Who is Actually Going to UC Schools amid Record Application Numbers?

Last week, the University of California celebrated a record-breaking number of applicants for its 2022-2023 school year, with gains among traditionally underrepresented racial and ethnic groups.

But does having a diverse applicant pool translate into diverse enrollment?

The Chronicle analyzed historical enrollment data and found that increased applications have only led to a small rise in the representation of Black and Latino students who enroll as freshman, and those groups remain highly underrepresented compared to their proportion of the college age population.

The data show that this is largely explained by the drop in Black and Latino representation through the admissions funnel — from application to admittance and enrollment. And in the case of Latino students, a sizable portion opt to enroll at a California State University school over one at the University of California (UC).

The University of California publishes data on the race and ethnicity of applicants, admits and enrollees across all nine UC undergraduate schools. We only analyzed data on incoming freshmen who live in California because the UC system did not provide demographic data on non-California applicants for the 2022-2023 cycle. California freshmen tend to make up at least two-thirds of applicants, admits and enrollees.

Preliminary figures for the upcoming 2022-2023 school year show system-wide freshman applications from California residents grew by 4,000 from last year to over 132,000 (a 3.2% increase). This growth is driven primarily by increases in Latino and Asian applicants — […]

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