October 28, 1996

It's official: Third-week figures show increase in UCSC enrollment

The number of new students who entered UCSC this fall increased by more than 200 over last fall, and the total number of students is also up, according to third-week enrollment figures released by the Office of Planning and Budget.

UCSC enrolled 3,288 new students this fall, compared to 3,042 new students last fall. As of the third week of classes, a total of 10,215 students were enrolled, compared to 9,923 last fall.

"This is a very good year," says Francisco Hernandez, vice chancellor for Student Affairs. "We were able to convince a higher percentage of students to accept our offer of admission."

The Admissions Office launched an ambitious campaign last winter to do just that. As part of the campaign, members of the campus community wrote to, called, and met more students, says Hernandez. Prospective students also received a copy of the campus magazine, the UCSC Review, and a number of the top applicants were invited to the first-ever Scholars Day.

The number of students who enrolled after this campaign is especially gratifying considering UCSC received fewer applications for fall 1996 than a year earlier, Hernandez says.

"We were very aggressive in making sure that our admitted students knew about the academic quality of UCSC and our commitment to undergraduate education," Hernandez says.

In addition to the 3,288 new students, fall enrollment figures include 6,700 continuing and 227 returning students. Graduate students make up 1,056 of the total.

Next year, said Hernandez, the enrollment figures will have to be even better.

A change in University of California budgeting means that UC campuses will receive $6,800 in block-grant funding for each new student they enroll, regardless of whether a student is an undergraduate or graduate student.

"In this new budget environment, it's critical for us to maintain and increase our enrollments, in order to continue to increase our capacity to offer a high-quality academic experience," said Hernandez.

For a historical record of third-week enrollment statistics and for more detail about this year's figures, access Planning and Budget's Web page at http://www.ucsc.edu/ucsc/planbudg/planning/annual/3week.

--Francine Tyler