Data released by UCOP on April 17 reported that an unprecedented 160,939 students applied for the fall 2012 quarter UC-system wide, with 80,289 admitted. Out of those students admitted, 10,309 were from out of state.

UC Santa Cruz admissions adviser Robert Szemeredi said in a brief interview that UC admissions officers “don’t really care whether students are from California or not … we offer admission based on whether or not [students] meet and exceed UC requirements.”

UC Santa Cruz received 40,622 total applicants. Out of the 19,936 freshman undergraduates who were admitted, 1,082 were out-of state-students and 589 were international students. UCSC admitted 514 more non-California resident students than last year. Non-resident students currently pay $23,000 more than California residents in annual student tuition fees.

The website for the University of California budget shows that the 2011-2012 budget was the first time in UC history that student fees and tuition contributed more to “core operating funds” than did the California state general funds.

California state spending on education has decreased by $6 billion over the last year, according to a study conducted by the Center for the Study of Education Policy at Illinois State University.

Campus provost Alison Galloway said in an on-campus budget forum Feb. 27 that the UC faces a potential $200 million budget reduction. This loss in state funding would create holes in the budget that would need to be accounted for.

Galloway said under “optimistic” conditions, the cuts in the overall UC budget could “trigger” up to a $4.5 million funding reduction for 2012-13.

While admission of out-of-state students has increased, numbers show that California residents aren’t necessarily being pushed out of the system. Admissions have been cut back on the whole due to a lack of resources. At UCSC, 18,265 California high school seniors were admitted for the fall 2012 quarter, up from 17,917 last year. However, admission offers to UCSC for all applicants have decreased from 68.1 percent in 2011 to 60.5 percent in 2012, indicating increased competition among UC admissions.

Szemeredi said non-resident students make up less than 2 percent of the student body, a fact that is “dissuasive” to potential applicants who feel that UC Santa Cruz is dominated by Californians.

“We’re really desiring diversity,” Szemeredi said.

This is National Signing Day, when athletes make an early agreement to attend a school of their choice — a day that UC Santa Cruz has never taken part in.

UCSC is alone in this practice, as it is the only UC with no early admission policy for athletes. Whereas other schools allow athletes to commit early and arrive at school before their freshmen peers, UCSC will not even submit early evaluations toward incoming athletes. Even if you’ve been recruited and have made a commitment to UCSC, you still have no idea whether you can actually attend the university.

It’s clear those who make admissions decisions value talent in our students. We should recognize talented people have special needs with regard to admission.

These students cannot wait to make these decisions when they are actively being recruited by other universities. Our athletes receive considerable attention from diverse schools like the University of Chicago, Harvard and UC San Diego. For UCSC to build winning programs with the best student athletes available, simply making these prospective students wait until the normal admission date greatly affects their ability and desire to join the Banana Slugs.

And worse, should these students elect to pass on a scholarship from another school to instead to plan on attending UCSC and not get in, their parents often have to pay to get their child on a new team, frantically searching for any junior college or college with an open roster spot for the next year. It’s simply unfair to the athletes and their parents. And it shouldn’t happen, as UCSC has already spent money to find these athletes.

Around 80 percent of Division III schools are small private schools. These schools have an average population of 2,500, with 20 to 60 percent of the student body playing one sport or another. It’s with these universities that our coaches compete for athletes. These small schools are allowed to admit students in November, or give out full-ride scholarships for their athletes, while UCSC continues to beat around the bush.

This only adds to each coach’s workload. By forcing our coaches to continue recruiting long after their peers, the university makes each coach put in additional working hours, which could be spent winning games and making progress with their players.

Though many administrators believe an early admissions policy will begin a flood of proposals to give other groups the same consideration, it’s worth noting that many other universities already successfully employ this policy.

It’s simple for UCSC to issue early reports to athletes. With a basic early evaluation, we can keep athletes our coaches recruit, and reassure their parents. Many schools, even Division III, have one person on staff dedicated solely to athlete admissions. UCSC seems to be behind the trend.

UCSC’s move towards a holistic review admissions policy will be positive in assessing context in which a student succeeds. But this move is not enough for our athletes. The faculty needs to be amenable to proposals regarding early evaluations of athletes.

Many of our athletes feel UCSC is not a sports school, but our athletes continue to perform excellently. If we intend to continue our recent run of NCAA success, then we must become like every other Division III school or UC. Let’s have National Signing Day next year at UCSC.

UC Santa Cruz, which enrolled a class of around 3,500 students in 2011, admitted 100 by exception, according to a UC Office of the President (UCOP) press release.

“To the extent which we admit students by exception — and we admit very few that way — it is almost always because of some technical shortcomings in their application,” said UCSC campus spokesperson Jim Burns.

Recent reports indicate admission by exception rates in the UC climbed recently, with a total of around 780 students admitted throughout the ten-campus system in 2011.

“Any student we admit by exception still exhibits the potential to be a successful UCSC student,” said Michael McCawley, UCSC director of student admissions. “Admission by exception provides a way for the UC to consider students who did not meet requirements but still looked like successful students.”

UC admission guidelines state applicants must complete a minimum of 15 college preparatory classes by the end of high school, earn a 3.0 grade point average (3.4 for out-of-state students) and take the SAT or ACT by no later than December of their senior year.

Admission by exception has been a part of UC policy for decades, and current university procedure allows the enrollment of 6 percent of incoming students through the process.

“We would never make exceptions in English or math — those two areas are sacred to faculty,” McCawley said.

Prior to 2011, UCSC employed an admissions process that relied on a fixed-points scale, where 14 separate criteria were weighted with point scores. UCSC has since adopted a holistic process in which applications are examined by humans rather than computers.

“We want to look at both academic and home environment, and look at the students and their peers and see what kind of high school they went to,” McCawley said. “This way, it is more of a contextualized review — there are no fixed weights or points that rate the student.’’

International students are also considered for admission by exception, as they often do not adhere to important UC exam deadlines.

“International students are not as savvy about when to take exams, and if they are done after high school, then they do not technically meet UC requirements,” McCawley said.

According to the statistics released by UCOP, almost 90 percent of students admitted to UCSC in 2011 were California residents.

Home-schooled students, who do not meet all of the technical UC requirements, are also considered by admission by exception.

“The only way we can consider them is by admission by exception, and some are top-notch students,” McCawley said.

Factors like low family income, geographical location, learning disabilities, and student responsibility during high school are taken into account in the decision-making process, McCawley said.

“Many students from [certain] socioeconomic backgrounds or from low-performing high schools are looked at,” he said. “We try to make sure that they are on par with other students, but in a technical sense, it is a way of evening the playing field.”

For students who exhibit academic readiness but attend schools with limited resources or college preparatory courses, admission by exception can provide an educational opportunity that would otherwise be unavailable.

“If we want to admit a student who comes from a school district that doesn’t provide him or her with every single course that UC requires, we have to admit this student by exception,” UCSC spokesperson Jim Burns said. “The bottom line is, we want to admit students who deserve a chance to succeed here.”

Michael McCawley, associate director of admissions at UCSC, said the money that comes in from out-of-state students can enhance academic advising or provide more sections. Photo by Nick Paris.

The University of California’s freshman class could look very different next year.

The UC increased the percentage of out-of-state student admission from 14 percent in 2010 to 18 percent for the freshman class of 2011. At UC Santa Cruz, admission was offered to 776 out-of-state students, up from 691 in 2010. Out-of-state students pay an additional $23,000 on top of in-state fees, bringing the average total cost of attendance for non-California residents to almost $55,000.

To mitigate the effects of funding cuts the state of California has made to the UC, the university has looked at alternative sources of revenue. The UC Commission on the Future — a group that discusses large-scale planning for the university system — recommended in November that the UC increase out-of-state enrollment for the additional revenue generated through higher student fees.

Non-California residents are ineligible for state-funded aid programs such as Cal Grants, and must rely instead on federal aid options like direct loans. Out-of-state students can apply for California residency after a year of attending a California university. However, the process requires them to jump many hurdles. For instance, they must demonstrate financial independence if they do not have a parent or legal guardian who is a California resident. This condition all but ensures they will continue to pay out-of-state fees to the UC.

Revenue brought in by out-of-state students who do not achieve California residency can help preserve the quality of a UC education, said Michael McCawley, associate director of admissions at UCSC.

“The money that comes in from out-of-state students can go to enhancing academic advising or providing more sections,” McCawley said.

Some are concerned that the increase in out-of-state student admissions could potentially displace California resident admissions.

“It’s good to get new perspectives, but it goes against the purpose of the UCs, which is to provide quality public education for California residents,” second-year literature major Everest Dillon-Hurley said.

The UC received a record high of 106,186 first-year applications for the fall of 2011. However, the percentage of California residents offered admission fell from 71.6 percent in 2010 to just below 70 percent for 2011.

“The UCs have moved so far from their original principles and purposes [that] they don’t resemble what they used to be,” Dillon-Hurley said.

Michelle Whittingham, associate vice chancellor of enrollment management and director of admissions at UCSC, said these concerns are not validated by UC admissions policies.

“We have a certain amount of students that are California residents that we accept and then another set number for out-of-state students,” Whittingham said.

The increase in admission offers is also a product of the space created by this year’s considerably large graduating class. Whittingham said that increasing the percentage of-out-of state students will not displace in-state students, saying that “the only thing that displaces state students are budget cuts.”

To offset the increased percentage of out-of-state students offered UC admission, the Eligibility in the Local Context (ELC) program has been extended to guarantee UC admission to the top 9 percent of high school students in their graduating class who fulfill the 15 “a–g” course requirements and maintain a 3.0 GPA.

Whittingham said there are benefits to increasing the number of out-of-state students, beyond the additional revenue they bring to the university.

“Geographical diversity is important,” Whittingham said. “We owe it to students to bring in students from different areas and backgrounds.”

DJ Bott is a first-year Porter College student from Florida who came to UCSC for the writing program. Her family has had to ask for extensions on tuition payments more than once, but Bott said the pressure motivates her to get the most from her college education and experience.

“The higher tuition puts a lot of stress on my parents and I, but it drives me to be more successful and to work harder,” Bott said.

It is unclear how the percentage of non-resident students will be affected in the long term by the increase in admissions offers. McCawley says it will depend on how many students — like Bott — choose to accept the financial burden.

“Only time will tell,” McCawley said. “Everyone will have to make their own judgment and decide if it’s worth it to pay the out-of-state tuition fees and make an educational investment.”