The University of California has updated its subject test recommendations for fall 2017 applicants. Remember, these are recommendations, not requirements, and they are primarily geared towards applicants in STEM fields.

To our subscribers: this has already been incorporated into the requirements section of College Kickstart.

Click here for the latest subject test recommendations.

University of California counselor conferences have commenced, and there are lots of useful insights to be gleaned—including the latest freshman admission profiles from this past year (Class of 2020).

We've tabulated the findings for you in this post. Two things to keep in mind:

• The profiles are for California residents only
• The profiles are for admitted students, so they're likely to appear more selective than the profile for the class that actually enrolls

Click Continue Reading for the list.

Hot off the press!  We've had a chance to review the Fall 2016 admissions data released yesterday by the University of California and thought it would be helpful to summarize it and our key findings.  

Long story short, overall freshman admission rates are up as the University of California makes good on its plan to enroll an additional 10,000 California undergraduates over the next three years.  And while the emphasis was on admitting more California residents for the Fall 2016 class, we suspect a "new normal" has appeared that creates more room for non-residents as well.  If you're an out of state or international student, pay close attention...there appears to be a window of opportunity to take advantage of favorable odds at several UC campuses.

Click on Continue Reading for the details.

The following post was written by Anna Carapellotti and appeared originally on the Admissionado College Admissions blog.

Those of you with your heart set on attending one of the Universities of California may have already noticed that they have replaced the personal statement this year with eight “Personal Insight” questions, from which you must choose four to answer. Each response is limited to 350 words, and their hope is that this format gives you a “clearer guidance and more flexibility in the kind of information you want to share.”

So, how should you approach these new questions? Let’s take a look at what they are and some strategies you could use to maximize your answers.

Here's our latest list of regular decision notification dates for the Class of 2020.  As many of you know, schools often post results in advance of their "official" notification dates, so we've compiled the most recently updated dates for you here, along with the notification dates from last year.

Good luck, seniors!

Beginning this fall, the University of California will replace the two personal statement prompts in the UC Application with short answer questions that students can choose from.  

Freshman applicants will now choose four out of eight "personal insight" questions to answer.  Each is limited to 350 words and will have equal weighting.

The new questions will be available August 1st as part of the fall 2017 application.

Click here for FAQs or here for the personal insight questions.

Should my safety school be an out-of-state public university?

This article from the Washington Post provides good evidence of the trend towards admitting more out-of-state applicants at many of the nation's most prominent public universities.  While some of this shift may be attributed to "increasing campus diversity," most of it is attributable to maximizing tuition revenue as state budget support for public universities wanes.

Click here for the article.

The University of California today announced freshman applications for the Fall of 2016 grew to over 166,000, up 5.2 percent from the Fall of 2015.  Transfer applications grew to nearly 40,000, up 11.8 percent year over year, resulting in a record 206,00 applications for the year.

All nine campuses reported increases in freshman applications, ranging from 4.7% growth at UC Berkeley and UCLA, to 11.8 percent growth at UC Merced.

Click here for the University of California press release, or here for the detailed breakdown by campus and residency.

It's official—the University of California Board of Regents approved a budget plan to enroll an additional 10,000 California undergraduates over the next three years, including 5,000 freshman and transfer students for the Fall of 2016. 

Click here for the article.

Here's the Wall Street Journal's take on the University of California and the shift at many of its campuses to greater foreign and out-of-state enrollment.  According to the article, the UC system accepted 62% of in-state applicants in the 2014 school year compared to 84% four years earlier.

The good news for Class of 2020 applicants is that in-state admissions should improve this year, thanks to $50 million in additional state and UC system support.  If approved later this week, an additional 5,000 in-state applicants will be admitted relative to last year.

Click here for the article, or here for our take on Fall 2015 UC admission trends.

With the University of California application now open for submissions, it's time to make sure everything is in order.  

Here are the top five tips for freshman applicants, courtesy of the University of California:

Here's an updated list of reported admission rates for the Class of 2019. This update adds several popular private and public schools to the list, including Clark University, DePauw, Oberlin, Smith, University of Richmond and Washington & Lee University.  

Click Continue Reading for the list.

An update to College Kickstart 2015 has just been posted! 

In addition to Class of 2019 admission rate updates to our database, this release features an enhanced Plan Highlights page to help Plus Edition subscribers get organized and track admission requirements for the schools on their list.  If you're a Plus Edition subscriber, you'll now be able to see application requirements at a glance for all of the schools on your list, including testing, recommendations, interviews and most importantly, essay counts! 

Click on Continue Reading for the details.