The University of California will have to increase the number of in-state enrollment beginning this year under a pact with Governor Gavin Newsom — but both in-state applications and overall admissions decreased slightly.
Resident applications are down by only 111 people this year. This signals that California students may have a higher chance of admission if UC follows through on its promise to Newsom.
In May 2022, Newsom announced additional funding for the UC system. In exchange, the public institution committed to increasing the number of in-state students it admits and capping out-of-state student enrollment.
Under the plan, UC receives a 5% budget increase from the state over each of the next five years; for the 2023-24 academic year, Newsom proposed $216 million in additional funding.
The most significant portion of the new enrollment growth was poised to occur at Berkeley, UCLA and San Diego.
And Berkeley appears to be an outlier among the other campuses. Freshman applications at UCLA dipped slightly by 2%, but UC Berkeley enjoyed a 13% increase in overall applications and a slight increase in in-state applications — 72,656 freshman applications were received from California residents, up from 72,417 last year.
“At Berkeley, we saw even more of an increase than our peers. The diversity of our applicant pool continues to be strong, and we remain a top choice for incredibly talented scholars,” said Olufemi Ogundele, UC Berkeley dean of undergraduate admissions.
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Despite the slight dip in applications this year, UC campuses — particularly UCLA, Berkeley and San Diego — remain the most applied to public universities in the country.
Ryan King, director of media relations for the UC Office of the President, said the university makes efforts “to encourage and educate as many qualified California students as possible to consider applying for admission to the university … (by conducting) in-person and virtual recruitment and information sessions, and campuses continually work to encourage diverse student populations to apply.”
King added that dropping the standardized test requirement in 2021 “may have also encouraged more students to apply for a spot at UC.”
Freshman enrollment numbers at UC have been volatile in the past three years – up 1.6% in fall 2020 and growing 11% percent in fall 2021. The university system received 249,855 applications in 2021, the highest number of undergraduate applications in its history — the report attributes this unusually high number to the elimination of standardized test requirements in 2021. UC does not consider SAT or ACT test scores when making admissions decisions or awarding scholarships.
But applications fell by 6.1% in fall 2022, according to the California Legislative Analyst’s Office — hovering near 2020 levels.
UC received 245,768 applications for fall 2023 undergraduate programs, a 2.2% decrease from last year, according to data released by the UC Graduate, Undergraduate and Equity Affairs Department.
