More than 4,600 students admitted as freshmen for fall 2007 have sent in letters stating their intent to enroll at UCLA.

UCLA admitted 11,924 students for the fall 2007 freshman class from among a record 50,744 applications received. There were 4,636 students who responded to UCLA's offers of admission, indicating their plans to enroll.

The data show that the  percentage of underrepresented students — Native Americans, African Americans and Chicanos/Latinos — increased nearly 3 percentage points to 19.4 percent (873), up from 16.5 percent (773) last year. The percentage of African American students who said they plan to enroll as freshmen at UCLA increased to 4.5 percent (203), up from 2.2 percent (103) the previous year.

Of the other categories of students indicating their intent to enroll, 41.2 percent (1,854) are Asian American, 32.9 percent (1,481) are white/Caucasian, 14.6 percent (657) are Chicano/Latino; and 0.3 percent (13) are Native American. Five percent (225) declined to state their ethnicity or race, and 1.4 percent (62) identified themselves as "other."

"I'm very pleased that all of these students, who will be bringing with them the highest academic and leadership credentials, have chosen to come to UCLA," Acting Chancellor Norman Abrams said. "I also especially want to thank the many students, alumni and friends of UCLA who came forward and engaged in activities aimed at encouraging admitted underrepresented students to enroll at UCLA."

The number of African American students reached a crisis point last year, when only 100 students enrolled at UCLA. Subsequently, UCLA students, alumni and many individuals in the Los Angeles community volunteered to help reverse the trend.

In 2007, the faculty also made a change in the way applications were reviewed. Much earlier, a systemwide policy for the entire university had been adopted that mandated comprehensive review. According to the principles of comprehensive review, academic merit should not be based on one or two narrow quantitative indicators but should be assessed in terms of the full range of an applicant's academic and personal achievements, viewed in the context of the opportunities and challenges that the applicant has faced. The fall 2007 freshman applicants were the first for whom UCLA used the holistic approach, under which each application was read and considered in its entirety by two trained readers instead of different readers evaluating separate parts of each application. The UCLA Academic Senate made the change last fall because the faculty believed an assessment of each applicant's entire application by the same readers would be fairer and would better achieve the goals of the comprehensive-review admissions policy.

Abrams also credited community leaders and UCLA alumni for creating legacy scholarships for incoming African American freshmen. The legacy scholarship fund is administered by the nonprofit California Community Foundation.

"These scholarships played a critical role in attracting to UCLA these future leaders in the tradition of Tom Bradley, Ralph J. Bunche and Jackie Robinson," Abrams said.

Janina Montero, vice chancellor for Student Affairs, praised the staffs of the Office of Undergraduate Admissions and Relations With Schools, the College of Letters and Science, and the Academic Advancement Program for the various activities they hosted on campus for all admitted students to help them get a firsthand look at the opportunities available at UCLA.

"These students have outstanding academic credentials and come from very diverse backgrounds. I believe they will make great contributions to this campus," Montero said. 

Peter Taylor, a former UC regent and former president of the UCLA Alumni Association who chairs the UCLA African American Student Enrollment Task Force, said that students, alumni and the community played key roles in reaching out to admitted African American students and encouraging them to enroll. Admitted African American students were hosted for a weekend at UCLA by the Black Alumni Association and the African Student Union, during which they had the opportunity to tour the campus, stay in the residence halls and have a dinner with their parents, UCLA students, alumni and staff to learn more about the campus.

Taylor also credited the legacy scholarships for helping students choose UCLA over other outstanding colleges and universities.

"Trying to improve financial aid and providing the personal touch to let students know that UCLA is a good place for them is what we hoped to achieve during these events," Taylor said. "What the numbers show is that when you take financial considerations away by having a scholarship to offer, the admitted students are able to look at the opportunities at UCLA and see that it is a great choice."

The Statement of Intent to Register (SIR) is an interim step in the overall application, admission and enrollment cycle. An admitted student submits an SIR following admission to signal his or her intent to accept the provisional admission offer and enroll at UCLA. Students must also submit transcripts of their final-semester grades by July 15 for a final review. Final enrollment figures for the fall term typically are available in late October.

NOTE: Fall 2007 figures are extracted from May 7 files and do not reflect final figures. The data used reflect information about domestic students, except for the total numbers of applicants and admits, which include international students. This year's figures are compared with official data from 2006. Admissions numbers will change slightly, with final official data available in October 2007.

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