The direction is up

From EdSource: Freshman applications to the University of California surged this year, a trend that college access advocates hope will translate into higher enrollments of low-income, Black, Latino and other underrepresented students across the university’s nine undergraduate campuses. The university received 203,700 applications for freshman admission this cycle, about 32,000 more than a year ago. Experts attribute the increases partially to the elimination of the SAT and ACT as an admission requirement, saying more students likely felt optimistic about their chances of being accepted without having to submit a test score. In announcing the massive increase in applicants, UC emphasized that applications were up significantly among Black and Latino students — a welcome sign to critics of standardized tests who point to data showing the exams are biased against those students and have often served as a barrier to them accessing college.

There’s no telling yet, however, whether the increase in applications will lead to a significantly more diverse freshman class this fall. Because freshman applications were also up considerably among white and Asian students, the proportion of Black and Latino students in the applicant pool is similar to last year. The 2020-21 admitted freshman class was the most diverse in the university’s history. For the first time, Latino students in that class made up the largest ethnic group of students, comprising 36% of admitted freshmen. That reflected changing demographics in California: In 2019-20, Latino students made up a majority of high school seniors.

Still, Latino and Black students remain underrepresented across the UC. And even as UC touts its record-breaking number of applications this cycle, there’s one major caveat: The system’s overall enrollment capacity is not increasing to the same degree, so acceptance rates will likely be lower than usual.

...Also of concern to college access experts is that applications are down at the state’s other four-year university system, the 23-campus California State University. The worry is that some students, optimistic about their chances of being admitted to a UC campus, may not be considering CSU campuses. Across the UC, the campuses that saw the biggest spike in applications are those that are traditionally the most selective, such as Berkeley, Los Angeles, Irvine, San Diego and Santa Barbara.

Dale Leaman, executive director of undergraduate admissions at UC Irvine, said he expected the surge in applications when the university decided to go test-free. Some UC campuses initially planned to give fall 2021 applicants the option to submit test scores, instead of requiring them to do so as they have in past years. Then, in the fall, a court ordered that UC campuses could not consider the tests at all this admissions cycle.

...Other factors may also be at play. The pandemic forced the UC campuses to recruit virtually, which may have increased access to some students...

Full story at https://edsource.org/2021/why-the-university-of-california-is-seeing-a-massive-surge-in-freshman-applications/648309

Note: When you look carefully at the article, the percentages of UC applicants from various groups changed only a bit, despite headlines you may have seen. The main change was more of everybody.