Applications Up, Seats Down at California Public Universities

As the number of applications received in the public university systems of California reaches a record high this year, the number of available openings will decrease at many of its campuses. As a result, thousands of high school seniors must brace themselves for letters of rejection.

San Diego State University, for example, received 61,663 applications this year, an increase of 6 percent. At the same time, due to projected budget cuts, it expects to reduce the number of those admitted by approximately 25 percent, from 9,813 to 7,323. On a larger scale, applications to the 23 campuses of the California State University system rose by 11 percent this year, to 504,800, as approximately one third of its campuses prepare to admit fewer students.

The swell of applications stems from several factors, not the least of which is the record number of high school seniors nationwide who will graduate this year, more than 3 million. In addition, those seniors are sending applications to more colleges than seniors did in the past. A study at UCLA has found that 4 percent of college freshmen in 1976 applied to six or more colleges, while the number increased to 18 percent in 2006.

Study Says Students Like Their Helicopter Parents

Teachers and administrators at schools and colleges across the country use the term “helicopter parents” every day to refer to those moms and dads who “hover” over their children, especially during the college application process, prodding them, reminding them of deadlines, reviewing their essays, and taking a front-seat role. And, of course, the term is not meant to be complimentary.

But what do the students, themselves, think of this kind of hovering. Before now, it has been assumed that they, too, were annoyed.

Wrong.

A new study at UCLA, which surveyed a whopping 270,000 college freshmen, concludes that an overwhelming number of them think their parents’ hovering is just fine, thank you. Seventy-four percent of them said that the involvement in their affairs was “just right.” Eleven percent said the involvement was “too much” and fifteen percent said “too little.”

THE PUBLIC IVIES

Visit online these highly regarded public universities that are often compared in quality to the colleges of the Ivy League:

College of William and Mary www.wm.edu

University of California, Berkeley www.berkeley.edu

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) www.ucla.edu

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill www.unc.edu

University of Virginia www.virginia.edu