UCSC sees increase in international applicants

The University of California system is seeing a decline in international applicants. This is the first decline the UC system has seen in more than 12 years.

The application deadline for the UC System was November 30th, the President was elected November 8th.

Good news for UCSC though, the number of applicants there has actually risen at the highest percent in the UC system.

I spoke with the director of admissions to get his take on why the local UC school continues to attract international students.

“There’s been a lot of hard work by our staff, the admissions staff doing more recruitment very focused communication plans, our professors, our faculty, our students” said Michael McCawley, Director of admissions UCSC. “They’re great representatives of the campus I think people are finding UC Santa Cruz on the map now.”

So much so that the number of applicants for the fall 2017 quarter has risen by nearly 13%.

According to director of admissions Michael McCawley, that number consisted of 6300 applicants representing almost 100 countries.

“I think it’s great that despite the whole presidential election and campaign and stuff like that, people still want to come here and feel welcomed here so I feel like it’s just a good reflection of just like Santa Cruz and what we offer here” said student Chris Chow.

Though the number of applicants has risen, getting those applicants to enroll is the next challenge.

“We want about 350 international freshman to enroll here next year” said McCawley. “With all that’s going on in the nation we have concerns about that.”

McCawley says that though he and his staff can’t predict what the political climate will bring, they are working to reassure potential UCSC students that they want them there.

“We told them that if you have difficulty entering the country we’ll work with you when you don’t have difficulty to join us” said McCawley. “If we’ve extended an offer of admission to you we want you to be a UC Santa Cruz student.

UC Santa Cruz is just one of seven UC Schools that did see an increase in international applicants.

Still their 13% increase is the highest in the UC System. Applicants from Mexico plunged by 30 percent. Countries with large populations of Muslims sent in 10% fewer applications.