[mikeg8]

If students are more likely to apply to multiple schools than before (I believe that to be the case as competition has increased. I also have multiple cousins currently applying to UCs, anecdotal) than the total number of applications would appear to increase while total unique applicants may be steady or reduced.

[psaux]

That is a great point. And the UC system does have a central database. It would be nice to see total uniques per school out of transparency, as you can apply to all the UC’s much easier.

This does have an adverse effect, as relatives of mine got multiple offers and others rejected or waitlisted. Not sure what the best path is, as the top 5% probably got accepted to all, at least what I am seeing from my network. Then others are left to wait for the top 5% to choose; sometimes a month. By then, most non top 5% have to make a decision elsewhere. I am sure the UC System has it all worked out, just seems it could be done better.