University of California, Los Angeles

Among the few public universities bracketed with America’s top-ranked Ivy league higher education institutions, University of California, Los Angeles has also acquired an awesome reputation for sports education

Founded in 1919, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is among the few public universities bracketed with America’s top-ranked Ivy League higher education institutions with transnational reputations for teaching and research. In its World University Rankings 2012, Times Higher Education ranked UCLA #13 worldwide while the US News & World Report league table of America’s Best Colleges 2013 ranks it among the top 25 in the US. The second oldest of the ten campuses of the University of California’s public education system, UCLA’s five undergraduate, seven professional (graduate) and four professional health science schools offer over 337 undergraduate, graduate and doctoral programmes to 35,000 students.

Moreover University of California, Los Angeles is the most applied-to university in the US. In the autumn of 2012, 72,000 school-leavers applied for its freshman programmes, of whom 16,049 were admitted. Sited on a sprawling 419-acre campus in Westwood bordering the iconic neighbourhoods of Beverly Hills and Bel Air in Los Angeles, University of California, Los Angeles boasts a stellar 4,000-strong faculty which includes 12 Nobel laureates, 12 Rhodes scholars, 12 MacArthur fellows, 10 National Science Medal and three Pulitzer Prize winners. “No matter what your background or income, UCLA welcomes all who make the grade. The students we want are the ones who are not afraid to work hard and dream big,” says Mark G. Yudof, president of the varsity.

The 93-year-old university is also widely renowned for its student athletics programmes which have enabled its student athletes (‘Bruins’) to not only win 125 national championships, but a record number of Olympic medals. Since 1920, University of California, Los Angeles student-athletes have won a spectacular 250 Olympic medals: 125 gold, 65 silver and 60 bronze and have brought home a gold in every Olympic Games in which the US has participated since 1932.

Los Angeles. Globally famous for its Hollywood studios and motion picture corporations, Los Angeles (pop. 4 million) is one of the world’s largest urban sprawl metros offering an extraordinary range of cultural and entertainment options. Internship opportunities abound in the entertainment industry and with major corporations such as Boeing, Skechers, Nestle and Dole. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Music Center, Chinatown, Olvera Street, Little Tokyo and the Downtown business district are a few miles east of the UCLA campus. Other attractions include the Natural History Museum, the California Science Center, the California African American Museum of History and Culture, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the Getty Center and Villa. The city also offers an array of night clubs, theatres, and multi-cuisine restaurants.

Mountains, deserts and beaches are all within an hour’s drive of the UCLA campus. LA enjoys balmy weather year-round with average temperatures ranging from 14º C in winter to 24º C in summer.

Campus facilities. The meticulously landscaped 419-acre campus at the base of the Santa Monica Mountains, five miles inland from the Pacific Ocean, features an architecturally diverse collection of 235 buildings, palm-tree terraces, cafes, fountains and recreation centres. In 1929 when the campus was inaugurated, UCLA had only four buildings. The iconic Janss Steps is the original 87-step entrance leading to the quad of these four buildings. Today the UCLA campus is informally divided into North and South campuses with the former hosting the arts, humanities, social sciences, law, and business faculties and the South campus the physical, life and maths sciences, engineering, psychology, health-related faculties and the UCLA Medical Center. Bruin Walk, a heavily traversed pathway from the residential hill to the main campus, bisects the campus.

Notable buildings include the Ackerman Union, the John Wooden Center, the Arthur Ashe Health and Wellness Center, the Student Activities Center, Kerckhoff Hall, J.D. Morgan Center, the James West Alumni Center, and Pauley Pavilion. On-campus museums include the Hammer and Fowler and the UCLA Films and Television Archive. UCLA’s library system hosts more than six million volumes housed in two general collections, ten special subject libraries and 12 other campus collections.

Inevitably, UCLA offers extensive sports facilities including the Acosta Athletic Complex (training and weight rooms, football center, locker rooms); Bel Air Country Club (golf); UCLA Boathouse (rowing); Drake Stadium (track and field, and soccer); Jackie Robinson Stadium (baseball); Easton Stadium (softball); Los Angeles Tennis Center; J.D. Morgan Center; Pauley Pavilion (basketball, volleyball, and gymnastics); Rose Bowl (football), Spieker Aquatics Centre (water polo, swimming and diving); Sunset Canyon Recreation Center (water polo); and John Wooden Center (intercollegiate and intramural athletics).

A range of sports programmes apart, there are more than 800 clubs and student organisations on campus.

Admission. The minimum eligibility for admission into UCLA’s under-graduate programmes is completion of class XII or Plus Two with a superior grade points average in academic subjects. Students are required to submit ACT Assessment plus the ACT Writing Test or the SAT Reasoning Test with critical reading, mathematics, and writing scores. Applicants to the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science are also strongly encouraged to write the math level 2 and science (biology, chemistry, or physics) tests. In addition, all international students need to submit proof of proficiency in English language — International English Language Testing System (IELTS) score of 7 or Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) score of 83 (internet) or 550 (paper-based) is acceptable. A personal statement (essay) written by the applicant is also an important requirement of the admission process.

The application deadline is November 30, 2013 for admission to the term beginning September 2014. Applications can be made online at http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/. For further information contact Undergraduate Admissions, 1147 Murphy Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095. Tel: (310) 825-3101; e-mail: ugadm@ saonet.ucla.edu; website: www.ucla.edu.

Accommodation. Over 94 percent of freshmen students live on campus. Housing options include halls of residence, residential plazas and suites. UCLA’s highrise halls of residence are co-ed, with separate community restrooms and showers for men and women. Amenities include furnished rooms with cable TV service and computer network connections in every room, and laundry facilities on each floor. All buildings offer a learning centre, computer lab and study lounges.

Degree programmes. UCLA’s 109 academic departments offer 125 majors and 80 plus minors for undergraduate studies, while 150 departments offer a wide range of graduate and doctoral degrees including an extensive selection of business and medical programmes (see box).

Summiya Yasmeen