Black Applicants Surge at the University of California

There were nearly 82,000 students who applied for places in the 2010 entering class at the nine undergraduate campuses of the University of California. This was a slight 1.6 percent increase from a year ago.

But the number of black applicants to the University of California increased by 9.3 percent this year and nearly 16 percent from two years ago. In contrast, the number of white applicants to the University of California this year is down 10 percent from 2009.

Furthermore, the number of black applicants is up at each of the nine undergraduate campuses of the University of California system. The largest increase in black applicants occurred at the Merced campus. There, the number of black applicants surged by 19.4 percent. The number of blacks applying to the University of California at San Diego was up 16.1 percent. At the state’s flagship campus at Berkeley, the number of black applicants was up by 9.6 percent.

The increase in the number of black applicants does not mean that black enrollments will increase this fall. All admissions decisions at state universities in California are made without consideration of race.

Copyright © 2010. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. All rights reserved.