Accessing admissions data at the University of California just got a whole lot easier, thanks to a new interactive Web tool launched by UC officials today (Oct. 30).

StatFinder, available at http://statfinder.ucop.edu, is a first-of-its-kind Web site for a public university that will allow anyone to access and search a wealth of admissions data with a few simple clicks of a mouse.

For example, upon full build-out, the parents of a prospective student in the Central Valley will be able to see how many people from their community have been admitted to a UC campus in recent years. A legislator will be able to learn more about the diversity of admitted students from different parts of the state. A high school counselor will be able to give students information about the number of “a-g” and honors courses completed by graduates who were admitted to UC.

With today’s launch of UC StatFinder, UC becomes the first public university in the nation to provide comprehensive application and admissions data with an online dynamic query tool that allows users to create tables based on various characteristics and variables.

"As a public trust, the University has a unique responsibility to be open about its admissions process and its outcomes. UC StatFinder helps us live up to that responsibility by providing an unprecedented amount of data,” said Susan Wilbur, UC’s director of undergraduate admissions. "It is also responsive to the demand that the higher education community be more transparent and accountable to its many constituents.”

Reporters, parents, counselors, policy makers and others interested in this information will be able to access existing Web-based tables, and generate and download their own based on the criteria that best fit their needs. They will also be able to manipulate the data, break it down universitywide or by campus, and make their own calculations by downloading the tables into Excel spreadsheets.

“StatFinder represents the use of technological innovation to open another window onto the admissions process at the University of California,” said UC Regent John J. Moores, who strongly advocated for the project. “This new tool will help anyone interested in admissions data – from parents of prospective students to legislators in Sacramento – to get a deeper and more customized perspective on UC students and the accessibility of a UC education.”

In collaboration with MPR Associates and IT Innovative Solutions, the two firms that worked with UC in developing the Web site, the full scope of UC StatFinder will be brought online in a series of steps over a period of three years. Starting today, users will have at their fingertips undergraduate admissions data from three separate years – fall 1995, fall 2000 and fall 2005.

In two months, undergraduate admissions data from 1994 to 2006 – including pre-admission academic, demographic, high school and community college information – will be available online. Also, additional UC admissions data elements and tables showing key statistics for national comparison universities will be incorporated.

By mid-2008, statistics on the performance of enrolled students will be added, including among others, graduation and retention rates, time-to-degree, UC GPAs, and majors. Users also will be able to perform more refined searches along more variables with the introduction of criteria such as prior schools, participation in the Eligibility in the Local Context program (ELC), first language spoken and majors/disciplines.

The final phase of UC StatFinder will be extremely useful for parents, students and counselors as statistics on admissions and success at UC will be reported for individual California high schools and community colleges.

To view StatFinder: http://statfinder.ucop.edu

For more information about UC admissions:
www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions