Is it reasonable to use the possessive word “UCLA’s” to characterize a group of 16,000 students – given that most of those 16,000 students will never sit in a UCLA classroom?
If most of those students enroll at some other school instead – say, Berkeley, Stanford, USC, UCI, Ivies, etc. – then are they really “UCLA’s”?
Semantics, yes. But words are important.
Those are UCLA’s data points, because they are a reflection of who UCLA accepted. UCLA is responsible for creating those numbers, because they accepted those applicants.
So yes, the possessive is appropriate in that context.
And again, “selectivity” refers to how hard it is to get into a school. “Desirability” refers to which schools students chose to go to. You are confusing this with USN&WR’s internally selected term of art “selectivity rank”, which has nothing to do with either term.
Again, this is getting off topic, and I suspect a moderator will note such any moment.
If you actually believe that is distinction is important, then in fairness, you should acknowledge that UCB has significantly higher “desirability” than UCLA.
For Fall 2017, UCLA sent out 16,456 acceptance letters, and enrolled 6,038 freshmen.
For comparison, UCB sent out only 14,552 acceptance letters – yet enrolled 6,379 freshmen.
Yield: 37% UCLA, 44% UCB.
So UCLA has the lower acceptance rate, but UCB has the higher yield. It’s mildly interesting to note that admissions works differently at the two schools. But overall, UCB enrolls the (slightly) stronger class, which is the bottom line that most people are concerned with.
Also interesting data point regarding “desirability”
2018 applicants to Cal: 89,294
2018 applicants to UCLA: 113,409
Let’s not cherry pick data. Even if we really really want to.
And I’ll be curious to see what those yields looks like now that the Bible AKA USN&WR has UCLA tied with Cal… 
By that standard, UCI, UCSD and UCSB are also more “desirable” than UCB since those schools also had more applicants than UCB.
I think a lot of factors go into “desirability” of a school and it isn’t just one thing like number of applicants. But yes, the number of people that apply to a school says something about the desirability of the school. I mean…it just does.
Let’s justs just agree they are all increasingly harder to get into and each campus attracts a different student and have unique vibes. You can’t really say one is better than the other based on acceptance rates that close to each other. I’ve known exceptional Ucla students and students at cal that I have no clue how they got in and vice versus.
@Corbett doesn’t cherry-pick.
If I were in California I would be extremely worried about these falling acceptance rates for its public university system. What does the future hold for those who want to attend a good university in California as more and more are shut out of it?
There are nine UCs and 23 Cal State schools. A public four year education is accessible for virtually any Californian that wants it and meets minimum requirements.
Absolutely not. On the contrary, let’s add more!
2018 applicants to Cal State Long Beach: “more than 69,000”
2018 applicants to San Diego State: 68,475
2018 applicants to UC Santa Cruz: 56,634
2018 applicants to Cal Poly SLO: 54,732
2018 applicants to UC Riverside: 49,079
2018 applicants to Stanford: 47,450
Throw in the other UCs, and Stanford doesn’t even make the Top Ten statewide. So if you were under the impression that Stanford had “desirability”, this thread may convince you otherwise!
Or not.
Not gonna pick a silly right. I already stated that there is no one singular factor that is looked at to decide whether a school is desirable or not. But the number of applicants is definitely one of them, especially when taken in consideration of other factors like acceptance rates, GPAs, SATs, ACTs, and yields.
But you already knew that - you were just trying to be difficult.
https://www.princetonreview.com/college-rankings/college-hopes-worries
The Princeton Review’s “Dream schools” list could easily be considered the most “desirable”, yes? You’ll notice these are not the 10 hardest-to-get-into schools.
You’ll also notice…oh never mind you’ll find it! =))
The UC system claims – truthfully, as far as I can tell – that all UC applicants who meet the traditional minimum requirements are offered a spot within the UC system. Where are the “more and more who are shut out of it”?
Now, it’s true that “more and more” applicants are being directed to less popular UC campuses, particularly inland campuses like UC Riverside and UC Merced. Given the cost of coastal real estate in California, that’s the inevitable future direction of UC expansion. But getting a spot in UC Riverside instead of UC Santa Barbara is not the same as being “shut out”.
Admission to at least one UC is guaranteed to all CA applicants that were in the top 9% of their high school class. That isn’t the same thing as meeting the minimum requirements of applying to a UC. Plenty of applicants (especially in the past) were admitted to all sorts of top UCs but were not in the top 9% of their class. So there are likely plenty of folks that would have in the past been admitted to a UC that no longer would get that acceptance.
Of course not – because there is another way to qualify.
It’s true that “eligibility in the local context” (top 9% by high school class rank) is one path to UC admissions. However, UC admission is also offered to all CA applicants that are in the top 9% statewide, as measured by a combination of GPA and test scores. This is called “eligibility in the statewide context”. You can plug your GPA and test scores into the calculator here to see if you qualify:
Technically, UC admission under the statewide path is only guaranteed “if space is available”, but to date it always has been.
Obviously there is a lot of overlap between those who are top 9% “locally” and top 9% “statewide”. But overall, about 12.5% of CA high school seniors are UC-eligible by one or both routes. And that 12.5% figure hasn’t changed since the CA Master Plan for Higher Education was developed in the 1960s.
Maybe the thread should be kept open. There seems to be lots of misinformation here that needs to be corrected.
Well, good luck with that, I imagine that CA residents will be just as happy at UCM as UCB then.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
Yeah, it kinda is.
I’ll keep it open for now, with the caveat that this site is not a debate society as per ToS and most of the comments on this thread are made by 2 users. State your opinion once, defend your opinion once, and then move on.
@UCBUSCalum https://www.commonapp.org/search-colleges
805 colleges accept the common application, including Stanford. Not sure how that is significantly different than the UC application process.
If you look at the respective number of applicants for say UCLA and UCB vs USC and Stanford it seems that there are factors that work to increase the number of people who apply (attractiveness of location, prestige, etc.) and factors that decrease it (particularly that it’s not worth applying because students think they won’t get in/can’t afford it). I assume that the relative cost is an element of the gap in the number of applicants between the public and private universities (and selectivity an even bigger factor for Stanford). However, part of the gap between UCLA and UCB may be because some students feel that they won’t get into Berkeley whereas it’s worth giving UCLA a shot (though Westwood may also be more attractive as a location and has a larger SoCal population to draw from for those who want to stay local).
So although there’s a general increase in the number of applicants across the board, I’ll be interested to see if UCLA’s increasing selectiveness means that in the next few years more students will conclude its not worth applying because they don’t think they will get in, causing the gap in total applications compared to Berkeley to narrow somewhat.