UCLA is now the most selective school in the UC system

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Los Angeles
1

For the first time in recent history, UC Berkeley’s acceptance rate falls behind UCLA’s: 18.3% to 16.1%

Los Angeles: 102,181 freshman applications, 16,494 admits; 16.1% acceptance rate

Berkeley: 85,016 freshman applications, 15,567 admits, 18.3% acceptance rate

Santa Barbara: 81,790 freshman applications, 26,879 admits, 32.9% acceptance rate

San Diego: 88,456 freshman applications, 30,204 admits, 34.1% acceptance rate

Irvine: 85,060 freshman applications, 31,103 admits, 36.6% acceptance rate

Davis: 70,907 freshman applications, 30,945 admits, 43.6% acceptance rate

Santa Cruz: 52,507 freshman applications, 27,216 admits, 51.8% acceptance rate

Riverside: 43,436 freshman applications, 25,062 admits, 57.7% acceptance rate

Merced: 21,848 freshman applications, 16,315 admits, 74.7% acceptance rate

Sources:

Data for total applications received by campus and level. http://www.ucop.edu/institutional-research-academic-planning/_files/factsheets/2017/fall-2017-applications-table1-v2.pdf

Data by offers of admission by campus and residency http://www.ucop.edu/institutional-research-academic-planning/_files/factsheets/2017/fall-2017-admissions-table1.pdf

2

UCB is still ranked higher on most college rating scales. A lot of people don’t apply to UCB knowing they don’t have what it takes but throw their hat in the ring for UCLA because the SAT score average is a lot less, hence more apps, bigger denonminator and lower rate of admission. Both colleges are top notch, world class research universities in my book. Both are reaches for all.

3

Just to add to my post #1–We have a Bruin, a Golden Bear and a Sagehen (Pomona) in our house and an ivy grad (Cornell). A mother cannot choose favorites. All are equally prestigious and tough to get into. Takes some chops to get into any one of these.

4

…but what is the yield comparison.

5

What is interesting to me in those stats is that for Californians, UCLA had an admit rate of 14.6% and Cal had an admit rate of 19.7%. That seems like a big disparity to me. And I expected the stats to be the other way around.

6

I think UCLA has many more OOS applicants, being in SoCal and all and a USPS address of Westwood doesn’t hurt.

7

Preppedparent - perhaps more people apply to UCLA because they prefer the atmosphere/location/culture of UCLA. And don’t like the extreme liberal culture, location, and activism of berkeley. After all, to apply to any of the UC schools, all one has to do is click a box during the application process. It’s easy. But yes, the admission SAT scores are slightly higher at berkeley (GPA about the same), but not that much higher. It must be something else making kids want to go there.

8

This doesn’t surprise me. Berkeley had fewer applications than UCSD or UCI. I know parents in California who, despite Cal’s academic reputation, are concerned about sending their child there for various reasons. For many, UCLA has a similar reputation without some of the negatives.

9

New stats released today from UCB:
http://news.berkeley.edu/2017/07/06/campus-offers-admission-to-more-than-15000-students/

More admits for this year:
“In total, 15,528 UC Berkeley students received freshman admissions offers, a 7.6 percent increase compared to the previous academic year. They were selected from the more than 85,000 who applied.”

In light of the riots at Berkeley earlier this year maybe some parents and students were hesitant to apply…

P.S. Go Bears!! Still the #1 ranked public uni!!

10

Why is this such a shock? UCB hasn’t had to hustle for a long time, resting on its laurels, while UCLA has made enormous strides over the last 20 or so years. In fact, at the grad level, UCLA has all the buzz these days. UCB may still have more cachet but it’s become a bit sclerotic. I wouldn’t be surprised if 10 years from now, UCLA is seen as the pre-eminent UC campus overall.

11

@DonGately16 You and I are saying the same thing. Sun and environment, culture may be a bigger draw for many than Berkeley’s Cambridgey type feel. I always thought Berkeley’s community has a similar feel to Harvard’s in Cambridge, MA which is more quirky, provincial than UCLA which is more West LA.

12

@sushiritto , UCLA’s in-state acceptance rate has actually been lower than Berkeley’s by a few percentage points for at least a couple of years now, but Berkeley’s non-resident acceptance rates were much lower, giving them a slightly lower overall acceptance rate. UCLA also accepted about 6% fewer students this year while Berkeley accepted about 7% more. That combined with more apps to UCLA (for whatever reason) makes it no surprise that UCLA’s overall acceptance rate is lower this year. It’s just how the numbers work.

Now that the board of regents approved capping non-resident admission for UCB/UCLA/UCSD/UCI at whatever their enrollment percentage is for the coming academic year (18% for the other 5 campuses), I wondered if those four campuses might try to slide in as many non-residents as they could this year to lock in a higher cap.

You can look at the data in the link and draw your own conclusions, but Berkeley increased their OOS acceptance rate from 16.5% to 22.1% and International from 7.6 to 8.8%. UCLA kept their non-resident admission numbers pretty steady (while decreasing their in-state acceptances by over 1,000 students). The caps are based on the non-resident percentage enrolled rather than the number of students enrolled, though, and we don’t know what their yield is yet, so I guess we’ll see how it plays out.

http://www.ucop.edu/institutional-research-academic-planning/_files/factsheets/2017/fall-2017-admissions-table2.pdf

13

UCLA has been getting more applications than Berkeley for a fairly long time. Reasons include - glamor associated with location, perceived competition level and academic difficulty at Berkeley, overall more sporty school image for UCLA etc. Also, as anyone who has applied to UCs knows, Berkeley offers only one choice of major at application time, whereas UCLA and all other UCs offer multiple choices. So there is a perceived risk in applying to Berkeley. In terms of student demographics they are pretty identical - it’s a mistake or perhaps wishful thinking by some that UCLA is somehow more conservative than Berkeley and because of this years’ student protests the applications are down – these application statistics are from last year’s application deadlines.

14

Another reason for more applications to UCLA than Berkeley is that the metropolitan population of the LA basin plus Inland Empire plus San Diego County is about 21 million vs. about 10 million for the Bay Area plus Sacramento metro area.

15

I thougth SD’s rate was lower.

16

@HarveyMuddBTW - love your cc profile name. Are you a HMC student? HMC was my D’s top choice but the tuition was too much of a stretch for us. Still breaks my heart. It’s a great school. She also got into to Cal, but chose UCLA because of the friendlier atmosphere. Rigorous (like HMC) wasn’t an issue, but Cal seemed intense and competitive which just wasn’t appealing.

17

While UCLA is a preferred choice by cross admits, you can’t use a blank statement that UCLA is more selective. EECS had a 8.4% of acceptance rate for the class of 2020 and probably about the same for a chemical engineering.

18

Ballerina016, This year UCLA was the most selective campus overall. We’re talking overall. Why is that offending people? Just an interesting tidbit of information. Lol, it’ll probably flipflop back and forth between both schools for years to come. And the same could be said of certain departments at many campuses. UCLA film has an acceptance rate of 8.2% for instance. The real story here is how hard it has become to get accepted at UC schools; there’s so much demand now. I read that up until the 60’s, you would be automatically accepted to Berkeley+(The other Campuses) if you had the requirements done, which weren’t very stringent.

19

This leads to another question: what state university in California now has the third lowest acceptance rate, after UCLA and Berkeley ?

Take a look at the latest UC numbers, for Fall 2017:

16.1 % UCLA
18.3 % UCB
32.7 % UCSB
34.1 % UCSD
36.6 % UCI
43.6 % UCD
51.4 % UCSC
57.4 % UCR
72.2 % UCM

So the #3 school is UCSB, right? Uh, not so fast.

Cal Poly hasn’t announced their Fall 2017 acceptance rate yet. But for Fall 2016, it was 29.5%. And CP had even more applications for Fall 2017, but they weren’t planning to increase admits. So the Fall 2017 rate may be lower.

When the numbers are in, it’s likely that Cal Poly will easily hold the #3 slot, with a <30% acceptance rate. Furthermore, the early indications are that Cal Poly will be overenrolled for Fall 2017, which implies that their acceptance rate needs to drop even more.

20

Hard to compare Cal Poly because some majors in engineering are super selective but others are super easy. Since they admit by major vs the UCs (outside of Engineering) who admit by school. Glad to see UCLA become so popular.