UC system accepts record number of California applicants

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The University of California accepted a record number of freshmen and transfer students that includes the most ever from California for the 2019-20 academic year, officials announced Monday.

The university system’s nine undergraduate campuses accepted 71,655 California freshmen and 26,700 students who will transfer from California community colleges. That’s 579 more freshmen and 52 more transfer students from California than last year.

“Yet another year of record-setting admissions underscores the tremendous interest in the worldclass education at UC,” said UC President Janet Napolitano. “The best and the brightest young minds continue to make UC their university of choice.”

The freshman admission rate for California residents jumped 3 percentage points to 62%, while the admission rate for California community college transfers remained at 76%.

UC schools have been under pressure to accept California residents so they can have a cheaper way to complete a fouryear degree at the state’s top public universities and after freshman admission rates fell from 85% in 2009 to 59% in 2018.

Nearly 218,000 prospective undergraduates applied for at least one UC school for fall 2019 during the application period that ended Nov. 30, according to figures released by the university system. They include about 177,000 applications to become freshmen and more than 41,000 to become transfer students.

UC expects to enroll an additional 2,500 California undergraduates for 2019-20, on top of the more than 14,000 additional California students the university has added over the past three years, officials said.

UC campuses are working toward a goal of enrolling one new California resident transfer student for every two new in-state freshmen. As part of those efforts, some UC campuses reached out to community colleges in their area to seek out transfer students.