Record number of UC transfer students are offered spots
The University of California offered admission this fall to more transfer students than it has at any point in its history, officials announced Wednesday.
More than 137,000 students were offered spots at one of UC’s nine undergraduate campuses, including roughly 28,750 transfer applicants, according to UC.
California residents comprise the majority of the newly admitted students, making up 71,086 freshmen and 24,568 transfer students. The California freshman admission numbers rose by 1,114 students compared with last year’s numbers.
“With the benefit of a UC education, these accomplished young people from different backgrounds, with diverse beliefs and aspirations, will make California and the world a better place,” said UC President Janet Napolitano.
Nearly all of the admitted transfer students from California come from community colleges, officials said.
Latino students comprised 32 percent of the transfer students admitted to the UC system, followed by white students at 31 percent, Asian American students at 27 percent, and African American students at 6 percent, officials said. Native American and Pacific Islander students made up less than 1 percent of transfer admissions, and some applicants did not report their race or ethnicity.
Eloy Ortiz Oakley, the college system’s chancellor, told The Chronicle in past interviews that improving transfer opportunities for community college students of color would allow historically underrepresented students a chance at obtaining an education in the UC system.
The rise in transfers comes roughly a year before the UC is set to implement a recently announced plan guaranteeing transfers to a UC campus for students who achieved the prerequisite GPA and completion of one of 21 prerequisite transfer “pathways” for popular majors in the UC system, officials said.
The new guarantees will be in place for students starting community college in fall 2019.
University officials believe transfer student enrollment, which is at an all-time high, will grow.
The high admission numbers also reflect the highest number of California undergraduates enrolled at UC in the system’s history.
University officials said they expect to surpass their goal of adding 10,000 California students to the system by the 20182019 academic year.
First-generation students constituted roughly 46 percent of the total freshman and transfer admissions for the fall, officials said.
Among the freshmen, students identifying as Asian American were among the largest ethnic group admitted at roughly 36 percent, followed by Latino students at 33 percent, white students at 22 percent and African American students at 5 percent.
The remainder of admitted freshman applicants were Native Americans, Pacific Islanders and those who did not report their race or ethnicity.
Robin Holmes-Sullivan, the vice president for UC student affairs, said high admission numbers do not necessarily translate to high enrollment numbers.
“The data we have available today give us great confidence in predicting that our actual fall enrollment will exceed our goal,” Holmes-Sullivan said. “University admissions is part science, part art and part experience.”