On Thursday, a preliminary data was released and showed that Latinos surpassed Asian Americans to comprise 36% of the 79,953 students from California who were offered admission to at least one of the nine UC campuses.
Asian American students made up 35%, White students 21% and Black students 5%. American Indian and Pacific Islander students made up 0%, and 3% declined to state their ethnicity or race.
According to a news release, freshmen from underrepresented groups increased by 16% from last year, while the proportion of low-income students grew to 44%, up from 40%.
“This has been an incredibly challenging time as many students have been making their college decision in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic,” UC President Janet Napolitano said in a statement.
“UC continues to see increased admissions of underrepresented students as we seek to educate a diverse student body of future leaders. The incoming class will be one of our most talented and diverse yet, and UC is proud to invite them to join us.”
Out of all the UC campuses, UC Berkeley saw the biggest jump in admission offers to underrepresented minority students. UC Berkeley accepted 737 Black freshmen, 200 more than it did last year, and 3,379 Chicanx and Latinx freshmen, the highest since at least the late 1980s.
Assistant vice chancellor and director of undergraduate admissions at UC Berkeley, Olufemi Ogundele, said it was important for him to make sure that the school’s high academic standards were not compromised in order to achieve a higher rate of diversity.
“We are showing that you can admit a diverse that is academically excellent,” Ogundele said in a statement, noting that the GPA for this year’s admitted freshman class is 3.91, the same as last year.
“This is something I am by far the proudest of and something I am going to try to replicate year after year after year.”
While Latinos make up the highest percentage of Californians admitted across the entire school system, Asian Americans lead in eight out of the nine campuses.