UC San Diego Announces Admissions
Data for Fall and Winter Quarters

April 7, 2009

By Pat JaCoby

The University of California, San Diego has admitted 17,582 freshmen for the Fall 2009 and Winter 2010 quarters, down 2,183 students for an 11.5 percent decrease from the previous year.

Mae Brown, director of Admissions and Relations with School, said that because of  budget constraints and a larger than expected freshman class enrolled last year, the campus was asked to reduce 2009-10 freshman enrollment by 520 students, resulting in the decrease of 2,183 fewer offers of admission. From the admitted students, a freshman class of 3,775 is expected to enroll for the fall academic quarter.

“We received applications from many talented, highly qualified students,” Brown said, “and wish we had the space to accommodate all of them. Fortunately, the University is able to offer a spot to every UC-eligible California resident applicant at one of its other campuses.”

The admitted UC San Diego students were selected from a total 47,039 freshmen applications, with 16,863 admitted for the Fall 2009 quarter and 719 for the Winter 2010 quarter. UC San Diego received the third most freshmen applications in the UC system, after UCLA and Berkeley.

Brown said the current applicants were extremely well qualified academically, with this year’s group of admitted students attaining a mean high school grade point average (GPA) of 4.08 and average SAT reasoning score of 637, 677 and 650 respectively for Critical Reading, Math and Writing.

 Of the 17,582 admitted freshmen, 7,007 were identified as Eligible in the Local Context (ELC), meaning that these are UC eligible students who were identified as the top four percent of their high school graduating class. The average GPA of these ELC students is 4.19 and on average their SAT Reasoning scores were 632, 667 and 642 respectively for Critical Reading, Math and Writing.

More than 1,500 or 8.7 percent of the newly admitted freshmen are from San Diego and Imperial Counties. The largest percentage of the admitted freshmen, at 44.3 percent, come from Los Angeles and Orange counties, followed by the San Francisco and the Bay Area at 24.2 percent.

The most popular majors chosen by this class, in order, are biology, chemistry, bioengineering, economics, and mechanical and aerospace engineering. All UC campuses continue to see more women than men among the newly admitted classes, with UC San Diego recording 55.8 females, 44.1 percent males and 0.2 not responding. For approximately 24.4 percent of admitted students, neither parent is a college graduate.

Data for the admission of underrepresented students in the Fall 2009 and Winter 2010 freshmen class show a 9.1 decrease, compared to the overall campus decrease for all freshmen of 11.5 percent. A total 328 African Americans was admitted, down from 352 last year; 1,840 Mexican-Americans admitted, down from 2,032 last year; 597 Latinos admitted, down from 666 last year, and 69 Native Americans, up one from 68 last year.

Admitted freshmen have until May 1 to indicate whether they will attend
UC San Diego.

Media Contact: Pat JaCoby, 858-534-7404 or pjacoby@ucsd.edu