UCSB Applications up More Than 7 Percent
Minorities Nearly 60 Percent of Freshman Applicants
College admissions season is underway and in spite of the recent budget cuts in higher education and an increase in student fees within the UC system, the University of California, Santa Barbara received quite a few more applications than last year. Specifically, UCSB received 63,303 applications for undergraduate admission for fall 2011, a 7.3 percent increase.
Members of a racial or ethnic minority group make up 59 percent of all applicants for the UCSB freshman class.
Of the entering class, 33 percent, or 16,121 students, have a high school grade point average (GPA) of 4.0 or higher.
The UC system as a whole received a record high of 142,235 applications for this upcoming school year, including an increase in international and out-of-state students applying to the universities. Still, in all, Californians account for 89.4 percent of UCSB’s undergraduate applicants.
The campus’s director of admissions, Christine Van Gieson, said she was extremely pleased by the academic quality and diversity of all the hopeful students this year. “We have to applaud all the great work being done by our faculty and staff to get the word out about UC Santa Barbara and its outstanding programs, which is reflected in the increase in applications from both California residents and nonresidents,” she said.
