Where can your student actually get into physics?

• 678 colleges nationwide offer a bachelor's physics program: 672 awarded the degree in 2022-23 (federal IPEDS completions); 6 more carry program earnings in federal outcome data but no 2022-23 degree count under these program codes.
• Largest programs by graduates in 2022-23: University of California-Santa Barbara (178), University of Colorado Boulder (150), University of Washington-Seattle Campus (122).
• 53 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-Los Angeles — Physics, Fall 2025: 1,726 applied, 240 admitted (14%).
• Highest reported admit rate into the program: California State University-San Bernardino — 98.5% (66 applied, 65 admitted, Fall 2025).
• Highest median earnings four years after the degree: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, $131,025.
• Lowest average net price with aid: CUNY Hunter College, $2,984 per year.

A college listed here with no first-year physics row is one that does not report admissions by major, not one where physics is closed or automatic. Where a first-year row does exist it reports what happened to that fall's physics applicants, and at a UC that outcome is mostly the campus decision rather than a physics decision. Admits are not enrollees. At most UC programs students are admitted to the campus, not the major. This page as JSON → · California only (53 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.