UC to Send Eligible Students Elsewhere

The University of California said Thursday that a proposal by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to reduce freshman enrollment would force it to send a few thousand students eligible for UC admission to community colleges for their first two years.

UC admissions officials said those students, as Schwarzenegger proposed in his January budget, would be guaranteed admission as juniors to UC campuses, although not necessarily to the ones where they had applied. As an incentive to accept the offer, the students would pay no community college fees.

Along with other cuts arising from the state’s fiscal crisis, the governor’s budget called for both UC and the California State University system to enroll 10% fewer freshmen for the fall. That amounts to 3,200 students for UC and 3,800 at Cal State.

Susan Wilbur, UC’s systemwide director of undergraduate admissions, said Thursday that the reduction would be spread across the university, with each of UC’s eight undergraduate campuses expected to enroll 200 to 425 fewer students than last year.

In the past, students who had met UC’s minimum eligibility requirements but had not been accepted by campuses of their choice -- many of which impose additional admission requirements -- were admitted instead to the system’s less competitive campuses, UC Santa Cruz or UC Riverside. Last fall, with admission across the system becoming more competitive, only UC Riverside accepted students from this “referral pool.”

Now, given the budget constraints, Wilbur said, UC-eligible students who are not admitted to any campus to which they applied will get letters in March telling them that they will soon receive offers of “alternate admission.” Most will get letters in April guaranteeing them transfer slots at specific UC campuses when they are juniors, if they agree to attend California community colleges first.

She said that a small number who had expressed interest in their applications in studying engineering would receive admission offers from UC Riverside.

Overall, Wilbur said that the admissions process was not yet complete at every UC campus but that freshman applicants could begin checking campus websites Monday to learn if they had been accepted. UC Riverside and UC Santa Cruz are generally the first to announce decisions, she said, with most other campuses notifying applicants by mid-March.

UC Berkeley will be the last to do so, on March 30.

Those admitted have until May 1 to decide whether to enroll.