Record 37,000 New Freshmen To Enter UC System
It seems that those interested in the racial makeup of campus received mixed news. UC Berkeley actually received an increase in Black, Latino, and Native American students, as did the entire UC system, but some schools like UCLA received substantial decreases.
Personally, the data I’m really interested in is the socioeconomic data. My theory’s always been that even as racial diversity has been going up, class diversity has been decreasing, and I expect there is a notable decrease between those granted admission and those who choose to attend the UC system. But, I haven’t seen the data yet, so that is of course simply a hypothesis.
Anyway, many of you out there claim to know more about this than I do. Any thoughts?
37,000 new freshman, which makes roughly 18,500 of them female, and I am guessing that the only fine one will be Mischa Barton’s character from The OC… and she’s fictional. Or so I’m told.
Comment by John — May 31, 2006 @ 6:10 pm
I heard she got killed off, better luck next time John.
Comment by Anonymous — May 31, 2006 @ 6:13 pm
I don’t disagree with your hypothesis necessarily, but I wonder what you’re basing it on if not on hard data. Is it just the explosion in student fees in the past few years?
Comment by Jim Fung — May 31, 2006 @ 8:59 pm
Way to go, UC. Keep making those class sizes bigger.
The yield rate at Berkeley has remained pretty much flat. What concerns me is that rate of admissions is outstripping the rate of applications. Why continue to cram more people in?
Comment by Anonymous — May 31, 2006 @ 9:32 pm
What concerns me is the lack of white students. 32 percent? Ridiculous. Talk about a segregated incoming class.
You’re hardly going to be a future leader of CA/the US if you speak Mandarin 24/7 and never interact with white people.
Comment by Bhanu Singh — May 31, 2006 @ 9:36 pm
37,000 people across 9 undergraduate campuses averages out to a little over 4000 freshmen per campus — so that seems like it should be manageable, except that the article indicates that some universities like Davis have a lot more people enrolling than they bargained for.
UC is (rightfully) legally obligated to admit the top 12.5% of high school students statewide, and California’s population has been growing, so I don’t see how one could blame admissions for “making class sizes bigger”. To me the blame lies with the state government for not adequately funding the university system.
Comment by Jim Fung — May 31, 2006 @ 11:50 pm
Bhanu, I’m going to assume you’re joking, at least somewhat, because otherwise boy do I have stuff to say ….
Comment by Jim Fung — May 31, 2006 @ 11:51 pm
He’s not joking …
Comment by BCR's Former Worst Enemy — June 1, 2006 @ 7:25 am
I’m only partially joking. I think the declining number of whites is a concern–do we really want UCs to become all “Asian schools”?
This year, UC admitted more than was necessary. That to me is a very bad thing, particularly when student/faculty ratios at all campuses have skyrocketed. Of course, I’m particularly concerned about Berkeley. Most people (myself included) already think it’s too big.
The answer to this is to build more campuses. In that regard, the state has been negligent.
Comment by Bhanu Singh — June 1, 2006 @ 8:26 am
bhanu, i thought the solution was corporate money. the state shouldnt build anything, we should let corporations do it and then call it the university of intel campus. and it will have a program in EECS and little else. perfect.
oh, and another thing, now little stanford loving wiener-boy here also wants to interfere with admissions, because not enough white people are getting in. what happened to your free market, laissez-faire meritorcracy, bhanu?
Comment by mano — June 1, 2006 @ 9:34 am
i agree. when i look around my classes and there are no other white faces, i feel marginalized and unwelcome. my people have been held down by affirmative action for too long.
Comment by brigadier anonymous — June 1, 2006 @ 10:07 am
stanford loving? wtf?
i didn’t say anything about interfering with admissions–learn to read. i think the point is that many whites, for whatever reason, are not as interested in berkeley as they once were (or should be). i never said anything about instituting aa of any kind.
you need to pick up some debating skills.
Comment by Bhanu Singh — June 1, 2006 @ 10:12 am
you little douchebag. i am pointing out that your “concern” is certainly out of place for someone that touts raw meritocracy. and your “white students arent interested in cal” comment is precious….
Comment by mano — June 1, 2006 @ 10:31 am
bhanu is the self appointed savior and spokesperson for white people.
Comment by anonymous wiener — June 1, 2006 @ 1:06 pm
interesting theory, given that i’m not white.
mano, the douchebag comment is unnecessary. try to be civil.
i do tout raw meritocracy, in admissions. my point is that for some reason whites aren’t applying or accepting offers of admission as much as they should, numbers wise. that’s a straight fact, nothing controversial.
Comment by Bhanu Singh — June 1, 2006 @ 4:09 pm
UC Santa Cruz has lots of latino and white people. so do some of the other campuses
Comment by cp — June 1, 2006 @ 6:16 pm
There is absolutely nothing wrong with a campus that’s plurality Asian or majority Asian. In fact if it was all Asian I’d have no problem as long as they deserved to be there through meritocracy. In fact this signals a message to other groups to try and see what Asians are doing right. Don’t punish them by intituting AA.
Comment by Anonymous — June 2, 2006 @ 12:46 am
Have you ever noticed that disabled students, despite having the direct protection of California and federal law (including but not limited to ADA and section 503), are wholly excluded from the intense recruitment process which Cal and all the other UC campuses undertake to get more “diversity” onto their campuses? I think there has been a decision at the UCOP level to discourage disabled students from applying to the UC system.
Comment by Davisitor — June 12, 2006 @ 4:31 pm
Disabled students doesn’t look “diverse” because there are a lot of disabled white people
Comment by Anonymity — June 12, 2006 @ 7:12 pm
First of all I don’t think the university does all that much “intense recruitment” for diversity anyway. Such recruitment is largely student-driven. The recruitment and retention centers are student-run, student-initiated organizations.
Second it’s a valid point that the University should do more to recruit the disabled. However, at the same time, there are many people with disabilities who don’t “look” disabled, so there may be more disabled people on campus than you think. And there are certainly “visibly” disabled people on campus too, though I’m not saying that they are adequately represented or served.
Third, I think it’s relevant to point out that unlike (I believe) Student Action, CalSERVE has run visibly disabled candidates, some of them white, for Senate in the past, and unfortunately they usually don’t get elected. The last one who was elected was, I think, Victor Pineda when I was an undergrad, but I could be wrong.
Fourth, I just have a question, is the Disabled Students Union still pretty active? It was when I was an undergrad. Now that I’m a grad student, I’m pretty out of the loop when it comes to student organizations.
Comment by Jim Fung — June 13, 2006 @ 12:20 am
Diversity at Berkeley is a joke with 90%+ undergrads from California.
Comment by Anonymous — June 13, 2006 @ 8:08 am
SA ran Justin Christen successfuly in 2001 for an executive. He was hearing impaired and an active member of DSU, possibly president. I may be off in the year.
Comment by McMike — June 13, 2006 @ 3:45 pm
Wow Jim, that’s one for one right there so your claim about SA not running disabled students is moot. However, I hate SA anyways.
Comment by Anonymity — June 13, 2006 @ 6:10 pm