[psaux]

California Universities just had the most applications in history. UCLA 145k applicants, UCSD 130k applicants. Respectively they are both down now to about a 3% and 5% acceptance rate due to the spike. Might be Covid holdovers due to a gap year, or with the economy as it is, out of state applications have dropped.

[_delirium]

Four-year universities haven't seen much of an enrollment decline, especially not more prestigious ones like the UC system. Here is some data breaking down enrollment numbers 2017-2022 by type of institution and type of degree sought: https://nscresearchcenter.org/current-term-enrollment-estima...

Percentage changes in undergraduate enrollment over that 5-year period were:

    Seeking a bachelor's (4-yr) degree:    -6%
    Seeking an associate's (2-yr) degree: -21%
    Other undergraduate students:          -8%

[mikeg8]

If students are more likely to apply to multiple schools than before (I believe that to be the case as competition has increased. I also have multiple cousins currently applying to UCs, anecdotal) than the total number of applications would appear to increase while total unique applicants may be steady or reduced.

[psaux]

That is a great point. And the UC system does have a central database. It would be nice to see total uniques per school out of transparency, as you can apply to all the UC’s much easier.

This does have an adverse effect, as relatives of mine got multiple offers and others rejected or waitlisted. Not sure what the best path is, as the top 5% probably got accepted to all, at least what I am seeing from my network. Then others are left to wait for the top 5% to choose; sometimes a month. By then, most non top 5% have to make a decision elsewhere. I am sure the UC System has it all worked out, just seems it could be done better.