Campus Offers 19,325 Fall Admittance

UC Santa Barbara has offered a place in its fall 2004 entering class to a total of 19,325 high school students. The prospective freshmen were selected from a pool of 36,651 applicants. Of those admitted, 93 percent are enrolled in California high schools.

Another 8,256 applications from students seeking to transfer to UCSB are currently under review. Transfer admissions decisions will be announced in early May.

Applicants who have been accepted by any UC campus have until May 1 to submit a signed Statement of Intent to Register. UCSB expects its fall 2004 entering class to number approximately 3,950.

The applicants admitted for the freshman class had an average combined score on the required SAT I examinations of 1248, up 9 points over last year. The average high school Grade Point Average was 3.98, up from 3.94 last year. Among all applicants, 10,921 had a GPA of 4.0 or higher.

"We are extremely pleased by the excellent and diverse class of applicants that we have admitted," said Chancellor Henry T. Yang. "Right now my colleagues and I are deeply involved in a concerted effort to ensure that the class that we enroll in the fall will be our strongest ever, both in academic quality and diversity."

"Our admitted fall class has very impressive credentials," said Christine Van Gieson, UCSB director of admissions. "The average student has taken 45 academic courses—that's 15 more than the minimum required—and has been involved in an array of leadership and volunteer activities. I'm just struck by what an accomplished group this is."

Of all applicants admitted to UCSB, 44 percent identified themselves as members of a racial or ethnic minority group. The race or ethnicity of applicants is not disclosed to the campuses by the UC system until after admissions decisions are made.

As a percentage of the total number of California students accepted by UCSB for the fall, members of underrepresented minority groups (African-American, American Indian, and Chicano and Latino students) account for 19.9 percent, up from 19.3 percent last year. The total number of California applicants from all such minority groups accepted by UCSB was 3,584, or 258 more than last year, an increase of 7.8 percent. The 3,058 Chicano and Latino applicants accepted were 293 more than last year. African-American and American Indian applicants who were accepted totaled 35 fewer than last year.

Chancellor Yang serves as host at a series of receptions UCSB sponsors around the state for applicants who have been accepted. At these popular events, volunteers from the campus—faculty and staff members, students, administrators, and alumni—speak about the campus.

In addition, this year's open house for admitted students and their families, called "Spring Insight," drew an estimated 4,000 visitors to the campus. Record numbers of visitors have taken part in weekday and Saturday tours during the first two weeks of April.

Budget reductions prevent the University from honoring its longstanding commitment to provide a place within the system for all UC-eligible California applicants. UC offers such students a guarantee of admission if they successfully complete the first two years of course work at a California community college. At UCSB, this Guaranteed Transfer Option is being offered to 1,750 applicants who were not accepted.