Overall enrollment at UCI has grown dramatically in the past 15 years, from 17,249 in 1998-99 to more than 24,100 for 2004-05. Even more remarkable than this rapid growth is the fact that it has been accompanied by a consistent increase in the quality of the undergraduate student body. Admission to UCI for undergraduates has become much more selective; approximately 50 percent of UC-eligible applicants were offered admission in 2003-04, as compared to 100 percent in 1996. Following an extended plateau, the average SAT I score of UCI freshmen has risen by 91 points in the last seven years (from 1118 in 1997 to 1209 in 2004). The mean SAT I score of UCI freshmen is now fourth in the UC system, whereas it was seventh in 1998. High school GPAs of entering freshmen have risen steadily to 3.73 in 2004. Four-, five- and six-year graduation rates for undergraduates also have improved in the past five years. The median time to a bachelor’s degree is currently 13 quarters, or slightly more than four years, and our increasingly selective admissions and better student counseling should continue to improve these performance metrics in the future.

Two programs that offer unusual opportunities for undergraduates, the Campuswide Honors Program (CHP) and the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP), have continued to grow in quality and size. CHP has been noted nationally as being “one of the most challenging and serious honors programs in the country”; the San Francisco Chronicle called it “Ivy at Irvine.”³ Now with nearly 2,500 graduates since its first entering class of 1988, the honors program has proved pivotal in attracting and educating top students at UCI. The quality of honors students attending Irvine rivals the best of the Ivy League universities. CHP provides a challenging and rewarding education by delivering the qualities of superb liberal arts colleges with the offerings of a powerful research university. The program has been especially effective in nurturing research and creative activity on campus such as with its senior thesis and research symposium programs. Efficiently run, it has proved exceptionally rewarding for the students, faculty and staff contributing to its educational mission. The past president of the National Collegiate Honors Council says, “It is a centerpiece in the university’s efforts to encourage excellence among undergraduates.”⁴

The Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program encourages and facilitates faculty-mentored research and creative activities by undergraduates from all schools and academic disciplines at UCI. Launched in 1995, the program has grown sharply in recent years and has received wide support from the faculty across the whole campus. UROP’s commitment is demonstrated by supporting at least 1,700 undergraduates each year through all phases of the research process and by engaging them in a variety of programs, including: advising students on appropriate research opportunities on- and off-campus, funding project-related expenses through UROP Grants and Fellowships, providing stipends in support of students’ time and efforts through the Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP), sponsoring the UCI Undergraduate Research Symposium, and publishing The UCI Undergraduate Research Journal. In collaboration with various schools and research units, UROP launched three new programs in summer 2005, including: the Integrated Micro/Nano Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (IM-SURE) funded by the National Science Foundation; the Inter-Disciplinary Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (ID-SURE) funded by the National Institutes of Health; and the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship in Information Technology (SURF-IT) funded by the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2). UROP is recognized as a national model, as demonstrated by the many inquiries from other universities on how to launch and implement similar undergraduate research programs. In fall 2003, for example, UROP hosted the Southern California Conference on Undergraduate Research, which involved more than 1,000 participants from 92 institutions across the nation.

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Last Updated: January 22, 2007