I was wondering if anyone went to the open house on 4/14 and if they announced it. I heard this year UCI dropped 10% making it 28.5%. What about UCSB? Thanks!
The UCs have officially announced the number of applications for Fall 2018, but not the number of acceptances. So the acceptance rates are not known (at least not officially). I think last year’s rates weren’t officially announced until July. However, based on last year’s data, a 28.5% acceptance rate at UCI seems unlikely.
For Fall 2017, UCI got 85,097 applications. They accepted 31,103, for an acceptance rate of 36.6%.
For Fall 2018, UCI got 94,866 applications. To my knowledge, UCI’s capacity hasn’t changed significantly over the past year. So they will probably accept about the same number of applicants that they did last year. In that case, the acceptance rate would be around 33%.
For Fall 2017, USCB got 81,828 applications. They accepted 26,879, for an acceptance rate of 32.8%.
For Fall 2018, UCSB got 92,017 applications. Again, let’s assume that they accept about the same number as last year. In that case, the acceptance rate would be around 29%.
https://www.ucop.edu/institutional-research-academic-planning/_files/factsheets/2017/fall-2017-admissions-table2.pdf
https://www.ucop.edu/institutional-research-academic-planning/_files/factsheets/2018/fall-2018-applications-table1.pdf
@Corbett I think it’s quite possible that UCI accepted fewer students this year than last because of the debacle last year where they ended up with 800+ too many.
OK, so let’s assume that UCI accepts fewer students this year. Let’s say they only accept 30,000 instead of 31,103, which should be more than enough to avoid a repeat of the problem. In that case the projected acceptance rate drops, but only from about 33% to about 32%.
Thank you for the useful links Corbett. I really appreciate the demographic chart.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the UCs generally take a cautious approach to admissions this year, to avoid the overenrollment nightmare that happened at UCI. So the initial admission numbers might be lower than usual.
Of course, this runs the risk that your class might be too small. But if that’s the case, you should be able to fix it by carefully making offers to students on the waitlist. Overenrollment by hundreds of students is a big problem, but underenrollment by hundreds of students can be corrected.
If my guess is right, and the UCs are relying more heavily on the waitlist this year, then any preliminary acceptance numbers that you may have heard are less likely to be accurate. It’s possible that the total number of acceptances could rise significantly as applicants get pulled off the waitlist.
I know for a fact UCI is purposely enrolling less than normal because the student housing construction is not finished. They knocked down old dorms but the new constructions are not finished. Hence to avoid unhappy spoiled students they enrolled less. You can also say they wanted to avoid the over-enrollment as well as compensate for the influx from last year.
If UCI got more applications this year (which they did, at 94,866), and if they accept fewer students than last year (which was 31,103), then obviously the acceptance rate will drop from last year’s figure of 36.6%.
If they accepted about 31,103 again, the acceptance rate would be about 33%. But that may be unlikely.
If they accepted only about 30,000, then the acceptance rate would be about 32%.
If they accepted only about 29,000, then the acceptance rate would be about 31%.
If they accepted only about 28,000, then the acceptance rate would be about 30%.
That last number would represent roughly a 10% decrease in accepted students relative to last year. Obviously the acceptance rate would continue to drop if they went even lower, but my guess is that this would be a less likely scenario.
@pcarneva What dorms did they knock down? Brandywine Commons and Brandywine Student Center are not dorms.
UCI ended up admitting 27,272 students this year for an admissions rate of 28.7%.
In that case, UCI cut the number of acceptances from 31,103 last year to only 27,272 this year. That’s a cut of 12.3%, or nearly one-eighth.
I thought it was likely that UCI would probably reduce the number of acceptances this year – but by not that much. I thought it was unlikely that they would cut by more than about 10%. Guess I was wrong.
32.4% for ucsb
Any idea of instate vs OOS acceptance rates? OOS probably higher, student stats might be similar, they probably accept a lot in order to get enough self pay students.
UCSB Fall 2018 freshman acceptance rates by residency:
29.7% CA residents
47.7% US out-of-state
34.3% International
UCLA provides a detailed breakdown of student stats by residency. At UCLA, the OOS and International admits actually have better stats than the CA admits. I suspect that this is probably true at UCSB as well, but I don’t think UCSB provides the numbers. If so, this would be one reason for the higher OOS/International acceptance rates.
The OOS/International admits have significantly lower yields than CA residents. In other words, they are much less likely to attend UCSB if accepted. This doesn’t seem surprising, given that (1) the OOS/International students typically live much farther away, and (2) they don’t get any financial aid. So this is another reason that the OOS/international acceptance rates are higher.
Info on OOS admissions about what I would have expected. I also found another piece of information by which you can calculate the yield for OOS, which is less than 10%, much lower than OOS yield for UCB UCLA. So for OOS high stats kid, UCSB seems quite attainable match if you can afford it. My D decided to decline (never visited), thought all the big schools were pretty much the same, entering local flagship (“your welcome!” she said).
You can easily look up yield by residency for any UC campus at:
https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/freshman-admissions-summary
The Fall 2018 numbers aren’t available yet. For Fall 2017, the UCSB yields were:
20% CA residents
7% US out-of-state
12% International
And yes, the US out-of-state yields were much higher at UCB (30%) and UCLA (21%).
True – although with an estimated cost of attendance >$60,000 and no financial aid, that seems like a big “if”.
Another factor here is capping. The UC System recently capped non-resident undergraduate enrollment at each campus. Four campuses (UCB, UCLA, UCSD, UCI) have already hit their caps, so non-resident admissions are likely to become increasingly competitive there in the future.
But UCSB was still well under their cap last year (13.5% non-residents vs. 18% cap). So they currently have a “green light” to enroll more non-residents. UCSB and UCD are probably the most attractive campuses that are still below their caps (although UCD is getting close). So it would make sense for non-residents to target UCSB specifically.