<p>California residents are given priority for admission to the UCs. Other US residents have a very hard time getting admitted to a UC; the admission rate for internationals is very low. Also, that may get even lower. A stated objective of UCs is to attempt to admit as many California residents as they can in the top 12.5% of their high school class. There have been reports, regent's meetings, etc., which have discussed that budget cuts and the increase in applicants is making that goal impossible to reach and that the UCs will likely have to admit even fewer out-of-state and internationals in the future. </p>
<p>As to colleges in general, be aware that most public universities favor their own state's residents and, in fact, many of them are required by state law to do so. Nevertheless, there are many of those that admit decent percentages of internationals who apply but have the condition that the international must provide evidence to show he can pay the full amount of the cost of attending because the university will not provide financial aid to the international. Those colleges look at internationals as a way to get more tuition money into their coffers.</p>
<p>There are actually large numbers of private schools (most with high admission rates to begin with) that are also fairly friendly to the admission of internationals on the same condition. At highly ranked schools that may provide aid to internationals, the situation is different. That aid is coming from the school's funds (whereas much of the need based-aid provided for US residents is government funded) and the college is going to be quite selective choosing the internationals on which it is going to spend that money. Moreover, they all simply naturally favor US residents and admit a low percentage of internationals. Finally, if you apply to top schools, you are going to be in a pool of internationals who are doing the same and that pool (a) is very large and (b) consists almost exclusively of top students from their various countries, and you will be competing with that group for 5% or so of the total seats the college will be alotting for internationals. Also, when colleges speak of having "diversity," the international student is really not the one they are referring to; instead their focus is underrepresented minorities from the US.</p>
<p>In other words, you should not assume that your being an international, regardless of what your high school program is, is going to provide any favorable factor for your admission and that you actually start at a severe disadvantage to US residents. But if you are a top student you should still apply, and that is particularly true if you can pay your own way which at many colleges will help you get admitted.</p>