All UC-Eligible California Freshmen Admitted in Another Record Year

The University of California offered admission to 60,008 freshman applicants for the fall 2008 term. The figure, representing 75.3 percent of California applicants, marks another record admissions year.

Another 8,450 UC-eligible applicants who were not offered admission to a campus to which they originally applied were offered admission to UC Merced and UC Riverside through a process known as referral. Additionally, nearly 3,000 applicants have been offered admission to the winter or spring term at UC Berkeley and UC San Diego.

Also, approximately 820 California resident freshman applicants to UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, UCLA and UC San Diego received offers to participate in the UC Merced "Shared Experience" program. Now in its second year, this program offers students the opportunity to begin their UC education at UC Merced, with the option of remaining at Merced or transferring in their junior year to the campus to which they originally applied.

"We are happy that we were able to find a place at the University for every eligible freshman applicant who applied," said Susan Wilbur, UC's director of undergraduate admissions.

Nearly 9 out of 10 admitted students are California residents. Admissions offers to out-of-state and international students numbered 7,545, an increase of over fall 2007 (6,283), and bringing the total number of applicants offered admission to the fall term to 67,553 students.

• Universitywide, the admission of Chicano/Latino students increased by 16 percent, followed by African-American students (11.3 percent), white students (1.2 percent) and Asian-American students (0.7 percent) compared with fall 2007 outcomes. The increase in admissions offers closely track the increases of each group in the applicant pool. The percent of American Indian students declined slightly (by 2.6 percent), with 11 fewer admits than in fall 2007. The percentage of students who declined to state their ethnicity increased 12.3 percent from the previous year.
• Underrepresented students—African Americans, American Indians and Chicano/Latinos—make up 25.1 percent of the University's admitted students, an increase from 22.9 percent for fall 2007. All campuses registered gains in the proportion of underrepresented students in their admitted class.
• The relative proportion of admitted students by gender has remained stable over the last decade. The University's admitted class for 2008 is
• 56.7 percent female and 43.1 percent male.
• Geographic representation through California continues to improve. Since its inception, the University of California has striven to attract, admit and enroll students from throughout of California. Although the majority of admitted students call Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Orange and San Diego/Imperial counties home, nearly all other regions of the state experienced greater increases in the number of applicants offered admission compared with fall 2007. The Riverside/San Bernardino area experienced a 10 percent increase in percent of applicants offered admission — an increase that was foreshadowed by a nearly 11 percent increase in applicants from this region.
• Universitywide, UC continues to offer opportunity and access to students from families that have traditionally not enjoyed the benefits of higher education. Just over 39 percent of freshman admits come from families where neither parent has a four-year degree, 36.8 percent come from low-income families, and one out of five admitted students is enrolled in a high school that is in the lower 40 percent of California high schools, as ranked by the Academic Performance Index (API) score.  

:: For more information and tables about 2008 freshman admissions to UC: Fact Sheets

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