Recently, the UC Admissions website updated the application and admission data for freshmen and transfer students for the years 2019, 2020, and 2021.
This year, out of 203,700 applicants, 132,353 freshmen were admitted, with an overall acceptance rate of 64.9%, a decrease of 4.2 percentage points from last year. The admission situation for transfer students was also not encouraging, with the overall acceptance rate dropping from 70% last year to 66.9% this year, a decrease of 3.1 percentage points.
After UC announced the cancellation of SAT/ACT last year, the number of applicants surged. However, as a public university system with limited resources, the number of admissions did not increase significantly.
This directly led to a sharp decline in the acceptance rate of the UC system this year, even dropping to new lows in recent years.
With the official cancellation of SAT/ACT this year, another wave of application peaks is expected. In the coming years, competition for UC schools will only become more intense.
Without further ado, let’s take a look at the latest application and admission data for the nine UC campuses.
UC Freshman / Transfer Student Application Data
UC Freshman Application Data
Freshman applications surged in 2021, jumping from 170,000 to 200,000, a growth rate of 18.36%.
Each UC campus keeps breaking records every year, with popular schools like UCB, UCLA, UCSD, UCI, UCSB all exceeding 100,000 applications in 2021.
Due to the surge in applications, the California government is also planning to reduce the proportion of non-California resident undergraduate students at the three most popular UC campuses (UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UCSD) from over 22% to 18%.
UC Transfer Student Application Data
The growth for transfer students is generally slower than for freshmen, with a year-over-year increase of 7.1%, bringing the total number of applicants to 46,000 this year.
Compared to previous years' data, it has been steadily rising. Among them, five campuses had over 20,000 applicants: UCLA, UCB, UCSD, UCI, and UCSB.
Interestingly, among transfer students this year, the number of international applicants decreased rather than increased, falling below the numbers for 2019 and 2020.
This may be due to the pandemic, with some students not adapting to online courses, choosing to defer or take a gap year, resulting in insufficient credits to apply for transfer.
UC Freshman / Transfer Student Admission Data
UC Freshman Admission Data
The overall freshman admission rate across the nine UC campuses in 2021 was 64.9%.
Surprisingly, the highest freshman admission rate in 2021 was for international students at 67%, while the rates for California residents and out-of-state students were 65% and 61%, respectively.
Although acceptance rates declined, in terms of the number of admitted students, both California and out-of-state applicants saw an increase.
UC Transfer Admission Data
In 2021, the overall transfer admission rate across the nine UC campuses was 66.9%, higher than the freshman admission rate. The international transfer admission rate was 64.9%, slightly lower than that of freshmen.
Looking at individual campuses, transfer admission rates are generally much more favorable than freshman rates. For example, UCSB's transfer admission rate was nearly 20% higher than its freshman rate.
The advantage of transfer applications is most evident at the top UC campuses. For campuses like UCB and UCLA, admission rates, both overall and for international students, are less stringent for transfers than for freshmen.
Given the increasingly competitive UC application environment, whether you are applying as a freshman or a transfer student, it is recommended to start planning at least two years in advance and make effective use of resources to achieve a satisfactory admission outcome.
