By Victoria Irwin

Freshman applicants to the University of California faced a challenging landscape this year: the largest applicant pool in the university's history, budget cuts and unfunded over-enrollments on most campuses. But every California-resident applicant who met UC eligibility requirements has been offered admission to at least one campus.

"This was the most competitive year in UC history," said Susan Wilbur, director of undergraduate admissions for the university system. "But we were able to remain steadfast in our commitment to access."

Eligible students who were not admitted to a campus they applied to have been or will be offered admission to UC Merced and/or UC Riverside.

The university offered admission to 68,329 applicants for the fall 2010 term, 86 percent of them California residents. The number of admission offers represents an increase of 2,064 over last year.

"Still, there is some regret," Wilbur said. "The competition for space was incredible, and many students and parents are disappointed in the outcomes. It's difficult, even painful, to turn away students who have worked so hard to earn a spot at the University of California."

While all eligible students have been tapped for admission, most campuses reduced their number of freshman offers and many applicants received fewer offers of admission than they might have in previous years. For the second consecutive year, the university is seeking to reduce enrollment of new students from high school, with a drop of 1,500 this year on top of a reduction of 2,300 in fall 2009.

"Nothing is more important for a public university than providing access, but the fact is that our campuses are over-enrolled — or underfunded — by about 15,000 students," Wilbur said. "Unless we receive funding for enrollment growth, we will be telling the same story year after year."

Despite decreases in admissions offers on many campuses, the university was able to maintain or enhance proportional representation in admissions offers to African American, American Indian and Chicano/Latino students on nearly all campuses. The number of admitted American Indian students increased by nearly 20 percent, or 80 admitted students compared with fall 2009; the two-year increase is 45 percent.

The university has also seen a 5.3 percent increase in the admission of Chicano/Latino students and a 3.5 percent increase in offers to African American applicants.

Admissions offers for Asian American students remained relatively unchanged, while offers to white students decreased by 7.2 percent, mirroring their decline in number and proportion of projected California public high school graduates.

Wilbur noted that the university continues to offer opportunity and access to students from families that traditionally have not enjoyed the benefits of higher education. Over 38 percent of freshman admitted come from low-income families, and one out of five admitted students is enrolled in a high school that is in the lower 40 percent of California public high schools, as ranked by the Academic Performance Index score.

Offers of admission to out-of-state and international students number 9,559, a 25 percent increase over fall 2009. Wilbur was quick to point out that nonresident students do not take space away from California students.

"The university remains committed to enrolling as many California students as we are funded for," she said. But once campuses have admitted a number of students that will get them to those California-resident enrollment targets, if they still have capacity, they admit non-residents, who pay the full cost of their education, about $22,700 more than California residents.

Admitting nonresidents has benefits for California students. In addition to increased revenue that can be used for the good of all, "we are preparing our students for the global environment. It's good for them to rub shoulders with students from across the country and around the world," Wilbur said.

The admissions outcomes announced today are for freshman only and are considered preliminary. This year UC implemented a wait-list process. Individual campus admissions numbers may change if they admit students off their waitlist in May.

Campuses continue to evaluate and admit transfer students at this time. UC is expanding access for California transfer students, planning to admit 500 more than last year for a two-year increase of 1,000 students. The transfer admission report will be released in early June.

The detailed freshman admission report is available online.

Victoria Irwin is the student affairs communications coordinator with the UC Office of the President Integrated Communications. For more news, visit UC Newsroom or follow us on Twitter.