Parchment is highly suspect.
For example, they say as between Harvard and San Diego State, 40% would chose San Diego State, 60% Harvard.
But between Harvard and Berkeley, 11% would chose Berkeley, 89% Harvard.
UCLA had 92,728 freshman applications and 20,075 transfer applications.
Can’t seem to find the numbers for graduate school …
That’s Yuuuge
UCLA received 97,064 freshman applications for Fall 2016. They’ll probably be the first university to break 100,000 applications for Fall 2017!
ClarinetDad16, those were meant to be examples of operational definitions not answers to a multiple choice test. The point is that the term can be defined in many ways. Those who prefer one over the other are not going to be swayed otherwise. So if the OP uses a operational definition for what is meant by “Popular” there would be an easier way to determine an answer to op"s question.
et tu, dadofs
@8bagels Your examples don’t really support concluding that Parchment is “highly suspect” at all. Of applicants who applied to both CS-SD and Harvard, why is it hard to believe 40 v 60 when that sample might be (1) distorted by small numbers of match ups, and (2) these particular applicants might be heavily influenced by geography and costs? UC-B and Harvard have more overlap thus larger sample size, plus geography and costs may be much less of a factor. In both cases Harvard is more popular. If San Diego had come out on top of Harvard, then that might have justified calling it “highly suspect.”
A small number of matchup distortions is the definition of suspect. If you have that little data, there’s going to be a wide margin of error.
Additionally, if geography and especially costs play into the data, I don’t think that’s an endorsement for popularity being accurate either.
Parchment is already known to have sketchy data, being user reported and with very few accounts following through with data all the way through the process. Certainly some incorrect data as well. Overall, Parchment just isn’t a good source.
As a Californian, I can tell you why UCLA gets so many applications. You use one joint application to apply to all of the UCs, and just check the box for which of the campuses you are interested in. California graduates several hundred thousand high schoolers per year, most of them in Southern California. Almost every single California high schooler who wants to go to college puts in an application to the UCs, some as their top choices, some as their backups. And they see no reason not to check the box for UCLA, even though the overwhelming majority of them have no shot of getting in. It’s like buying a lottery ticket - why the heck not check the box for UCLA even if you know that your best chance is UC Merced if you get into a UC at all?
I suspect that if UCLA had its own separate application with its own essays, the number of applications it gets would be cut in half overnight.
What Pengs said. Parchment’s data is nowhere near scientifically valid or meaningful, the results it produces are therefore meaningless, as illustrated by the Cal State San Diego / Harvard result.
ThankyouforHelp - that’s probably true, and is basically the same for all the UCs. UCSB got 85,000 applications, and UCI got close to 90,000 last year (probably close to 100,000 this year). Those numbers, for much less nationally/internationally known schools, are actually more surprising to me than UCLA’s number.
People focus on UCLA’s number, but it’s really a UC thing, not just a UCLA thing.
Some of these sites ask those reading the site to “vote” or choose between two schools. I’ve done that numerous times but I am obviously not an applicant. Don’t know if Parchment is one of the sites that does that. If so, it can’t be a very valid way to ascertain which school is most “popular” regardless of the definition used (unless the definition is which school gets the most votes by visitors to our site).
@PengsPhils As I stated in my first post, I agree that the Parchment data is unreliable BUT the methodology itself is a more accurate way of measuring “popularity”. Why exclude from a definition of “popularity” regional factors (such as travel time, distance, and cost) that alter the perception of the desirability of the big names in undergraduate education? For many high stats Oregon students if they can’t go to Stanford they prefer in-state or West Coast options regardless of USNWR ranking or any other marketing buzz.
UCLA has probably as many OOS and International applicants as Harvard has total applicants
The numbers for the UC schools for 2016 applications are even bigger than 2015- UCLA has over 97,000 freshman applications for 2016. In 2015, they had 92, 681 freshman applications.
Breakdown of 2015 for UCLA applications :
California residents 57, 806
OOS applicants 18,539
International 16, 336
Total 92, 681
Breakdown of Berkeley 2015 applications:
California residents 45, 606
OOS 18,570
International 14,687
Total 78, 863
They get lots of OOS and international applicants but more instate applicants. The opposite is true at another flagship, UVa. They get more non resident applicants (they don’t break it down in terms of OOS and international) than Virginia applicants.
Breakdown of UVa 2015 applications:
Virginia residents 9,156
OOS 21,684
Total 30, 840
D1 may be the only senior in SoCal who did NOT apply to a UC 
FWIW, Top Tier Admissions publishes admissions stats for the Ivies plus Stanford and MIT, and USNWR’s top-ranked RUs and LACs over a range of years. They break out admissions trends from Class of 2012-18 for the Ivy Plus schools - Stanford, Columbia and Penn saw a surge in apps, while Dartmouth saw more modest growth (accounting for back to back dips a couple of years ago): http://www.toptieradmissions.com/resources/statistics/
I’m rooting for Pres. Hanlon’s “Moving Dartmouth Forward” to right the ship for Dartmouth, my personal favorite among the Ivies.
I think University of Alabama got a little more popular today
While it may seem like every CA high school senior is applying to UCs, it’s actually about 1/3 statewide:
(138 thousand total UC applicants out of ~400 thousand graduating high school seniors)
@goldenbear2020, if you are correct about the number of graduating seniors, it is closer to about 1 in 4 statewide, based on 105,341 freshman applications (“Universitywide” unduplicated counts). http://www.ucop.edu/news/factsheets/2014/fall-2014-admissions-table2.pdf
it’s like the hunger games trying to go to school in the pnw. Everyone wants the liberal pnw grungy hipster feel.
It seems the OOS State Schools have popularity for Northeast kids
Can a school help buy popularity with extensive marketing campaigns?