Go back to the original post in this thread and look at the numbers:
Many Californians don’t realize how amazingly high these numbers are by national standards.
Think about it like this – outside of California, what schools get the most freshman applications? I believe the answers are:
NYU: 67,232 freshman applications (less than Davis)
Boston U: 60,817 freshman applications
Michigan: 58,590 freshman applications (slightly higher than Santa Cruz)
No other private or state universities in the US – not the Ivy League, not the Big Ten, not the CSUs – are dealing with the level of applicant volume that the top UC campuses get.
Even today, you are still automatically accepted to the UC system if you meet the basic requirements in the local or statewide contexts. The difference is that the automatic guarantee only applies to one campus, Merced, which is relatively unpopular.
@Corbett WOW, the numbers are startling. CA residents have so many wonderful colleges to choose from, I don’t see the demand letting up in years to come.
To some extent, you have to view these numbers in context with the size of California compared to other states. Besides the UC system’s 250,000 students, California has 23 CalState campuses with a total of almost half a million students and a community college system with 2.5 million students at 114 campuses.
I could look this up, but generally speaking - what do the UCs cost California residents? Does California (the state itself) have merit scholarships along the lines of Bright Futures here in Florida?
@SouthFloridaMom9: UC’s cost this full pay parent around $30K/year which includes tuition/room/board/books etc…
California has Cal Grants and the Blue & Gold scholarship (need based) which helps reduce the costs for in-state applicants. UC’s do offer merit scholarships but very competitive and usually to the top 1% of applicants. Again the merit scholarships in them selves are not high amounts: up to $10K/year depending upon campus, but they also have a need based component which can increase these amounts to include full tuition and some housing expenses.
@SouthFloridaMom9: In-state Tuition for the UC’s is not bad at $14,382, but add in Housing/Meal plans etc… than you have around $30K for the year. The UC’s are generous with need-based aid for eligible students, but unfortunately our income was too high plus I had a 529 plan to cover the costs.
Yep, 100k or 85k apps is nuts. UCLA is rejecting more than 85,000.
Agree, the admit rate could have something to do with yield. Not necessarily that kids don’t like something about UCB, but that that caliber may prefer other schools that admit them (incl UCLA.) We’d need to know more.
For Fall 2016, yields were 44% at Berkeley and 37% at UCLA. I would expect that Berkeley will continue to have a higher yield for Fall 2017, but I don’t think the numbers are available yet.
If you were to look at historical trends, a couple of other developments that could plausibly affect Berkeley in the future are as follows:
(1) Davis could conceivably pass Berkeley as the largest UC campus in Northern California. For Fall 2016, Berkeley had a total enrollment of 40,173, while Davis had 37,397. That gap will narrow in Fall 2017. And in the long run, the Davis campus has literally thousands of acres to build on – plus the UC administration wants a Davis satellite campus in downtown Sacramento (probably to ensure that there is a visible UC presence under the noses of state legislators). It’s not hard to see how Davis could expand to accommodate several thousand additional students.
But it’s much harder to see that at Berkeley, which is already overcrowded, out of space, and heavily in debt for the stadium renovation. The only feasible option for significant growth might involve a satellite campus at the Richmond Field Station, a 170-acre parcel that Berkeley owns in Richmond, about 6 miles northwest of the campus.
(2) USC could conceivably catch up with, and then surpass, Berkeley in the USN&WR rankings. In 1997, USC was ranked behind Berkeley, UCLA, San Diego, Davis, and Irvine. Today, USC’s overall score puts it two points ahead of UCLA and just one point behind Berkeley. They could catch up to Berkeley as soon as this fall.
Berkeley (like other UCs) is capping the enrollment of out-of-state and international students, charging them higher tuition, and denying them financial aid. USC (like Stanford) is doing the exact opposite of these things. Historically, the UCs were more attractive to top students because of the low in-state tuition. USC realized that this advantage is completely negated out of state, and that’s where they recruit most of their students now (58% for Fall 2016). Berkeley and UCLA may still have a significant advantage over USC in the statewide market for top students, but they are politically handicapped in the increasingly important national and global markets.
Actually, anyone who “knows” Cal admissions, knows that it just not true. The vast majority of students are admitted to the College of Letters and Science and intended major is NOT an admissions factor. (The school of Engineering does require you to pick a major, however.)
What would be a better measure is: how many applied to both Us and their status? My experience is that most of the kids at my daughter’s school when applying to UCs, did not select Berkeley because the preconception that it is tougher to be accepted. The ones that did both, the acceptance rate is quite even. Those who were accepted at both, more chose to commit to Berkeley. We are in SoCal.
It’s best not to try to overly compare. It’s true UCLA gets the most apps, but it’s in a beautiful part of LA (Westwood), and historically it has not been as hard as Berkeley to be admitted, so everyone thinks they have a shot, hence the most applied to university.
It is also true, that Berkeley has the reputation of being a near impossible UC to get into, therefore, lots of students don’t even try unless they have perfect stats.
I don’t think any official cross-admit data are available. The parchment.com website reports that their users, when admitted to both schools, tend to prefer Berkeley over UCLA, by 56 to 44%. However, I wouldn’t assume that their dataset is necessarily comprehensive, random, or authoritative.
We are in SoCal but my son would have chosen Berkeley over UCLA because it is stronger in his major of physics. He was admitted to both and had Regents status at Berkeley (but only invited to apply for some alumni scholarship at UCLA). Our high school typically has many apply to both and ~15 admitted to each, but I don’t know how many of them overlap. So, applying to Berkeley doesn’t seem to be scaring them off. I’m sure some who would apply to Berkeley engineering apply to L&S instead.
Of the places he was admitted, Berkeley ended up tied for 3rd place with the CCS Physics program at UCSB. CCS moved down a bit because it is too close to home; otherwise it would probably have been higher than Berkeley. (He’ll be attending Caltech.)
At our HS, both schools get a similar amount of applications, usually 250+, with UCLA generally getting a few more than Berkeley. Up until last year, students were usually admitted at about the same percent and attended them in about equal numbers. For whatever reason, last year far more kids were accepted to Berkeley and those that were accepted chose to go at a much higher rate. The same thing seemed to happen this year - more kids chose Berkeley from our HS than any other school in the country. Not sure what has happened in the last 2 years, but Berkeley is the ‘in’ school in our area (aside from Stanford, Ivies, MIT). From what I’ve heard at our HS, some kids that are accepted to both Berkeley and UCLA will choose Berkeley because it is ranked higher and they basically ‘have’ to for family/cultural reasons, not because they like the school better. Just anecdotal info I’ve heard from my son.
I’m from the midwest, many folks out there hear Berkeley and think “Hippies, marijuana, protests, anti-establishment.” For UCLA on the other hand, people think “Hollywood, Sunshine, Beaches and Sports.” Overall, Berkeley is considered a tad more prestigious, but I have a feeling the perceptions of both schools play a role in the number of applications.
