UC San Diego Receives Record 84,198 Freshman and 18,480 Transfer Applications for Fall 2016

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Photo by Erik Jepsen/UC San Diego Publications

The University of California, San Diego has received a record total of 102,678 freshman and transfer applications for fall 2016. The university had the second highest number of applicants among the University of California campuses.

UC San Diego received 84,198 freshman applications for fall 2016, up 7.9 percent from last year. The deadline for students to file applications to transfer for fall 2016 was extended this year from Nov. 30, 2015 to Jan. 4, 2016, widening the application window for qualified students preparing to transfer to the university. At UC San Diego, transfer student applications increased by 14.5 percent from 2015, with a total of 18,480 transfer students applying for admission.

The mean high school grade point average (GPA) for freshmen is 3.81; the average SAT Reasoning scores are 597, 648 and 611 respectively for Critical Reading, Math and Writing. The average GPA among transfer applicants was 3.36.

“We are pleased to yet again attract a talented and diverse applicant pool,” said Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla. “Our growing number of applicants every year is testament to UC San Diego’s stellar reputation for having outstanding academic programs, experiential learning opportunities and faculty of the highest caliber.”

UC San Diego continued to see an increase in diversity among student applicants. At the freshman level, the campus had a 9.6 percent rise of historically underrepresented students for fall 2016, with the largest increase coming from Latino and Mexican-American applicants (10.1 percent) followed by African-American high school seniors (up 9.2 percent, compared to last year).

At the transfer student level, the number of historically underrepresented student applicants jumped 24.6 percent with the largest increase coming from African-American students (33.1 percent), followed by Native-American (23.5 percent) and Latino and Mexican-American (22.7 percent) applicants.

More than 85 percent of transfer applicants are from California Community Colleges.

“UC San Diego welcomes community college transfer students,” said Juan González, vice chancellor for Student Affairs. “We are pleased a record number of transfer students, who had more time to file their applications this year, applied to our campus. Transfer students are vital members of the UC San Diego community.”

The transfer application extension came amid a projected growth of 10,000 resident undergraduates across the University of California system over the next three years—5,000 of them next year—a major effort to boost UC’s enrollment of California students.

UC San Diego had a record number of California residents apply for admission as freshmen, with the largest number coming from Los Angeles (27,913 or 33.2 percent) which was followed by San Francisco (13,698 or 16.3 percent).

The most popular majors chosen by freshman applicants are in the social sciences, engineering and biology.

Nearly 50 percent of UC San Diego’s transfer applicants are social science majors. Other selected majors among transfers include engineering as well as science and math.

UC San Diego continued to see more women than men among freshman applicants, with 51.4 percent females compared to 45.7 percent males and 2.9 percent of applicants not reporting their gender. This year, more males (53.8 percent) applied as transfers compared to females (44.6 percent) and 1.6 percent of applicants provided no response.

More than 206,000 students applied to the nine undergraduate University of California campuses for fall 2016, an overall jump of 6.4 percent over fall 2015 and the twelfth consecutive year of record breaking high numbers of applicants. Across the UC system, freshman applications increased by 5.2 percent, while transfer applications rose 11.8 percent.

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