Graduate schools see applications increase

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By Kelly Rayburn and Robert
Salonga
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

As the nation’s economy flounders, students are applying
to graduate school in record numbers across the nation ““ and
UCLA is getting more than its fair share.

Overall, UCLA has seen about a 33 percent increase in the number
of applications this year, compared to the number they received at
this time last year.

Admissions officials partially attribute the increase in
applications to the tight job market in the nation’s
post-Sept. 11 economy. UCLA applicants may be disappointed, as the
increase in number of graduate students accepted will not nearly
reflect the increase in applicants.

“What this means is we’ll have to be more
selective,” said Jim Turner, assistant vice chancellor in the
graduate division, who added that UCLA will only increase its
graduate student population by 100 to 200 students.

Applications for both Ph.D programs and degrees for professional
schools are coming in at high rates across the nation, with medical
schools the only schools without an increase in application
numbers.

For all graduate programs at UCLA, just over 17,000 graduate
applications had been received by Tuesday, compared to the 12,870
received at this same time last year.

A total of 19,163 graduate applications were received in 2001.
When all applications are received this year, Turner expects that
there will be more than 20,000.

It is common for the number of graduate school applicants to
increase when the economy is slow, Turner said, adding, however,
that the dramatic increase was rather unusual.

UCLA saw a similar upswing in graduate applications during the
recession of the early 1990s, he said.

Besides the declining economy, Turner attributed the increase in
part to the upswing in the number of online applications received
““ the university received 92 percent of the applications
online, he said. Whereas students in the past would sometimes be
discouraged from applying when talking with admissions officers
upon requesting a paper application, the online process skips the
“pre-screening,” Turner said.

But no matter what the reason, applications are flooding in.

In the College of Letters & Sciences, the total number of
applications received for graduate humanities and social science
programs by Jan. 22 increased by more than 20 percent compared to
last year, while the number for physical science programs increased
by almost 19 percent, and life science applications increased 7
percent.

In the professional schools, the number of applications received
by the engineering schools jumped almost 66 percent, management
programs received nearly 75 percent more applications and the
School of Public Policy and Social Research has seen an almost 30
percent increase.

“It’s a national phenomena,” Turner said.

And it is ““ at UC Berkeley, graduate admissions officer
Judy Suing estimated a 13 percent increase in the number of
applications received, though she said that number could be higher
still, since all the departments had not yet reported their
numbers.

Suing reported especially large increases in the number of
applications received in programs in bio-engineering, electrical
engineering, South and Southeast Asian Studies and journalism.

The New York Times reported Thursday that admission officers at
the Emory University business school say applications were up 80
percent, those at the University of Chicago business school
reported a 100 percent increase and Yale University law schools saw
applications go up 57 percent.

While The Times reported that applications at The Anderson
School at UCLA shot up 90 percent, Linda Baldwin, director of MBA
admissions, said the number was preliminary and reflective only of
the first of four rounds of applications.

“There was a lot of frontloading from unemployed
individuals and college seniors looking at a weak job
market,” Baldwin said.

The Anderson School anticipates a 25 to 30 percent overall
increase in applications this year, Baldwin said.

That means there will be about 5,000 applicants and only 330 of
them will be accepted, Baldwin said.

The increase in competition will allow the school to admit a
broader array of candidates than in years before, she said.

But UCLA’s medical school does not expect to follow the
national trend.

Lily Fobert, admissions director for the School of Medicine,
said that pre-medical students’ early commitment to a
three-year set course structure makes current applicants less
likely to react to an economic slump.

“Even if the medical school is affected, it’s not
going to show as quickly,” Fobert said, adding that the
downturn could affect students currently deciding whether to apply
in a few years.

At UC San Francisco, admissions officials expect a decrease in
admissions due in part to applicants’ confusion and
discouragement with the new, computerized American Medical School
Application Service.

UCSF expects about 700 fewer applicants this year, said
admissions officer Kathy Ryan, who also said the number of
applicants at UCSF has been declining since 1995.

Law schools should follow the upward trend, however.

The UCLA School of Law will accept applications up until
February. Spokeswoman Regina McConahay said she expects application
numbers to rise and coincide with the rest of the nation.