UCLA is first with 61,556.

Incidentally, both enroll 20,000 or more students.

beat UC Berkeley (52,982), St. John's Univ-New York (52,972), Cal State-Long Beach (49,775), and UC Santa Barbara (49,664), and others, ending with Golden Gate Univ-San Francisco (0).

1,160 out of the other 3,121 colleges were ruled out due to missing, unknown, or not-applicable values for first-year applicants, e.g., Liberty Univ.

1. The number of total first-year applicants is from the Institutional Characteristics Data File 2012-2013 (Provisional Release) as reported by the National Center for Education Statistics (http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds).
   

UCSD is in La Jolla, CA, is public, research intensive, a top-100 happiest school, a member of the American Association of Universities, more than 50% Black, Hispanic, Asian, American Indian, or Alaska Native, has a Phi Beta Kappa chapter, has a hospital, offers a Doctor of Medicine degree, offers on-campus housing, requires test scores for undergrad admissions, its top major is economics, is on the quarter system, its top Masters major is international relations and affairs, its top Doctoral major is medicine, and enrolls 20,000 or more students.

• ARWU world ranking (14th place)
• Webometrics world ranking (22nd place)
• Times Higher Education world ranking (40th place)
• PayScale mid-career median salary ranking (49th place)
• USNews MBA ranking (73rd place)
• Forbes Best Buy ranking (90th place)
• research spending ($610.0M)
• average full-time teaching salary ($106,619)
• out-of-state undergrad tuition & fees ($36,095)
• research spending per student ($19,888)
• average grant aid to undergrads ($15,920)
• endowment per full-time student ($13,543)
• in-state undergrad tuition & fees ($13,217)
• cost of typical room and board ($11,923)
• average undergrad student loan ($5,413)
• non-resident tuition & fees surcharge (173.1%)
• full-time retention rate (94%)
• undergrads among full-time students (80.1%)
• in-state freshmen (77.3%)
• undergrads who get financial aid (75%)
• minorities (55.1%)
• ratio of female full-time freshmen (54%)
• undergrads who receive student loans (54%)
• undergrads who get Pell grants (46%)
• Asians (39.4%)
• grad students who are under 25 years old (32.1%)
• average teaching salary differential (men vs. women, 22%)
• Hispanics (13.9%)
• tuition & fees increase over three years (12.5%)
• foreign students (9%)
• undergrads who are 25 years or older (6.5%)
• Blacks or African Americans (1.5%)
• American Indians or Alaska Natives (0.3%)
• average teaching salary differential (women vs. men, -18%)
• 25th percentile SAT math score (590)
• 25th percentile SAT reading score (520)
• 25th percentile SAT writing score (550)
• 75th percentile SAT math score (710)
• 75th percentile SAT reading score (650)
• 75th percentile SAT writing score (670)
• alumni who played in the National Football League (0)
• average January temperature (55.8 degrees)
• dorm capacity (12,174)
• first-year applicants (53,449)
• foreign students (2,745)
• full-time grad students (5,358)
• full-time undergrads (21,983)
• grad students (5,618)
• members of the National Academy of Sciences (67)
• men's basketball Final Four appearances (0)
• Rhodes Scholar alumni (0)
• total 75th percentile SAT score (2,030)
• undergrads (22,676)
• yearly for-credit students (30,670)
• on-campus yearly property crimes per thousand students (1.62)
• students per faculty member (19)
• annual rainfall (11.2 inches)
• diversity and inclusion ratio (0.32)
• elevation (128 meters)

Sources