UC admission rates fall, foreign students increase
By Alexei Koseff, Sacramento Bee
When Marcela Sosa opened her email last month and saw the “congratulations” message from the University of California, Berkeley, she was so shocked that she jumped out of her chair.
“I didn’t even think I was going to get in,” the St. Francis High School senior said. “I had always placed it above me. … It makes me proud that I put in the hard work.”
Sosa is one of the lucky few to be accepted in the most exclusive admissions class ever at one of the state’s most elite colleges.
Even as the University of California accepted a record number of freshman for fall 2014, admission rates at its most selective campuses reached new lows. Huge increases in the number of applicants, changing admissions processes and a growing emphasis on out-of-state and international students are driving them down.
Preliminary UC admission data released Friday morning showed a record 86,865 freshmen accepted this year, an increase of 4.8 percent from 2013. The overall admission rate dropped slightly, but rates plunged at the Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses, long the system’s most selective, dipping below 20 percent for the first time.