<p>I was reading about UCLA on wikipedia here-
University</a> of California, Los Angeles - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</p>
<p>and it says-
"In 2009 it became the most selective university among the UCs with an acceptance rate of 21.7%."</p>
<p>I just thought this was interesting. I had always thought Berkeley would remain the most selective UC. I know the admittance rates between the two are very close, but I just wanted to share this information.go bruins!</p>
<p>Ha, the UCBChemEgeeks on this board aren’t going to like this… ;)</p>
<p>Yeah, I noticed. I know of some people who got into Berkeley but not UCLA, but not the other way around</p>
<p>What’s Berkeley’s total admit rate including spring semester? </p>
<p>[University</a> of California - Admissions](<a href=“http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/selecting/camp_profiles/camp_profiles_ucb.html]University”>http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/selecting/camp_profiles/camp_profiles_ucb.html)</p>
<p>… I don’t think UCLA’s necessarily more selective, it’s just that more people apply. (Not to rag on my new school and all… ^_^; )</p>
<p>Living in Northern California just doesn’t have the same appeal as SoCal, land of the rich and famous with sunny skies and beautiful beaches, along with being near so many theme parks. (But I’m biased. ^_^)</p>
<p>All UCs became more selective (except Berkeley) because of the budget cuts and economic crisis.
Plus the fact that UCLA is the most popular university in the nation with over 55,000 applicants this year. Last year there were only around 50,000 applicants I think. So yea, it’s more selective and competitive this year.</p>
<p>Well, if you look at the statistics, UCLA and UCB freshman application growth was actually very minimal this year. Their popularity seems to have peaked. If you can imagine it, UCSB actually had fewer freshman applicants this year than last. The poor economy actually does work against UCs in favor of CSUs and CCs, just not as heavily as it does for private colleges. </p>
<p>UCs from other tiers had more significant gains this year, and campuses had lots more transfer applicants.</p>
<p>silvercross: Selectivity is entirely determined on the admit rate. UCLA’s admit rate became the lowest of the UCs this year, therefore it is the most selective. Regardless of how many apply or how many are accepted or who applies.</p>
<p>nodnarb: but you have to consider how many student each school takes, lets just say both berkeley and UCLA take 4000 applicants, and if UCLA have 55k that applied while berkeley have 50k that applied, then UCLA would have the lower percentage, so i think how many people apply matters…</p>
<p>^ kick: You’re right, if Berkeley and UCLA both accept 4000 and UCLA has 5k more applicants then it’s admit rate will be lower, and it will be more selective than Berkeley. Simple as that. More people are competing for the same amount of spots at UCLA than at Berkeley. But you might have a small LAC like Claremont McKenna College which may only accept 500 students and 3000 apply then the admit rate is about 17% (lower than UCLA). </p>
<p>So I’m just saying selectivity is just the admit rate, you may have a lot of people apply and a small number of spots therefore a low admit rate, you may have a really small number of spots and a relatively small amount of ppl apply and therefore you also get a low admit rate, in either case both are considered highly selective.</p>
<p>Selectivity is about more than just admit rate. The quality of the applicant pool also needs to be factored in.</p>
<p>I think selectivity is mainly the admit rate, although other things (like quality of the applicant pool) do play a role in it.</p>
<p>[College</a> 411 - Understanding College Selectivity](<a href=“https://www.collegedata.com/cs/content/content_choosearticle_tmpl.jhtml?articleId=10004]College”>https://www.collegedata.com/cs/content/content_choosearticle_tmpl.jhtml?articleId=10004)</p>
<p>I think it just depends on how you want to define the term, and whether to include the applicant pool or not. For example, SDSU routinely has a lower acceptance rate than the mid tier UCs, but the statistics of the applicants are significantly worse. Looking plainly at the admit rates, one might think that getting into SDSU is harder, when in fact from an academic standpoint, that isn’t true.</p>
<p>Now, is SDSU more “selective” than the mid tier UCs? By the definition given, it would be. However, I don’t know if that’s the most accurate way of putting it.</p>
<p>In the perspective of the college, being selective means you get to be more picky with whom you decide to admit to your university. If you’re admit rate is 70%, then that means you pay very little attention to who you let in.</p>
<p>SDSU may have the same admit rate, say of UC San Diego (their admit rates aren’t too far off, let’s assume they’re about the same for this argument), so is it as selective as UCSD? Absolutely. SDSU admit officers must be more selective, or picky of who they choose to admit from the applicant pool. Does that mean getting into SDSU is as difficult as getting into UC San Diego? Not really. The applicant pool to CSUs is definitely different than that of the pool for UCs. So in SDSUs applicant pool context, it is just as selective as UC San Diego. Someone that is a UC applicant, willing to pay more for college and wanting to attend a large research university, is likely to be of a higher quality than your typical CalState applicant who chooses to apply to schools that are smaller, cheaper, less everything basically. So if a typical UC applicant applies to SDSU, he or she will have a much greater chance of getting into SDSU than it’s admit rate of about 31% because he/she is simply of a much higher quality than the vast majority of typical CalState applicants. But this does not mean SDSU is not as selective as UC San Diego, it absolutely is. It just means that it is of a less academic quality than UCSD, in essence it is less prestigious.</p>
<p>If you still don’t get my point, I’ll put some numbers to it. College A (lower quality) is akin to CSUs and College B (higher quality) is akin to UCs. College A and B both admit 30% of the number of applications they receive. A College A admissions officer reads applications, he sees GPAs of 3.5, 3.6, 3.4,3.3,2.9,etc. He/she will definitely admit the GPAs of 3.6 and 3.5 and 3.4 (let’s neglect other admissions factors in this discussion for simplicity) because they’re in the top 30% but has to reject all the applicants with GPAs of 3.2 or below because they’re not in the top 30% of the applicant pool. A College B admissions officer reads applications, he sees GPAs of 4.0, 3.8, 3.7, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 3.9, 4.6, etc. He/she will definitely admit the 4.2s and higher GPAs because they’re in the top 30% of the applicant pool, but has to reject the 4.1s and 4.0s and 3.8s because they are not. Both readers, from College A and College B have to be selective. Both College A and College B have the same SELECTIVITY (picky-ness) but differ in the quality of applicants that they have, which will likely cause a difference in their perceived prestige and college quality.</p>
<p>So in conclusion, I think you guys are confusing prestige and quality for selectivity. San Diego State can be just as selective or more selective than UC San Diego, but is still of a less quality and less prestige due to the general quality of its applicant pool.</p>
<p>I get your point, it’s just that I think your definition of selective is wrong. If a person would get into one school but not another (and if you simplify by saying admissions are wholly objective), the latter school is more selective regardless of the number of unqualified applicants.</p>
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<p>I got into UCLA but not Berkeley</p>
<p>^ There are always going to be people who got into UCLA but not Berkeley, and vice versa. I think what alithyiaiden meant is that there are more people this year who got accepted to Berkeley, but not UCLA.</p>
<p>A lot of people at my school got into Berkeley but not UCLA. Maybe only a couple the other way round.</p>
<p>you assumed the ability/competivity/strength of the applicants are the same. :)</p>
<p>^ Actually this year, they are pretty much the same (very small gap). The average weighted GPA for admitted applicants at UCLA is 4.16 (while it’s 4.15 for Berkeley). The average SAT score for admitted applicants at UCLA is 2010 (while it’s 2033 for Berkeley). The stats for the applicants are around those numbers.
Most people tend to apply to UCLA when they’re applying for Berkeley, and vice versa. So in essence most of the applicants that are in the pool applied to both schools, and thus the ability/competitively/strength of the applicant is roughly similar (or at the very least - very small difference).
[University</a> of California - Admissions](<a href=“http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/selecting/camp_profiles/camp_profiles_ucb.html]University”>http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/selecting/camp_profiles/camp_profiles_ucb.html)
[University</a> of California - Admissions](<a href=“http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/selecting/camp_profiles/camp_profiles_ucla.html]University”>http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/selecting/camp_profiles/camp_profiles_ucla.html)</p>