It’s interesting that all but UCB and UCLA have a higher acceptance rate for OOS applicants than in-state. I thought nearly all UCs were very challenging for an OOS student, except maybe Merced, Riverside and possibly SC.
Also, it’s interesting that UCB and LA have ~40% of their incoming students that are transfers. It’s very different than the private universities like Stanford, USC, Pepperdine and Santa Clara.
The in-state and out-of-state applicant pools could have different profiles in terms of academic strength of applicants.
UCs (and CSUs) are intended to graduate a substantial percentage of students who took the transfer pathway starting at California community colleges. This is meant to be a more affordable (for both the student and the state) option for students to get the common frosh/soph level course work done before moving on to upper level course work at a UC (or CSU). So it is not a surprise that the percentage of incoming students who are transfers is high.
Do you think that California has a higher percentage of transfer students each year at its flagship universities than any other state flaghip(s)? It’s a great model. Does it impact school spirit or alumni giving rates? The top two are internationally renowned so maybe not. Not sure about the others that are nationally strong, like UCSD, Davis and Santa Barbara.
California is likely on the higher end, though you’d want to go through all of the states to be sure.
The UCs do a good job in helping transfer students feel that they are part of the community. I don’t think it impacts school spirit or giving.
It’s interesting that all but UCB and UCLA have a higher acceptance rate for OOS applicants than in-state. I thought nearly all UCs were very challenging for an OOS student, except maybe Merced, Riverside and possibly SC.
I somewhat disagree with @ucbalumnus because if you look at the 2021 admit cycle for the UCs from my link in post #9, you’ll find that for OOS students, UCI admitted 8,627/11,699 (admits/applicants), 73.7%, and UCD admitted 7,649/9,534, 80.2%. There’s no excuse for either of these UCs to admit at that rate, because there isn’t going to be necessarily a high-achieving, self-selecting set of OOS students who apply, except for the 3.4 gpa minimum which is not particularly high-standing – for in-state, the minimum is even lower, 3.1, and I have no clue what this encompasses. Of course, their yields weren’t very good: UCI’s was 971/8,627 (enrolled/admitted), 11.3%, and UCD’s was 499/7,649, 6.5%.
And only UCB and UCM had a lower admit rate in 2021 for in-state vis-à-vis OOS; UCLA’s was 9.9% for CA residents and 13.8% for OOS, but these latter undoubtedly had a bit higher stats, with the Internationals having the highest stats of the three residential cohorts. There’s actually a CA law that requires higher standing for non-resident students.
This year, both UCI and UCD toned down the OOS admits a bit because of the order to reduce non-resident enrollment; UCI’s AR in 2022 for OOS was 36.6% and UCD’s was 59.8%.
Also, it’s interesting that UCB and LA have ~40% of their incoming students that are transfers. It’s very different than the private universities like Stanford, USC, Pepperdine and Santa Clara.
All the points everyone made to your quote are undoubtedly true, and when you factor in that there are > 100 community colleges in CA, with one reasonably close to any resident, this would remove room-and-board costs. Additionally, for native CA students, there can be a waiving of first- and sometimes second-year tuition.
Let me add that for UCB, UCLA, and UCSD, the more in-demand majors are more restrictive of entry. So xfers often look for majors that are seemingly even more unrelated to their desired future vocational goals; e.g, there’s a subset of UCLA students from the westside of LA area who desire to be dentists in its various specialties, so they xfer to the University and study things like Sociology, Anthropology, and History and then attend dental school. Engineering is such a prohibitive an admit for all three UCs, so students look for peripherally based CS and E type majors. Here’s a link to the majors xfers to UCLA chose in 2021, which has lot of Social Science and not a lot of tech-type majors.
And for xfers, the internship thing can be tougher – only two years to accomplish them, so they might have to do them as recent graduates.
Pre-dental (and pre-med) do not require any specific major, though they do have specific course requirements that can be taken with any major.
I realize, and they do do the pre-dental coursework, and there are doubtlessly those who major, e.g., in Econ or political science, social science, who do the premed – but I’m guessing that dental schools like UCSF, USC, UCLA, UoP, Western University, etc., aren’t quite as demanding with respect to requisite life-science courses. These students are a bit different, because they don’t seem to really be attracted to a life-science, and/or they’re looking for an “easier” major.
Good point for STEM majors. It’s still possible with a one year masters.
Transferring to STEM may be harder relative to transferring to other fields, but there are plenty of students who do transfer to STEM.
Nearly half of students earning a bachelor’s degree from a UC campus in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) transferred from a California community college.
CCC Technology Center - CCC Technology Center
I think, too though, that it’d be harder for those who major in Physics or Mathematics to get an MS in E in just one year – especially if it is outside of the student’s native university – because those who do get a five-year MS undoubtedly start before their fourth year ends to begin working on a masters [edit] obviously at their native U [/]. I would imagine that Physics and Math majors would need to “get caught up” in the specifically applied engineering courses. @ucbalumnus, do you have any thoughts, on this?
@mtmind, I believe it depends on how they classify STEM. Does this include the health and life sciences? If it does, this would include besides the biosciences, things like nursing, physical therapy, etc. Some don’t necessarily believe that it does include the biosciences unless it includes, say, a research component, expanding the knowledge of the Science component. And is an MD in [her]/his practice, besides her/his doing extremely well in helping patients to live longer and better lives, actually expanding the Science component?
For someone aiming for a generally applicable (in the subject) engineering degree, a bachelor’s degree program is designed for that, while most master’s degree programs are aimed at additional specialization within the subject. Yes, there may also be some catching up for physics and math majors doing master’s degrees in engineering. Plus, the additional degree means more time and money spent on it.
The community colleges in California must be far better than the ones in Texas. My dad taught physics, meteorology, astronomy, chem calcs for nursing and basic math at a community college. He said maybe six to ten people would sign up for his physics classes and 2-3 would finish. Now it’s going more online which is even tougher to make connections. His CC is located two hours away from the nearest R1 Carnegie four year institution and most feed to a regional university (traditional teacher’s college) with declining enrollment.
If it doesn’t, then we need to start calling it TEM.
I was just thinking of possible case-by-case professions determination if they were scientists. 
I was also looking at the community colleges (CCs) like Santa Monica College to determine what percentage of its students were on a track to xfer to a four-year. It looked like ~ 1/2 of them were. I was thinking, though, that Pierce seemed to be a little better preparatory CC; SMC has voluminous xfers (“the most to all the colleges,” etc.) but Pierce seems to draw more already established high-school scholars who are in its honors programs. The most STEM-based CC seemed to be De Anza in Cupertino/NorCal.
As a bi coastal person I have nothing but the highest praise for the California CC system. This is what the entire country should be doing. I recently went to a flea market that was held at a CC parking lot and the grounds were better than some of the private LACs I have toured - yes, not a NESCAC, but still a private LAC. California must be supporting and funding their CCs and it shows. My next door neighbor (who went to Stanford UG and Columbia G and is a kid of immigrants) has much younger sibs and they are doing the CC/UC route. One of the smartest people I know who now works at JPL went to Glendale CC. There is no shame in going to CC in CA and that should be the case for all the students in our nation.