UC San Diego Admits Most Diverse Class of Freshman and Transfer Students for Fall 2016

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The University of California San Diego has admitted a record 30,273 freshman and 9,802 transfer students for the fall 2016 term. The number of new freshmen is up 3,773 compared to last year and there is also an increase among transfer admits by 1,652 students.

The students were selected out of record 84,209 freshman and 18,487 transfer applications.

Of the 40,075 admitted students, the university anticipates enrolling a diverse class of 5,660 freshmen and 2,933 transfers.

Compared to last year, the diversity of UC San Diego’s new freshman admits went up by 46.2 percent and transfer admits went up with a 30.7 percent increase of historically underrepresented students.

At the freshman level, the largest increase of 58 percent comes from Mexican-American students, which is followed by black students at 38 percent and Latino students at 28 percent. For transfers, the largest increase of 46 percent comes from black students followed by Native Americans at 31 percent, Latinos at 30 percent and Mexican-Americans at 27 percent.

Among UC San Diego freshman admits, the average GPA is 4.12 and the average SAT Reasoning scores are 647, 688 and 659, respectively, for Critical Reading, Math and Writing.  Among transfer admits the average GPA is 3.61.

“We are pleased to welcome this exceptional new class of students,” said Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla. “These talented new scholars will carry on UC San Diego’s tradition of pushing boundaries and challenging expectations in order to make our world a better place.”

In comparison to last year’s numbers, UC San Diego admitted more students who are the first in their family to attend college (up 39.4 percent among freshmen and 18.6 percent among transfers). Also, freshmen from 4th and 5th quintile high schools had an increase of 54 percent––4th and 5th quintile schools are considered low performing high schools based on their Academic Performance Index (API) from the California Department of Education.

The admitted class for fall 2016 is geographically diverse as well. The majority of admitted students are California residents. The largest percentage of freshmen (11,478 or 38 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 (5,165 or 53 percent) are also from Southern California.

The most popular majors chosen by the freshman class are in Biology, Economics, Math and Chemistry as well as Mechanical/Aerospace Engineering. For transfer students, popular majors included Economics, Biology, Math and Psychology.

Of the newly admitted students, 20,137 (or 50 percent) are female, 18,793 (or 47 percent) are male and 1,145 students chose not respond to the question.