Where can your student actually get into data science?

• 102 colleges nationwide offer a bachelor's data science program: 91 awarded the degree in 2022-23 (federal IPEDS completions); 11 more report a data science admit rate in the UC/CSU data.
• Largest programs by graduates in 2022-23: University of Wisconsin-Madison (188), Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (173), Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus (158).
• 13 of them are in California, the one state whose public systems (the University of California and the CSU) publish an admit rate into the major.
• Hardest reported gate into the program (only the UC and the CSU publish one): University of California-Berkeley — Data Science, Fall 2025: 2,535 applied, 346 admitted (14%).
• Highest reported admit rate into the program: California State University-Channel Islands — 97.3% (37 applied, 36 admitted, Fall 2025).
• Lowest average net price with aid: Florida Atlantic University, $8,752 per year.

Every data science program on this page reports a first-year row, so there is no separate pre-major step to plan around; a freshman applies under the program name itself. At a UC the decision is still made at the campus level for most programs, so a low rate there tells you about the campus as much as the major, while a CSU rate is that campus's own count of who applied to data science and who was admitted. Admits are not enrollees. At most UC programs students are admitted to the campus, not the major. This page as JSON → · California only (13 colleges, with the UC and CSU gates) →

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/data-science, then open each college profile it links to. Build a reach / match / likely list for a data science applicant in the US 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

A data science list needs both ends covered, because in California the same major runs from 14% at UC Berkeley to 97.3% at Cal State Channel Islands, and a student should have a real answer at each end. Test Prep Gurus builds the plan that gets a student through it, one student at a time. prepgurus.com · 949.229.5359