UCSD Attracts Increase in Freshman Applications – Up 10.9%

UC San Diego has released details about the more than 82,000 prospective freshmen and transfer students who applied to the school for the fall 2013 quarter.

UCSD received 67,392 freshman applications, up 10.9 percent from the previous year, and they had a mean high school grade-point average of 3.77, according to the university.

Freshman applications also showed a 10.9 percent increase in black and Latino students, as well as those from low-income backgrounds and teens who would be first-generation college students.

Their majors of choice were engineering, biology and social sciences.

Transfer student applications decreased 1.5 percent from a year earlier, with a total of 14,948 transfer students applying for admission. Their average GPA was 3.35.

About half were social science majors, according to UCSD.

Diversity rose among transfer hopefuls, too, with black applicants up 6.7 percent and Latinos up 14.2 percent.

“UC San Diego continues to attract many talented and well-qualified students from diverse ethnic, geographic and socioeconomic backgrounds,” according to Mae Brown, assistant vice chancellor of admissions and enrollment services.

The statistics released today were a follow-up to preliminary data released by UCSD last month. The applicants should hear back from the university in March.

The most freshman applications, 38.9 percent, came from Los Angeles County, according to UCSD. The second largest amount, 18.1 percent, came from San Francisco.

San Diego and Imperial counties made up 8.1 percent of freshman applicants, for a total of 5,482.

UCSD received the third-most applications of any campus in the UC system, which was swamped with an all-time record number. UCLA and UC Berkeley received the most applications.

— City News Service