UC San Diego Admits Record 34,652 Freshman and Transfer Students for Fall 2015

Article Content

Admitted students are invited each year to UC San Diego’s Triton Day event.

The University of California, San Diego has admitted a record 26,502 freshmen and 8,150 transfers for the fall 2015 term. The number of new freshmen is up 1,969 compared to last year and there is also an increase among transfer admits by 874 students.

The students were selected out of record 78,056 freshman and 16,257 transfer applications.

Of the 34,652 admitted students, the university anticipates enrolling a diverse class of 5,100 freshmen and 2,600 transfers.

“The academic quality of this year’s admitted students is truly impressive,” said Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla. “We are excited to offer admission to more freshman and transfer students this year and to welcome these bright minds to the UC San Diego community.”

Of the admitted UC San Diego freshmen, the average GPA is 4.14 (up slightly from 4.13 last year) and the average SAT Reasoning scores are 657, 705 and 673, respectively, for Critical Reading, Math and Writing (up from last year’s scores of 651, 699 and 668).  Among transfer admits the average GPA is 3.63, down from 3.69 last year.

Compared to last year, the diversity of UC San Diego’s new transfer admits went up with a 14.7 percent increase of historically underrepresented students, while diversity at the freshman level stayed relatively the same.

At the transfer level, the largest increase of 36 percent comes from African American students, which is followed by Mexican American/Latino students at 11.9 percent. For freshmen, the largest increase of 19 percent also comes from African American students. In addition, Native American students are up 11 percent, while there was a decrease among Mexican American/Latino students by 3.8 percent.

The admitted class for fall 2015 is geographically diverse, representing a broad range of California residents as well as out-of-state and international residents. The majority of admitted students are California residents. The largest percentage of freshmen (9,620 or 36.3 percent) is from Southern California.

More than 92 percent of UC San Diego transfer admits come from California Community Colleges. Of those admitted transfer students, the majority (4,441 or 54.5 percent) are also from Southern California.

“We are thrilled to continue our strong partnerships with the California Community Colleges throughout our state and region,” said Juan González, vice chancellor for Student Affairs. “Admitting and enrolling students from our community college system is a top priority for UC San Diego, as students from these schools make up more than 90 percent of our transfer class.”

The most popular majors chosen by the freshman class are in biology, the social sciences and engineering. For transfer students, popular majors also included biology and the social sciences, as well as math and science.

Of the newly admitted students, 17,325 (or 50 percent) are female, 16,689 (or 48.2 percent) are male and 638 students chose not respond to the question.

Fall classes at UC San Diego begin on Sept. 24.  For information on University of California system-wide admissions data, visit the UCOP website.