So much for all those headlines on declining college application figures this fall. While the vast majority of our nation’s 900+ universities may have received fewer applications thus far, this has not at all been the case at our nation’s most selective universities. At the vast majority of our nation’s twenty-five or so most highly selective universities, in fact, applications have skyrocketed. And, yes, this trend has held true at the University of California schools as well. Applications to the UC schools for the Class of 2025 are up 15% year-over-year. That’s right. 15%!

Applications to UC Schools Rise 15%

As Teresa Watanable and Nina Agrawal report for The Los Angeles Times in a piece entitled “UC numbers soar, CSU’s drop as pandemic upends college application season,” “Applications to UC’s nine undergraduate campuses soared to a record 250,000 — a 15% increase over last year, including significant rises among California Latino and Black freshmen applicants, according to preliminary data disclosed by UC President Michael V. Drake in a meeting this week with The Times editorial board. Campus-specific data will not be released until early next year. ‘For all the challenges and all of the noise about is [college] worth it, we see more people looking to the University of California as a pathway to their future than ever before,’ Drake said.”

Applications to Most Universities Across America Are Down, But They’re Up Big at Highly Selective Universities

And just for the sake of comparison, applications to California State University tumbled this year — by 5% across its 23 campuses. But, of course, zero of our nation’s most selective universities are Cal State schools. The UC system, however, boasts multiple highly selective universities, including UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UCSD. So even among California’s public universities, the disparity in interest is evident: applications are down at most universities across the nation, but applications are up big at our nation’s highly selective universities.