University of California, Irvine Response

Jaime:

UCI is located about 5 miles from Newport Beach, a lovely beach community south of Los Angeles. UCI is built on rolling hills that used to be pasture land for grazing black angus cattle from the Irvine Ranch, part of a land grant from the days of colonial Spain in California. UCI has over 1,400 acres of land, and has plenty of room to expand. You can see a good picture of the San Bernardino Mountains behind the campus at:

http://www.reg.uci.edu/UCI/ADMISSIONS/introducing.html

You can also see an arial map of the campus at:

http://www.uci.edu/helpdesk/map/

Because of its location, UCI is considered rural. It is situated in the city of Irvine, but since Irvine is a bedroom community, there is really no downtown Irvine. Therefore, UCI tends to be community unto itself. Students do drive or bus to neighboring beach cities for playing and other activities.

There is a welcome book on the web for new faculty and staff, but you might find some of the things you are looking for at:

http://www.editor.uci.edu/~editor/welcome_book/

We think UCI is a very unique school. It is one of the fastest growing research schools in the country. It is ranked 37th in the country by US News and World Report.....for a school as young as UCI (32 years), this is very impressive. You can see more of what we think sets us apart from the rest at:

http://www.reg.uci.edu/UCI/ADMISSIONS/NEW/whyUCI.html

UCI has no affirmative action policies by ethnicity or gender at this time for Fall 1998. In other words, our decision to admit or not admit a student cannot be based on ethnicity or gender.

You can see the UC policy for freshmen selection for Spring 1998 and thereafter at:

http://www.ucop.edu/sas/adguides.html

Although UCI tries to look at the whole student and balance academics with other indicators of readiness for university work, if I were required to rank characteristics, I would say UCI's priorities are:

1. level and scope of courses taken in high school (depth, honors, AP, etc)
2. grades/GPA (grades in major preparation included)
3. leadership positions, extracurricular activities, self-awareness, and ability to overcome opposition; individual achievement
4. standardized tests and their effect and relation on the overall preparation of the student
5. activities beyond the classroom or school (athletics, church, civic)

I hope this has answered some of your questions. UCI has extensive websites. Feel free to browse at:

Campus Homepage: www.uci.edu/ (non-graphic: www.uci.edu/toc.html)
Admission's Homepage: www.reg.uci.edu/UCI/ADMISSIONS/
UCI catalogue: www.editor.uci.edu/~editor/catalogue/
Financial Aid Office: www.fao.uci.edu/
Housing: www.housing.uci.edu
Majors & Programs: www.reg.uci.edu/UCI/ADMISSIONS/Flyers_ACADEMICS/
Current fees: www.reg.uci.edu/REGISTRAR/SOC/fees.html
Visual map to campus: www.reg.uci.edu/UCI/ADMISSIONS/where_is_uci.html
Campus map: www.uci.edu/helpdesk/map/
Athletics: www.athletics.uci.edu/~athletic/
Freshman Requirements: www.reg.uci.edu/UCI/ADMISSIONS/sr_yr.html
Freshman Selection: www.reg.uci.edu/UCI/ADMISSIONS/freshman_sel.html

If you have other questions, please contact me. I would be happy to correspond with you.

Ann Williams
Admissions Counselor
University of California, Irvine
Admissions and Relations with Schools
204 Administration
Irvine, CA 92697-1075
tel: 714.824.4537
fax: 714.824.2711
awilliam@uci.edu

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