Research · UC admissions · October 2026
What Is the UC Acceptance Rate at Each Campus? Fall 2026, All Nine
As of October 2026: For fall 2026, UC acceptance rates run from 10.5% at UC Berkeley to 94.7% at UC Merced. UCLA admitted 10.8% of its 146,692 first-year applicants, UC San Diego 27.2% and UC Davis 45.8%.
The table holds each campus's first-year applicants, offers of admission and admit rate from the University of California's own summer release. These are offers, not students who enrolled.
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
Two campuses admit about one applicant in ten. UC Berkeley admitted 10.5% of 133,154 first-year applicants and UCLA 10.8% of 146,692. Those two campuses also drew the most applications of the nine. The middle of their admitted classes sat at a weighted UC GPA of 4.16 to 4.28 at Berkeley and 4.2 to 4.3 at UCLA.
Three campuses admit most of the people who apply. UC Merced admitted 94.7%, UC Riverside 88.2% and UC Santa Cruz 82.1%. The GPA range of an admitted class is wider there too: 3.57 to 4.16 at Merced against 4.2 to 4.3 at UCLA. A student with a strong record has a realistic path into the system through these three campuses.
One student is counted at every campus they apply to. UC made 153,272 first-year offers for fall 2026, and 102,031 of them went to California residents. The nine applicant columns in the table cannot be added together, because a student who applies to six campuses appears in six of them.
UC acceptance rate by campus, fall 2026
Ranked from the lowest admit rate to the highest.
| Campus | First-year applicants | Offers of admission | Admit rate | GPA 25th | GPA 75th | California residents admitted | California share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UC Berkeley | 133,154 | 13,967 | 10.5% | 4.16 | 4.28 | 9,445 | 67.6% |
| UCLA | 146,692 | 15,903 | 10.8% | 4.2 | 4.3 | 9,109 | 57.3% |
| UC San Diego | 141,767 | 38,571 | 27.2% | 4.12 | 4.28 | 21,589 | 56.0% |
| UC Irvine | 126,005 | 38,165 | 30.3% | 4.06 | 4.27 | 19,830 | 52.0% |
| UC Santa Barbara | 108,512 | 47,716 | 44.0% | 4.05 | 4.27 | 25,289 | 53.0% |
| UC Davis | 104,864 | 48,015 | 45.8% | 4.0 | 4.25 | 24,445 | 50.9% |
| UC Santa Cruz | 79,048 | 64,867 | 82.1% | 3.79 | 4.2 | 54,157 | 83.5% |
| UC Riverside | 72,542 | 63,958 | 88.2% | 3.66 | 4.17 | 55,914 | 87.4% |
| UC Merced | 49,426 | 46,812 | 94.7% | 3.57 | 4.16 | 41,149 | 87.9% |
First-year applicants and offers of admission as of June 17, 2026, which UC calls preliminary. Offers are not enrollments. GPA columns are the middle 50 percent of admitted students' fully weighted, capped UC GPA. A student who applies to several campuses is counted at each one, so the columns do not sum to a systemwide total.
How to read a UC admit rate
A UC admit rate is a campus number, not a major number. At most programs UC admits a student to the campus and not to the major, so a campus rate describes the odds of getting in the door rather than the odds of getting into one department. Engineering, computer science and nursing are the common exceptions, and those admit far below the campus rate.
UC has not considered SAT or ACT scores since 2021. A score cannot help an application and cannot hurt one. The GPA columns are UC's own fully weighted, capped calculation from the A-G course list, which is not the same number a high school transcript shows.
Where Californians fit
Of the 153,272 first-year offers UC made for fall 2026, 102,031 went to California residents. UC reports that 43% of the admitted Californians come from low-income families and 41% would be the first in their family to finish a four-year degree.
The California share differs sharply by campus, and the table shows it. The campuses with the highest admit rates also admit the highest share of Californians, so the system's open doors are mostly in-state doors.
UC also made 27,381 offers to California community college transfer students, on top of the first-year numbers. Transfer is a separate pipeline with its own rates, and a guaranteed-admission agreement exists at six campuses.
What a family should do with this
Read the table as a ladder rather than a ranking. A student applying to UC pays one application fee per campus and files one application, so the useful question is which rungs to include. A list made only of Berkeley, UCLA and San Diego is a list with a 27.2% ceiling at its friendliest point.
Then look at the major. If the target is engineering or computer science, the campus rate in this table overstates the odds, and the admit rate into the program is the number that matters.
Questions parents ask
Which UC campus is the hardest to get into?
UC Berkeley admitted 10.5% of 133,154 first-year applicants and UCLA 10.8% of 146,692.
Which UC campus is the easiest to get into?
UC Merced admitted 94.7%, UC Riverside 88.2% and UC Santa Cruz 82.1%.
Does UC look at SAT or ACT scores?
UC has not considered SAT or ACT scores since 2021. A score cannot help an application and cannot hurt one.
Method & sources: Applicants, offers of admission and admitted-student GPA ranges come from the University of California's own fall 2026 admissions release and the nine campuses' first-year admit-data pages. The figures are offers as of June 17, 2026, which UC labels preliminary, and they describe first-year applicants only; transfer admissions are counted separately. Rows are ranked by admit rate.
This brief as data: /research/uc-acceptance-rate-by-campus.json. Free for editorial use with attribution to Test Prep Gurus (High School Reach).
Related: Fall 2026 UC admissions, campus by campus · What GPA do you need for each UC? Admit rate by GPA band · The hardest majors to get into at each UC campus · UC admit rates for Californians, out-of-state and international students