Research · CSU admissions · October 2026

The hardest CSU majors to get into for first-year students, Fall 2025

Name: The hardest CSU majors to get into for first-year students, Fall 2025
Creator: Test Prep Gurus (High School Reach)
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

As of October 2026: Nursing pre-licensure at San Diego State was the hardest CSU major for first-year students in Fall 2025, with 8,620 applicants and 306 admits, a 3.5% rate. Every program near the top of our table is impacted, and most of them sit at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo or San Diego State.

The table holds CSU majors with big first-year applicant pools in Fall 2025, ranked by admit rate; a CSU application names one major at one campus.

Analysis: Test Prep Gurus (High School Reach, highschoolreach.com), October 2026. Figures and the table may be quoted with attribution to Test Prep Gurus.

The findings, in plain English

Nursing pre-licensure at San Diego State is the hardest CSU major. San Diego State took 306 of 8,620 first-year applicants into nursing pre-licensure, a 3.5% rate. No other CSU major in the table admitted under 12.0% of its applicants. The next lowest is Aerospace Engineering at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, which admitted 289 of 2,399, or 12.0%.

Every program at the top of the list is impacted. Impaction is the CSU's own word for a program with more qualified applicants than seats. Each of the lowest rates in our table carries the impacted flag, and the pattern runs well past nursing. Psychology at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo admitted 13.0%, Biology at San Diego State 23.4%, and Marketing at CSU Long Beach 25.9%.

Most CSU campuses admit most of their applicants. The second table shows the three lowest rates at each campus, and at most campuses those rates are high. At CSU Monterey Bay the lowest is Art at 94.7%. At Stanislaus State it is Computer Science at 91.6%. At Sonoma State it is Computer Science at 89.9%. The squeeze at the CSU is concentrated, not systemwide.

The hardest CSU majors to get into, Fall 2025

First-year admit rates, lowest first.

Campus	Major	Applied	Admitted	Admit rate	Impacted
San Diego State	Nursing Pre-Licensure	8,620	306	3.5%	Yes
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo	Aerospace Engineering	2,399	289	12.0%	Yes
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo	Kinesiology/Physical Education	2,162	262	12.1%	Yes
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo	Psychology	3,732	486	13.0%	Yes
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo	Mechanical Engineering	4,953	657	13.3%	Yes
San Diego State	Musical Theatre	182	33	18.1%	Yes
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo	Architecture	2,239	415	18.5%	Yes
CSU Fullerton	Nursing Pre-Licensure	343	64	18.7%	Yes
CSU Long Beach	Construction Engineering Technology/Management	615	131	21.3%	Yes
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo	Marine Science	630	137	21.7%	Yes
CSU Long Beach	Human Resources/Personnel Management	342	77	22.5%	Yes
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo	Software Engineering	539	124	23.0%	Yes
CSU Long Beach	Music (Professional Performance)	681	157	23.1%	Yes
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo	Child Development/Early Childhood Education	842	196	23.3%	Yes
San Diego State	Biology	10,612	2,486	23.4%	Yes
San Diego State	Real Estate	1,218	298	24.5%	Yes
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo	Biology	5,323	1,311	24.6%	Yes
San Diego State	Graphic Design	590	145	24.6%	Yes
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo	Art (Studio/Professional Performance)	635	159	25.0%	Yes
San Diego State	Interior Design	1,031	261	25.3%	Yes
CSU Long Beach	Marketing	3,426	887	25.9%	Yes
San Diego State	Social Work	407	107	26.3%	Yes
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo	Computer Science	4,090	1,085	26.5%	Yes
San Diego State	Construction Management	536	142	26.5%	Yes
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo	Construction Engineering	712	190	26.7%	Yes
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo	Business Administration	8,836	2,373	26.9%	Yes
CSU Long Beach	Information Systems	542	146	26.9%	Yes
Cal Poly Pomona	Animal Science	461	124	26.9%	Yes
San Diego State	Multimedia	106	29	27.4%	Yes
San Diego State	Information Systems	455	125	27.5%	Yes
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo	Civil Engineering	1,833	507	27.7%	Yes
CSU Long Beach	Management	2,686	751	28.0%	Yes
San Diego State	Accountancy	1,476	413	28.0%	Yes
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo	Forestry	537	151	28.1%	Yes
San Diego State	Microbiology	430	121	28.1%	Yes
CSU Long Beach	Production and Operations Management	226	64	28.3%	Yes
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo	Speech Communication	1,083	311	28.7%	Yes
San Diego State	Psychology	7,221	2,114	29.3%	Yes
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo	Biomedical Engineering	2,015	592	29.4%	Yes
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo	Computer Engineering	1,474	435	29.5%	Yes

Fall 2025 first-time-freshman applicants and admits at CSU majors with 100 or more applicants. Admits are offers of admission, not enrolled students. Impacted is the CSU's own designation for a program with more qualified applicants than seats. The CSU suppresses cells under 10, so the columns do not sum to a campus total, and systemwide rows are left out because the CSU removes duplicate applicants from them.

The three hardest majors at each CSU campus

Campuses are ordered by their own lowest admit rate.

Campus	Major	Applied	Admitted	Admit rate	Impacted
San Diego State	Nursing Pre-Licensure	8,620	306	3.5%	Yes
San Diego State	Musical Theatre	182	33	18.1%	Yes
San Diego State	Biology	10,612	2,486	23.4%	Yes
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo	Aerospace Engineering	2,399	289	12.0%	Yes
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo	Kinesiology/Physical Education	2,162	262	12.1%	Yes
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo	Psychology	3,732	486	13.0%	Yes
CSU Fullerton	Nursing Pre-Licensure	343	64	18.7%	Yes
CSU Fullerton	Criminal Justice	2,161	1,744	80.7%	Yes
CSU Fullerton	Communications	422	343	81.3%	Yes
CSU Long Beach	Construction Engineering Technology/Management	615	131	21.3%	Yes
CSU Long Beach	Human Resources/Personnel Management	342	77	22.5%	Yes
CSU Long Beach	Music (Professional Performance)	681	157	23.1%	Yes
Cal Poly Pomona	Animal Science	461	124	26.9%	Yes
Cal Poly Pomona	Pre-Veterinary Science	1,375	427	31.1%	No
Cal Poly Pomona	Architecture	2,041	691	33.9%	Yes
Cal Maritime	Oceanography	107	46	43.0%	No
Cal Maritime	Business Administration	241	105	43.6%	No
Cal Maritime	Mechanical Engineering	473	286	60.5%	No
San Jose State	Computer Science	1,866	957	51.3%	Yes
San Jose State	Mechanical Engineering	1,581	871	55.1%	Yes
San Jose State	Finance	1,035	626	60.5%	Yes
CSU Bakersfield	Management	299	217	72.6%	No
CSU Bakersfield	Small Business Management	465	343	73.8%	No
CSU Bakersfield	Information Systems	257	195	75.9%	No
CSU Northridge	Music (Professional Performance)	158	117	74.1%	Yes
CSU Northridge	Music	108	88	81.5%	Yes
CSU Northridge	Real Estate	902	779	86.4%	No
Cal Poly Humboldt	Social Work	143	117	81.8%	No
Cal Poly Humboldt	Child and Family Development	212	180	84.9%	No
Cal Poly Humboldt	Cinema/Film (Professional Performance)	316	280	88.6%	No
CSU East Bay	Entrepreneurship	337	277	82.2%	No
CSU East Bay	Human Development	150	124	82.7%	No
CSU East Bay	Computer Engineering	264	221	83.7%	No
San Francisco State	Music Industry & Technology	121	102	84.3%	No
San Francisco State	Criminal Justice	925	787	85.1%	No
San Francisco State	Quantitative Methods Analysis Business Analytics	181	154	85.1%	No
Chico State	Criminal Justice	825	697	84.5%	No
Chico State	Journalism	117	100	85.5%	No
Chico State	Social Work	174	149	85.6%	No
CSU San Marcos	Computer Science	662	560	84.6%	No
CSU San Marcos	Software Engineering	162	137	84.6%	No
CSU San Marcos	Biotechnology	212	191	90.1%	No
Cal State LA	Theatre Arts	232	198	85.3%	No
Cal State LA	Economics	184	157	85.3%	No
Cal State LA	Nursing Pre-Licensure	2,024	1,746	86.3%	Yes
CSU San Bernardino	Communications	151	132	87.4%	No
CSU San Bernardino	Real Estate	352	318	90.3%	No
CSU San Bernardino	Entrepreneurship	210	192	91.4%	No
CSU Dominguez Hills	Music (Professional Performance)	175	155	88.6%	No
CSU Dominguez Hills	Journalism	117	104	88.9%	No
CSU Dominguez Hills	Computer Science and Information Technology	161	148	91.9%	No
CSU Channel Islands	Communications	108	96	88.9%	No
CSU Channel Islands	Computer Science	288	260	90.3%	No
CSU Channel Islands	Political Science/Government	198	181	91.4%	No
Sacramento State	Economics	234	209	89.3%	No
Sacramento State	Apparel Merchandising and Management	167	150	89.8%	No
Sacramento State	Social Work	228	207	90.8%	No
Sonoma State	Computer Science	326	293	89.9%	No
Sonoma State	Biochemistry	105	96	91.4%	No
Sonoma State	Marine Biology	130	120	92.3%	No
Fresno State	Computer Engineering	168	153	91.1%	Yes
Fresno State	Interior Design	153	141	92.2%	No
Fresno State	Construction Engineering Technology/Management	198	184	92.9%	No
Stanislaus State	Computer Science	250	229	91.6%	No
Stanislaus State	Finance	153	142	92.8%	No
Stanislaus State	Accountancy	105	98	93.3%	No
CSU Monterey Bay	Art	114	108	94.7%	No
CSU Monterey Bay	Human Services/Collaborative Human Services	193	184	95.3%	No
CSU Monterey Bay	Sociology	193	184	95.3%	No

Each campus block holds that campus's three lowest first-year admit rates, so a rate here can be high. Fall 2025 first-time-freshman applicants and admits at CSU majors with 100 or more applicants. Admits are offers of admission, not enrolled students. Impacted is the CSU's own designation for a program with more qualified applicants than seats. The CSU suppresses cells under 10, so the columns do not sum to a campus total, and systemwide rows are left out because the CSU removes duplicate applicants from them.

At the CSU, the major is the application

A CSU application goes to one campus and one major. If that major is impacted, the campus can hold the applicant to a higher bar than its general standard. It can turn down a student who clears the systemwide requirements. That is the opposite of the UC pattern, where most campuses admit to the campus and treat the major as a preference.

So a CSU major's rate is close to the rate a real applicant faced. It is still not a prediction. The pool changes every year, and a program can change its screening criteria between cycles.

Nursing is its own category

Nursing pre-licensure turns up again and again near the bottom of the list. The limit is clinical placements, not classroom seats. San Diego State admitted 306 of 8,620 applicants, and CSU Fullerton admitted 64 of 343.

At many CSU campuses, nursing is reported on the transfer side. First-year students enter as pre-nursing and apply into the program later. Neither door is wide, so a nursing plan needs several campuses and a second path.

What a family should do with this

Check whether the major is impacted before anything else. An impacted program can ask for a higher GPA, certain coursework or a portfolio. The campus publishes those extra rules for that program.

Then spread the list. A student who wants engineering can apply to the same major at several CSU campuses, and the rates are far apart. Mechanical Engineering was 13.3% at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and 55.1% at San Jose State.

Last, the numbers in both tables are offers of admission, not enrolled students. They describe the chance of an offer and say nothing about the size of the class.

Questions parents ask

What is the hardest major to get into at a Cal State?

Nursing pre-licensure at San Diego State was the hardest CSU major for first-year students in Fall 2025, with 8,620 applicants and 306 admits, a 3.5% rate.

What does impacted mean at the CSU?

Impaction is the CSU's own word for a program with more qualified applicants than seats.

Does the major my student picks change their CSU chances?

A CSU application goes to one campus and one major. If that major is impacted, the campus can hold the applicant to a higher bar than its general standard.

Method & sources: The figures are from the CSU Chancellor's Office applications and admissions dashboard by discipline, Fall 2025, first-time freshmen. The tables hold majors with 100 or more applicants; the CSU suppresses cells under 10, so the counts do not add up to a campus total, and systemwide rows are left out because the CSU removes duplicate applicants from them. Impaction flags are the CSU's own designations for impacted undergraduate programs. Rows are ranked by admit rate, lowest first.

This brief as data: /research/hardest-majors-csu.json. Free for editorial use with attribution to Test Prep Gurus (High School Reach).