Week of December 10, 2012
Adding credibility to its reputation as a university of choice for students across California and beyond, Cal State Long Beach (CSULB) set a new record for the number of applications it received from prospective freshmen and transfer students interested in attending the university as the total topped 80,000 for the first time in campus history.
CSULB again collected more undergraduate applications than any of the other 22 campuses in the California State University (CSU) system with 80,622 domestic students seeking admission to the campus for the 2013 fall semester. Including applications from international students, CSULB’s total reached 82,026.
“At a time when many people are questioning the value of a college or university degree, students and parents apparently and increasingly recognize the value of a Cal State Long Beach education,” said CSULB President F. King Alexander. “Our applicant pool is once again among the nation’s largest due to the fact that we continue to provide a high quality and affordable educational experience at a time when many institutions cannot make this statement.”
The priority application period for undergraduate students interested in attending any CSU campus next fall ended on Friday, Nov. 30. In its preliminary tally, CSULB officials are reporting that the campus received 56,213 applications from potential first-time freshmen and 25,813 from hopeful transfer students (domestic and international numbers combined).
The freshman application total is a 2.6 percent increase over last year and a 13 percent improvement over the 2010 numbers. At the same time, the transfer application numbers jumped 18.5 percent over last year and are 22.6 percent above the 2010 total. The rise in transfer applications was expected by campus officials because CSULB was closed to transfer students for the spring 2013 semester.
Based on the high number of applications, getting into CSULB continues to be extremely competitive as university officials anticipate enrolling about 4,000 new first-time freshmen for the fall 2013 semester and 3,000 new transfer students. That’s less than 8 percent of the total number of freshman applications received and less than 12 percent of the transfer applications.
In other numbers released by the CSU Chancellor’s Office, CSULB also led the system in the number of domestic credential and graduate student applications received for the 2013-14 academic year with 2,798 received, representing a 72.2 percent increase over the previous year.
