UC San Diego Announces Admissions
Data for Fall 2010 Quarter

Freshmen admits up 3.7 percent; underrepresented students up 6.9 percent from fall 2009

April 14, 2010

By Christine Clark

More than 12,000 students attended Admit Day, April 10.

Brian Bose visited the University of California, San Diego for the first time on Admit Day April 10 and is thrilled to start his freshman year at the university this fall. “I have fallen in love with the school,” he said. “It’s so big and diverse. I had to choose between here and DePaul University, but now I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. It’s a beautiful campus and I am really excited to take advantage of all the resources that this campus has to offer.”

Bose is one of the 18,334 freshmen who have been admitted to UC San Diego for fall 2010. The number of admitted students is up 655 for a 3.7 percent increase from fall 2009 and winter 2010. The admitted students were selected from a record total 48,073 freshmen applications for fall 2010. UC San Diego admitted 3,041, or 16.6 percent, underrepresented students for fall, up 6.9 percent from fall 2009 and winter 2010.

This year’s group of admitted students attained a mean high school grade point average (GPA) of 4.08 and an average SAT Reasoning score of 639, 684 and 657, respectively, for Critical Reading, Math and Writing.

“We are impressed with the academic achievements of our admitted students and we welcome them to UC San Diego,” said Chancellor Marye Anne Fox. “In addition, we are pleased to offer admittance to an increased number of underrepresented students this fall.  Diversity is an important component of the student experience and we are working hard to improve our campus climate and the overall diversity of UC San Diego.”

Students learned to get involved in UC San Diego’s student organization on

A total 381 African-Americans (up 14.4 percent from last year), 1,937 Mexican Americans (up 5.0 percent from last year), 615 Latinos (up 2.5 percent from last year) and 108 Native Americans (up 56.5 percent from last year) were admitted in fall 2010.

In addition, 4,368 first-generation college students (up 1.6 percent from last year) and 3,577 low-income students (up 4.0 percent from last year) were admitted.
Mae Brown, assistant vice chancellor for Admissions and Enrollment Services has credited the increase, in part, to UC San Diego’s aggressive outreach efforts.

“We are dedicated to recruiting and admitting well-qualified and diverse students to ensure that all have access to UC San Diego’s world-class educational opportunities,” said Brown. “The increase is a successful outcome because we were asked to reduce our freshman enrollment again this year and were faced with the twin challenges of an increase in student applications and a decrease in university funding from the state for the 2009-2010 year.”

For the first time in its history, the University of California has implemented a wait-list process for fall freshman admissions. UC San Diego offered 1,165 students the waitlist and 687 have accepted. “The University of California currently enrolls more than 15,000 students for whom it receives no state funding,” University of California Director of Admissions Susan Wilbur said.

Brian Bose will start his freshmen year at UC San Diego this fall.

“New enrollment must be carefully managed to enable campuses to reach their enrollment targets with greater precision while still offering a space to as many deserving students as possible.”

Of the 18,334 freshmen, 6,907 were identified as Eligible in the Local Context (ELC), meaning that these are UC eligible students who were identified as the top 4 percent of their high school graduating class. The average GPA of these ELC students is 4.21 and on average their SAT Reasoning scores were 635, 670 and 649, respectively, for Critical Reading, Math and Writing.

Approximately 1,490, or 8.1 percent, of the newly admitted freshmen are from San Diego and Imperial Counties. The largest percentage of the admitted freshmen, at 41.2 percent, come from Los Angeles, followed by San Francisco at 23.7 percent.

The most popular majors chosen by this class, in order, are biology, chemistry, economics, mechanical and aerospace engineering, and psychology.

All UC campuses continue to see more women than men among the newly admitted classes, with UC San Diego recording 54.3 percent females compared to 45.4 percent males and 0.3 percent not responding to this question.

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

Media Contact: 

Christine Clark, 858-534-7618, ceclark@ucsd.edu