Blog · UC admissions · August 14, 2026
A Record Number of UC Offers for Californians — and a Shrinking Share at the Top
The University of California announced a record this year: 102,031 California residents admitted to its freshman class, up from 93,986 two years ago — the most ever. UC's own numbers also show that California's share of admission offers fell at every one of the six most selective campuses. Families keep asking us how both can be true.
The answer is simple once you see it. At those six campuses — Berkeley, UCLA, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Irvine and Davis — the system extended roughly 27,000 more offers than it did two years ago. Offers to Californians were essentially flat, down about 1%. Offers to everyone else grew 43%.
So the record is real, and it deserves to be said plainly: more California students received a UC offer than in any year before. But that growth happened at the less selective campuses. At the six campuses most families are actually aiming for, the share of offers going to Californians fell from 63% to 54% in two years.
Campus by campus, 2024 to 2026: UC Santa Barbara went from 67.3% to 53.0% — a drop of more than fourteen points. Berkeley, 78.6% to 67.6%. UCLA, 67.0% to 57.3%. Davis, 60.2% to 50.9%. San Diego, 63.9% to 56.0%. Irvine moved the least, 54.4% to 52.0%.
Both sets of numbers come from UC. Neither is spin. One counts California students across the whole system. The other counts who the offers at the most selective campuses went to — and the second number is the one a family actually experiences. It is why a year that reads as generous in a press release lands very differently at a kitchen table in Irvine or Berkeley.
For a rising senior, the practical point is that the systemwide picture and the campus picture are different arguments, and you should not plan off the first one. A California student is still admitted somewhere in the UC system at a high rate — that is what the record number reflects. But at Santa Barbara, Davis and San Diego specifically, the in-state advantage families assume exists is smaller than they think, and at matched GPA it often runs the other way.
We published the full analysis, including the one campus that still clearly favors Californians, in The Berkeley Exception. The wider Fall 2026 release is broken down in our research briefs.
One caveat worth stating: the Fall 2026 figures are preliminary — admission offers as of June 17, 2026. The 2024 comparison is final.
If you want these odds applied to your own student's list, campus by campus, that is what our free Family Decision Report does.
This story also runs on the Test Prep Gurus blog, where we write for families working through admissions decisions right now: the same story on our blog.