UC Merced growing faster than other UCs, but demand is still lower

Nearly 20,000 California high school seniors applied to attend UC Merced next fall, a 10 percent increase from the previous year and the biggest rate of growth of any UC campus, according to numbers released Monday.

California applicants account for more than 92 percent of all of those seeking admission to UC Merced for fall 2017, according to preliminary data released by the University of California’s Office of the President. Of the 21,509 applications received, only 441 were from out-of-state and 1,208 came from international students.

As part of its plan for growth, UC Merced hopes to increase total enrollment to 10,000 students by 2020. To do so, the campus estimates it would need to add about 700 students each year.

The newest campus in the University of California system started the 2016-17 academic year with 6,815 undergraduate students, including 2,049 freshmen. Jill Orcutt, the university’s associate vice chancellor for enrollment management, said in September the target for fall 2017 would be enrollment of 7,800.

UC Merced tends to attract fewer applications than its more established sister campuses. Nevertheless, officials see the double-digit growth as a positive signal.

“It’s extremely rewarding to see our campus continue to attract a record number of qualified students for admission,” Chancellor Dorothy Leland said in a news release. “We believe the numbers are reflective of the strides we’re making in research and innovation, and the transformative educational opportunities we offer our students.”

The largest number of applications went to UCLA, which received 102,177 for fall 2017. UC San Diego was next with 88,145.

After Merced, the campus seeing the largest growth in California applicants was Irvine, which received 63,091 applications, up 9.6 percent over the previous year.

Overall, the UC system is responding to a state call to enroll more Californians. Systemwide, the number of Californians seeking admission for fall 2017 rose 6 percent over last year while the numbers for out-of-state and international applicants fell by, respectively, 2.8 percent and 0.9 percent.

More than half of the in-state freshmen applicants come from Southern California, including 29 percent from Los Angeles County. Another 30 percent come from the San Francisco Bay Area or Northern California. Only 6 percent hail from the 16 counties that make up the San Joaquin Valley.

UC Merced officials say the campus’s growing national reputation is helping boost demand.

Earlier this year, UC Merced received a designation in the Carnegie Classification of Institutes of Higher Education, marking the campus as a “doctoral-granting university with higher research activity.”

The campus also made its debut in U.S. News and World Report’s Best Colleges guide, which evaluates major institutions. UC Merced student loan debt is 43 percent less than the national average, according to the report.

It also ranked No. 5 in Washington Monthly for social mobility and value, and ranked No. 8 for “Best Bang for the Buck: Western Colleges.”

More applications coming in means the school’s efforts are working, according to Orcutt.

“The strong application growth demonstrates that Merced continues to be a destination for students seeking outstanding possibilities in undergraduate research, internships and degrees in the sciences, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics,” she said in a news release.

UC Merced continues to draw strong interest from Latino students, with more than 54 percent of California freshmen applicants identifying as Chicano or Latino compared with the UC-wide rate of 37.2 percent. Of the UC Merced applicants, 25.1 percent are Asian American, the lowest of any campus, trailing Santa Cruz, which saw 29 percent of its in-state freshmen applicants identify as Asian American.

A full two-thirds of UC Merced’s in-state applicants come from families that meet the state’s definition of low-income, and 67.2 percent are first-generation college students, meaning they would be the first in their famililes to earn a four-year college degree. Both percentages are the highest in the UC system.

The preliminary data does not include transfer applications, because the deadline for those applications was extended to Jan. 3, school officials said in a news release.

The story was edited to correct the number of California applications to UC Merced to 19,860.

This story was originally published December 19, 2016 at 4:35 PM with the headline "UC Merced growing faster than other UCs, but demand is still lower."