Facing Criticisms From State Auditor, UCLA Boosts In-State Admissions
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — UCLA has offered admission to more than 10,400 California high school seniors — an increase of more than 1,000 acceptances, or 11 percent, from last year, the school announced Wednesday.
The announcement comes shortly after a scathing state audit found that the UC system puts California students -- many of them minorities -- at a disadvantage by offering an outsize number of acceptance letters to foreign and out-of-state students, who pay higher tuition fees.
"As a public institution, the university should serve primarily those who provide for its financial and civic support — California residents," State Auditor Elaine Howle wrote in March. "However, over the past several years, the university has failed to put the needs of residents first."
For this year's incoming class, UCLA said it admitted more than 17,500 high school seniors, including 4,600 U.S. students from outside of California and approximately 2,500 international students.
The admitted class comes from nearly every county in California, 49 states and 81 countries, the school said. It is the most ethnically, socioeconomically and geographically diverse group of admitted students in UCLA history, UCLA added.
The school said that close one-third of accepted students are from low-income families, and a similar percentage have parents who did not graduate from a four-year college or university.
UCLA said it also offered admission to more than 5,700 transfer students from an applicant pool of more than 22,000. Campus officials expect to enroll about 3,300 new transfer students in the fall, including 150 more Californians than fall 2014.
