During her junior-year AP U.S. History class, Heather Thompson discovered a passion for equality through studying marginalized groups, which led her to explore UCLA clubs promoting social activism at Bruin Day.
“I want to promote racial equality,” said Thompson, a senior at the Impact Academy of Arts and Technology in Hayward. “I like it here (at UCLA) because I’m able to pursue these interdisciplinary courses, like African American or LGBT studies, and to eventually become more culturally aware.”
Thompson, one of more than 13,000 admitted students and parents who gathered for Saturday’s Bruin Day, was also a member of the most selective class in UCLA’s history.
Bruin Day is a day dedicated to encouraging admitted high school students to choose UCLA as their home for the next few years. With club booths, talks by professors and tours of the campus and dorms, UCLA volunteers encouraged prospective students to find opportunities to pursue their passions.
UCLA was the nation’s most applied-to four-year university this year with almost 93,000 freshman applicants. The number of applicants from nearly all demographic communities increased as well.
There was a 13 percent increase in black freshman applicants and a 5.6 percent increase in Chicana/o and Latina/o applicants. Overall, there was a 7.2 percent increase in freshman applicants compared to last year.
Some prospective students said they hope that the increasing numbers of applications from underrepresented racial and ethnic backgrounds may lead to more racial diversity at the university.
Maria Perez, a first-generation student from Anahuacalmecac University Preparatory High in Los Angeles, said she hopes to encourage students in underserved communities to pursue higher education by attending UCLA.
Perez said she wants to eventually attend medical school so she can help Spanish-speaking patients as a bilingual doctor.
“I want to be a doctor someday because there aren’t a lot of doctors that look like me,” Perez said. “It’s a problem because then the issue becomes one of translation instead of providing treatment and medicine.”
In addition to higher numbers of applications from minorities, there was also a record number of first-generation students applying to UCLA this year, with 41.2 percent of all applicants being first-generation students.
Bella Fuentes of Cabrillo High School in Long Beach said she wants to join groups like Movimiento Estudiantil Chicana/o de Aztlán de UCLA, a student group for Chicana/o students, after seeing them at Bruin Day. She said the group made her feel more comfortable because it gave her the opportunity to get to know herself better in an environment with students of the same background.
“Not many students in my area think education is important,” she said. “I hope to offer emotional support to students from underserved backgrounds. A lot of the problems that people of my background face is one of adversity and a lack of emotional support.”
With a diploma from UCLA, Fuentes thinks she could better serve these communities.
“We’re looked down upon because of our race, so people tend to look at us and say ‘You won’t go to college’ or ‘You won’t even get a high school diploma,’” Fuentes said. “I hope to change that.”