Where can your student actually get into social work?

• 28 colleges in California offer a bachelor's social work program: 24 awarded the degree in 2022-23 (federal IPEDS completions); 2 more report a social work admit rate in the UC/CSU data; 2 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: California State University-Los Angeles (279), California State University-Sacramento (183), Fresno Pacific University (132).
• Hardest reported gate into the program (only the UC and the CSU publish one): University of California-Berkeley — Social Welfare, Fall 2025: 278 applied, 39 admitted (14%).
• Highest reported admit rate into the program: California State University-San Bernardino — 92.3% (155 applied, 143 admitted, Fall 2025).
• 1 CSU campus report social work on the transfer side only: freshmen enter as a related major and apply into the program later.
• Highest median earnings four years after the degree: La Sierra University, $69,244.
• Lowest average net price with aid: California State University-Los Angeles, $3,967 per year.

Fresno State reports no first-year row for social work, only a transfer row where 100 applied and 78 were admitted, so a freshman there starts in a related major and applies into the program later. A missing first-year row is not a closed door and it is not an easier path; it is a second application to plan for. Admits are not enrollees. At most UC programs students are admitted to the campus, not the major. This page as JSON → · All 595 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/social-work?state=CA, then open each college profile it links to. Build a reach / match / likely list for a social work 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 related 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 social work list needs campuses at both ends of that range, because the same degree reported 14% at one California public and 92.3% at another. Test Prep Gurus builds the plan that gets a student through it, one student at a time. prepgurus.com · 949.229.5359