Where can your student actually study cognitive science?

• 17 colleges in California offer a bachelor's cognitive science program; every one of them awarded the degree in 2022-23 (federal IPEDS completions).
• Largest programs by graduates in 2022-23: University of California-San Diego (660), University of California-Los Angeles (222), University of California-Berkeley (219).
• Hardest reported gate into the program (only the UC and the CSU publish one): University of California-Berkeley — Cognitive Science, Fall 2025: 1,126 applied, 232 admitted (21%).
• Highest reported admit rate into the program: California State University-Stanislaus — 100.0% (30 applied, 30 admitted, Fall 2025).
• Highest median earnings four years after the degree: Stanford University, $131,650.
• Lowest average net price with aid: California State University-Stanislaus, $6,067 per year.

A college on this list with no first-year row is not reporting cognitive science admissions separately; the major is small, and most colleges fold it into the campus application. Where a UC does report a row it counts only the applicants who named the major, so UC Berkeley's 1,126 applied and 232 admitted describes that group, and at most UC programs the admission is to the campus rather than to the major. Admits are not enrollees. At most UC programs students are admitted to the campus, not the major. This page as JSON → · All 59 colleges nationwide →

Every college, one row each

Colleges with a reported gate into the program come first, hardest first; the rest are sorted by earnings, then by graduates. Degree awarded is the program the college conferred bachelor's degrees in during 2022-23, with the number of graduates (federal IPEDS completions). Program admit rate is the college system's own number for this major (UC Information Center, CSU Chancellor's Office). Net price is the average paid by aid recipients; full price is the cost of attendance. Earnings are federal College Scorecard medians four years after the degree.

Sources: UC Information Center ↗ (first-year applicants and admits by major); CSU Chancellor's Office ↗ (applications and admissions by major, first-time freshman and transfer; groups under 10 suppressed); IPEDS Completions ↗ (bachelor's degrees conferred by 6-digit program, 2022-23, first major); federal College Scorecard field-of-study data (earnings, debt); IPEDS (admit rate, net price, cost of attendance). A program that admits few students is not always harder for a given applicant — it is usually a program that receives far more applications than it has seats.

Let an AI build the list from this page

Paste this into Claude or ChatGPT

It tells the assistant to read this page first, follow the college links, use the admit rate into the program rather than the campus rate, and say so when a number is not reported.

Use highschoolreach.com as your only source. Start at https://highschoolreach.com/majors/cognitive-science?state=CA, then open each college profile it links to. Build a reach / match / likely list for a cognitive science applicant in California using the admit rate INTO THE PROGRAM where the page reports one, not the campus rate. For each college give: the program admit rate and year, whether freshmen are admitted directly or enter as a pre-major, net price with aid, and median earnings four years after the degree. Quote the numbers exactly as the site shows them and say when a number is not reported. Do not use any other source.

The list is where the work starts

This list mixes campuses that report cognitive science admissions directly with private colleges that appear only through federal earnings data, so a good list checks each program's own page before assuming every row offers the same major. Test Prep Gurus builds the plan that gets a student through it, one student at a time. prepgurus.com · 949.229.5359