The UCSB Admissions Office received applications from a record number of would-be Gauchos yet again this year, fielding nearly 50,000 submissions for the 2006 Fall Quarter.

According to a press release from the UCSB Office of Public Affairs, a total of 47,893 people applied this year, with an increase of 6.3 percent in the number of freshman applicants but a decrease of 5.4 percent in transfer student applicants. Systemwide, the number of student applications for the University of California increased by 8.8 percent.

The UCSB campus received a total of 39,828 applications from high school seniors – 2,368 more applications than last year. According to the press release, the UCSB Admissions Office will accept selected freshman applicants in mid-March with a target enrollment of 3,925.

Nearly 13 percent – or 5,158 students – of the applicants were in the top four percent of their high school, a total of 97 more students than last year.

Of the freshman applicants, 12,033 students, or 30.2 percent of the applicant pool, had a high school had a high school GPA of 4.0 or higher – 499 more than last year – when the average GPA of incoming freshmen was 3.71.

As for their scores on the new SAT Reasoning Test, freshman applicants had an average score of 1750 out of 2400.

In addition, the UCSB Admissions Office saw a 5.9-to-18.6 percent increase in applications from underrepresented minorities including African-American, American Indian, Chicano and Latino students, totaling 8,392 – 837 more than last year. About 49.2 percent of all UCSB freshman applicants identified themselves as belonging to an ethnic minority group.

According to a UC Office of the President (UCOP) release, the number of transfer student applicants to UCSB decreased by 458, or by 5.5 percent, making it the biggest decrease out of all the UC campuses. Of the 8,065 transfer student applications, 89.3 percent were from community colleges. In addition, 20.5 percent of transfer applicants were from underrepresented minority groups – a 1.3 percent increase from last year.

Systemwide, the UC system saw the number of transfer applicants drop by 2.9 percent over the last two years. UCSB will select transfer students in April.

Overall, of the 82,841 high school seniors who applied to the UC system, half of the students included UCSB as one of their choices. Eight percent of the UCSB applicants are out-of-state students.

A UCOP press release said UC Berkeley recorded the largest increase in applications from both incoming freshmen and transfer students: 13 percent and 10.7 percent, respectively. UC Riverside had the smallest change in freshman applicants and total applicants, registering increases of 4.3 percent and 2.8 percent, respectively.