4 of 10 UCLA '06 Applicants Had 4.0 GPA

Approximately 21,000 of 47,258 students who applied to the University of California at Los Angeles for freshman admission in fall 2006 had a 4.0 or higher grade point average, the campus newspaper reports.

Fall 2006 application volume hit a record high for UCLA, which receives more applications than almost any other university in the country. Application volume has been increasing for years, leading UCLA's acceptance rate to drop from about 33 per cent in 1998 to about 25 per cent today. Undergraduate admissions director Vu Tran told the Daily Bruin that selectivity may have to increase further if the applicant pool continues to grow.

Faculty are seeing the impact of more competitive admissions in their classes. An English professor said that she used to routinely give some first-year students Fs on their papers, but that she seldom has to do that anymore because students are better-prepared for college-level work.

Claudia Mitchell-Kernan, dean of the UCLA graduate division, said that greater competition among UCLA undergrads had led to a difference in the motives for cheating. "The students caught [recently] weren't D students just trying to pass a class; they were B students trying to get an A," she said.

Source: "High GPAs No Longer the Key to Success," by Alexa Vaughn - the Daily Bruin, June 12, 2006