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Applying to California uni?

Hi I'm looking at California uni and notice it has 10 campuses spread across california- which is pretty big. How does it work? Do you apply to UC as a whole and then select a campus or apply to the place that takes your fancy?:smile:
Original post by Nadnight258
Hi I'm looking at California uni and notice it has 10 campuses spread across california- which is pretty big. How does it work? Do you apply to UC as a whole and then select a campus or apply to the place that takes your fancy?:smile:


You can apply centrally to the UC network. You indicate in your central app which campuses you are applying to.

First and foremost Berkeley and secondly UCLA have the best and biggest reputations - but are, by extension, the most competitive.

Being public universities, they are mandated by the state to provide education primarily to California residents. Therefore, there is an informal quota applied that limits the proportion of out-of-state and international students they are prepared to take. At Berkeley, this quota as a proportion of total admits tends to hover around 15-20% (intl.) and 20-30% (domestic out-of-state) as far as I can remember.

I know Berkeley well having studied there, it is a brilliant place but for the cost I can't recommend it over a decent UK university; nothing institution-specific wrong but the US college system in general gets its emphases wrong in my opinion (too little depth, too much breadth). Set aside at least $60,000 per year (roughly 40,000 GBP) over the four years of the degree program, so £160,000 or so total, plus £6-10k per summer semester you intend to take.

Only campus I know I would NOT recommend to intl. students is Merced, which, frankly, is in the middle of nowhere, necessitating a car and even then must be pretty boring. Don't know much about the other individual campuses.
Reply 2
Avatar for lizpol_hi
lizpol_hi
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Hi! I applied to 3 schools on the UC system and one not on the UC system but also in California. I applied to UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC San Diego on the UC system and USC (University of Southern California).
I didn't get into UC Berkeley or UCLA, but I got into UCSD and USC. USC and UCLA are really big rivals, and are really competitive against one another, it's seen as one of the biggest rivalries in the US because they are both situated in L.A.
I would suggest working really hard on your application, and making sure you know everything about the schools before you apply. Also, people from the UK will tell you that if you get into a UC school that it's unconditional but you actually need 3 Cs at A-level to secure your place.
The UC network have their own online application, and when you start that application you select which schools you want to apply for (keep in mind there is still a seperate cost for each school you apply to). You will not need any recommendations, but you will have to send them your GCSE scores and your A-level predictions. Also, keep in mind that international applications have increased rapidly in the past few years.
Good luck!

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