25 years. I’m very interested to see where this data has been hiding all this time.
(Not that it is even relevant. Yes, data regarding ADMITTED students has been the gold standard in determining selectivity of universities for the last 30 years.)
If you don’t know that the Common Data Set only reports enrolled student data, and those numbers are the ones used by virtually all college rankings and guidebooks, then you are playing in the wrong league here.
I’m confused, are you trying to make my point for me? All the data you provided verifies that UCLA is gaining on Berkeley in applicant and enrollment strength, which doesn’t even take into account that UCLA’s rankings have been going up, as have their applicant increases (at a rate that is outpacing Berkeley).
And, it appears, if I translate your responses into an answer to my question, that you are saying as UCLA’s rankings continue to rise, and it’s acceptance rates continue to outperform Berkeley, high school students will become less likely to chose one school over the other based on it’s perceived “academic reputation”, which is becoming less relevant between the two schools, and instead will select their school for a number of other reasons
And if I may, your statement was this: “But by multiple other measures, like test scores or yield, Berkeley remains the more selective institution.”
If we want to discuss a school’s selectivity, we are discussing admission stats, ie. the “selection process”. Period.
Enrolled student stats and yields are helpful for college rankings, but that’s about it. They play no part in the school’s selectivity. Choose your words.
No, because there is no universally accepted definition of college “selectivity”. You are free to opine that “selectivity” should be based 100% on acceptance rates. But then you will have to acknowledge that (for example) UCSD and SDSU are peers in terms of selectivity, because they have similar acceptance rates.
Since there is no standard definition of college “selectivity”, then I have the same freedom to choose a definition that you do. I choose to include enrolled student stats in the definition. There is nothing unusual about doing this – for example, enrolled student stats comprise 90% of the “selectivity score” as defined in the popular and influential US News Education rankings. And by doing so, I don’t have to argue that SDSU and UCSD are equally selective.
Anything could happen. It’s true UCLA’s applicant volume is impressively high (more than Berkeley’s), and that has translated into a lower acceptance rate (lower than Berkeley’s). But that doesn’t necessarily mean that a change in perception will automatically follow. Berkeley has historically been more attractive to the highest achieving students, as demonstrated by the enrolled student stats. Such students are unlikely to change their perceptions based solely on the UCLA acceptance rate, just as they are unlikely to change their perceptions about SDSU vs. UCSD based solely on acceptance rates.
Sorry, I’m just an absolute stickler for accuracy in details, so I’m gonna have to dock you on a few points here:
1. "There is no universally accepted definition of college 'selectivity'." - The selectivity of a college is inherently referring to how selective the school is in choosing who it accepts. see below UCSD and San Diego State are in no way similarly selective, just because they have similar acceptance rates. You do understand that, right? UCSD's GPA range is 4.04-4.38, and its SAT range is 1250-1470. San Diego State's median GPA is 3.69 and its SAT range is 1090-1300. It is, unquestionably, more difficult to get into UCSD than San Diego State. This makes UCSD more selective. Again, see below
2. The desirability of a school, as determined by the yield of admitted students and their GPA/SAT scores is an entirely different data set. This data in controlled by the student. Selectivity is controlled by the school.
I’m sorry that you have been thrown off by US News’s use of the term “Student Selectivity” referenced in the fine print describing how they come to their rankings. This, I believe, encompasses how selective schools are AS WELL AS which schools students select. It is not referring to a school’s selectivity, as you would like to believe.
**Selectivity: the quality of carefully choosing someone or something as the best or most suitable.
3. "You are free to opine that "selectivity" should be based 100% on acceptance rates." If you could point me to the part where I wanted to base selectivity purely on acceptance rates, that would be great. I would like to, if I may clarify, OPINE that selectivity is only based on accepted student GPAs, test scores, acceptance rates, and a little bit of special sauce for unique/talented students.
Without using any statistics I can say that as a rising senior in a big CA public school I see a clear shift in students’ perception of UCLA vs Berkeley. It used to be just over a year ago that Berkeley was many students’ dream school, now almost all my classmates would prefer to get into UCLA.
If you think about it this year’s applicants are millennium babies. Born in the year 2000. It was a baby boom. I predict we will hear applications at almost all schools are up.
It’s just one large public school in Northern California, but according to Naviance, apps to UCB and UCLA (UCB/UCLA) have risen of course, but beyond that, not much of a “clear shift in perception”:
2016 99/100
2017 112/121
2018 116/122
And the few additional apps that UCLA receives may be due to kids wanting to get further away from home here in NorCal.
At my D’s private school in SoCal, there’s a pretty clear preference toward UCLA as well, although plenty of kids would be happy to go to either. Clearly just anecdotal, but what I hear from kids/parents is when the academic reputation of the schools is considered roughly equal, many would prefer to avoid Cal’s baggage–housing issues, problems with the area surrounding the campus, and the disruptions caused by Antifa.
FWIW, regarding housing issues, Cal does plan to remove Edwards Stadium, Cal’s track and soccer field, and replace it with a 10-12 story residential dorms. But that’s a few years off, I’m sure.
@sushiritto IMHO the Naviance data is not helpful: clearly we all applied to both UCLA and Berkeley (as well as many other UCs). I would be thrilled with either choice, but the real question is: which one would you select given the chance to get accepted to both.