Research · UC admissions · October 2026

What It Takes to Get Into Each UC: GPA, Residency and Major, Fall 2025

As of October 2026: For Fall 2025, a California student with a weighted, capped GPA of 4.00 and above was admitted at a rate of 17.0% at UC Berkeley, 15.1% at UCLA, 45.2% at UC San Diego and 98.8% at UC Merced. Below 4.00, the gap widens fast: the 3.70-3.99 band drew a 3.1% rate at Berkeley and a 97.5% rate at Merced.

GPA bands, residency and major-level admit rates for all nine UC campuses, read one number at a time.

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

What GPA do you need for each UC? Admit rate by GPA band, Fall 2025

California residents only, using UC's weighted, capped GPA. Every band at all nine campuses is shown, including the band UC labels Unknown - Missing.

All 54 rows from the source table are shown. Admit counts in a band can exceed the admit totals in the residency table because the two UC files count students in different ways.

How do UC admit rates differ for Californians, out-of-state and international applicants?

First-year admissions by residency, Fall 2025, with systemwide rows first. All 30 rows are shown.

Systemwide residency rows are applicant-deduplicated; campus rows are not. A student who applies to five campuses counts five times in the campus rows.

Which UC majors are the hardest to get into?

First-year admissions by major, Fall 2025, for majors with 300 or more applicants, sorted from the lowest admit rate. GPA is UC's weighted, capped GPA.

These are the first 50 of the 60 rows we were given, which are themselves the first 60 of 439 rows. UC admits to the campus, not the major, at most programs; UCOP calls this a guide to selectivity, not a predictor.

What are UC transfer admit rates by campus?

Transfer applicants and admits by campus for Fall 2025 and Fall 2026, with the share of admits who came from a California community college.

Rates here divide UCOP's admit counts by UCOP's applicant counts, which come from two files issued months apart. Merced's Fall 2025 rate of 100.9% reflects that date mismatch and should be read as approximate.

What GPA do you need to get into a UC?

For California residents in Fall 2025, the top GPA band of 4.00 and above drew an admit rate of 17.0% at UC Berkeley, 15.1% at UCLA, 45.2% at UC San Diego, 46.3% at UC Irvine, 62.3% at UC Santa Barbara, 65.9% at UC Davis, 95.4% at UC Santa Cruz, 97.7% at UC Riverside and 98.8% at UC Merced. That one band covers most admits at every campus.

This is UC's weighted, capped GPA, not the number on a report card. It counts honors points for a limited set of courses. That is why a band called 4.00 and above holds so many students and why the band below it falls off so fast.

The drop is the part parents miss. At UC Berkeley the 3.70-3.99 band drew 3.1%, against 17.0% in the band above. At UC San Diego the same step is 9.3% against 45.2%. At UC Davis it is 31.1% against 65.9%.

At the other end of the system, a strong record still lands well. UC Riverside admitted 14,915 students in the 3.70-3.99 band at a 95.6% rate. UC Santa Cruz admitted 13,437 in that band at 90.7%. A student in that range has real, named choices inside the UC system.

We read this table as a floor map, not a cutoff. A 4.00-plus GPA puts a student in the pool at Berkeley and UCLA. It does not place the student. The rest of the file, major and residency, does the placing.

What happens to a student with a GPA under 3.70?

In Fall 2025, a California resident in the 3.30-3.69 band was admitted at a 96.3% rate at UC Merced, 82.6% at UC Riverside and 43.8% at UC Santa Cruz. At UCLA the same band drew 0.5%, and at UC Berkeley 0.8%.

The counts matter as much as the rates. UC Riverside admitted 12,240 students from that band and UC Santa Cruz admitted 5,702. UCLA admitted 95. These are not small differences in degree; they are different systems.

The 3.00-3.29 band is sharper still. UC Merced admitted 4,773 at 94.1% and UC Riverside admitted 4,139 at 62.6%. UC Santa Cruz admitted 361 at 6.8%. Every other campus was at or under 1.9%.

Even the lowest band is not empty everywhere. UC Merced admitted 736 students with a GPA under 3.00, at a 36.2% rate. UC Riverside admitted 359 at 11.6%. A family with a 2.9 student has a UC path, and it runs through those two campuses or through transfer.

What this means at home is simple. A list for a 3.5 student should be built around Merced, Riverside and Santa Cruz, with Davis as the stretch at a 10.3% rate. Adding Berkeley or UCLA to that list costs application fees and adds no real odds.

Is it easier to get into a UC as an out-of-state student?

At six of nine campuses, yes. UC Davis admitted out-of-state applicants at 63.2% against 37.2% for California residents in Fall 2025. UC Irvine was 47.4% against 21.9%, UC Santa Barbara 54.8% against 32.1%, and UC San Diego 39.2% against 24.6%.

UC Santa Cruz ran 84.0% for out-of-state students and 71.0% for Californians. UC Riverside ran 88.8% against 86.9%. The gap is widest at the mid-sized campuses that are building nonresident enrollment.

Berkeley and UCLA are the exception and they are the famous ones. UC Berkeley admitted 10.3% of its 30,172 out-of-state applicants and 13.6% of its 72,685 Californians. UCLA admitted 11.2% of 31,573 out-of-state applicants and 9.6% of 89,349 Californians.

UC Merced also flips the pattern, at 96.3% for Californians and 83.9% for out-of-state students. Merced is a campus built for California demand first.

For an out-of-state family, the message is that UC is reachable, but not at the two campuses everyone names. Davis, Irvine, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz are where the numbers lean your way. Nonresident tuition is a separate question from odds.

How hard is UC for international applicants?

Systemwide, international applicants were admitted at 68.3% in Fall 2025, against 76.8% for California residents and 61.7% for out-of-state students. The spread at the system level is smaller than most families expect.

Campus by campus, the picture splits. UC Riverside admitted 82.1% of its 6,377 international applicants and UC Merced admitted 80.0% of 4,843. UC Santa Cruz was at 71.9%, higher than its 71.0% rate for Californians.

Then come the hard ones. UC Berkeley admitted 1,391 of 23,973 international applicants, a 5.8% rate. UCLA admitted 1,526 of 24,137, a 6.3% rate. Both are lower than those campuses' rates for California residents.

UC San Diego sits in between, at 29.5% for international applicants against 24.6% for Californians. UC Davis at 56.1% and UC Santa Barbara at 47.7% are both well above their in-state rates.

An international family should read the mid-tier campuses as the real targets. Berkeley drew 23,973 applicants from abroad and admitted 1,391 of them. The same effort spread across Davis, Irvine and Santa Barbara produces a very different set of letters.

Which UC major is the hardest to get into?

Nursing Science at UC Irvine is the hardest in this file, with 57 admits out of 7,079 applicants, a 1% rate. The 25th-percentile admitted GPA was 4.27 and the 75th was 4.34.

Public Health at UC Berkeley follows, with 74 admits from 3,415 applicants at 2%. Then Aerospace Engineering at UC Berkeley, 95 admits from 2,890 at 3%, and Art at UCLA, 46 admits from 1,404 at 3%.

Art at UCLA is the row that surprises people. Its 25th-percentile GPA is 3.78, the lowest in the top rows, and its 75th is 4.14. A portfolio and an audition carry weight there that a transcript cannot.

The famous technical majors sit just below. Computer Science at UC Berkeley admitted 283 of 7,215 at 4%. Mechanical Engineering at UC Berkeley admitted 252 of 6,148 at 4%, and UCLA admitted 239 of 6,082 at 4%.

These rates are for the major, not the campus. UC admits to the campus, not the major, at most programs, and UCOP calls this a guide to selectivity rather than a predictor. Still, a 1% program is a long shot no matter how the admit is coded.

Does the major a student names change the odds?

It can change them by a factor of ten at the same campus. At UC San Diego, Computer Science admitted 672 of 6,464 applicants at 10%, while the campus admitted California residents at 24.6% overall.

At UC Berkeley the spread inside one campus is wide. Computer Science ran 4% and Data Science ran 14%, with 346 admits from 2,535 applicants. Undeclared at Berkeley ran 14%, with 1,214 admits from 8,862 applicants, the largest admit count in our major table.

Humanities and social science majors at Berkeley and UCLA are not the soft landing families imagine. Psychology at UC Berkeley ran 5% with 343 admits from 6,361 applicants. English at UCLA ran 10% and Philosophy at UCLA ran 10%.

Even undeclared tracks at UCLA stay tight. Undeclared - Social Science ran 6%, Undeclared - Humanities 7%, Undeclared - Physical Science 7% and Undeclared - Life Science 9%. There is no side door at that campus.

The family takeaway is to name the major on purpose. A student aimed at engineering should know that UC Berkeley Chemical Engineering ran 13% while Aerospace ran 3%. Those are different applications, not different versions of the same one.

What GPA do admitted students in the toughest majors actually have?

In the hardest majors, the 25th-percentile weighted, capped GPA mostly sits between 4.10 and 4.27. UC Irvine Nursing Science reports 4.27 at the 25th and 4.34 at the 75th, the highest pair in our table.

UCLA engineering clusters just under that. Mechanical Engineering reports 4.25 and 4.32, Civil Engineering 4.25 and 4.33, Chemical Engineering 4.25 and 4.33, and Computer Engineering 4.24 and 4.30.

UC Berkeley runs a touch lower across the board. Computer Science reports 4.20 and 4.29, Business Administration 4.20 and 4.30, Economics 4.13 and 4.28, and Legal Studies 4.10 and 4.30.

The arts are the clear exception. Art at UCLA reports 3.78 and 4.14, Dance at UCLA 3.81 and 4.22, Theater at UCLA 4.00 and 4.24, and Art at UC Santa Barbara 3.85 and 4.14. Those programs read a body of work.

A 25th-percentile figure means one in four admitted students came in below it. A 4.10 does not end an engineering application at Berkeley. It does mean the rest of the file has to do more of the talking.

How many students actually apply to each UC campus?

UCLA drew the largest California resident pool in Fall 2025, with 89,349 applicants, followed by UC San Diego at 87,574 and UC Irvine at 86,250. UC Berkeley drew 72,685 and UC Santa Barbara 74,659.

Add the other two groups and the totals grow. UCLA also saw 31,573 out-of-state and 24,137 international applicants. UC Berkeley saw 30,172 out-of-state and 23,973 international.

The smaller campuses are small on the nonresident side above all. UC Merced had 1,483 out-of-state applicants and UC Riverside had 3,153. Those campuses admitted 1,244 and 2,801 of them.

Systemwide, 130,877 California residents applied and 100,569 were admitted somewhere, a 76.8% rate. That number is the one to hold onto when the news sounds grim. Most California applicants get a UC offer.

One caution before you add columns. Systemwide residency rows are applicant-deduplicated while campus rows are not, so a student who applied to six campuses appears six times in the campus rows. The campus totals cannot be summed into the system total.

What are the chances of transferring into a UC?

For Fall 2026, UC admitted 32,360 of 46,476 unique transfer applicants systemwide. Campus rates ran from 20.0% at Berkeley to 79.5% at Merced, with Riverside at 70.4% and Santa Cruz at 67.7%.

Fall 2025 looked much the same. Berkeley admitted 5,603 of 23,313 at 24.0%, Los Angeles admitted 6,403 of 28,239 at 22.7%, and systemwide UC admitted 31,014 of 44,666 transfer applicants.

Mid-tier campuses are the transfer engine. For Fall 2026, San Diego admitted 12,473 at 47.4%, Santa Barbara admitted 11,620 at 61.6%, Davis admitted 10,138 at 58.2% and Irvine admitted 9,839 at 36.4%.

Compare transfer rates with first-year rates and the case gets strong. UC San Diego admitted 24.6% of California first-year applicants for Fall 2025 but 52.8% of transfer applicants. UC Santa Barbara was 32.1% against 58.9%.

One number in the transfer table is not literal. Merced's Fall 2025 rate of 100.9% comes from 3,730 admits against 3,696 applicants, because UCOP counted applicants in January and admits in June. Read it as very high, not as more than everyone.

Do community college students have an advantage at UC?

They hold most of the seats. For Fall 2026, 91% of UC's transfer admits came from California community colleges, and UC admitted about 29,400 California community college transfers, an all-time high.

The campus shares are even higher in places. For Fall 2026, Santa Cruz and Merced both report a 97% community college share, Riverside and Irvine 96%, and Berkeley 93%. San Diego is the lowest at 89%.

Fall 2025 was built the same way. UC admitted about 27,800 California community college transfers that year, and campus shares ran from 90% at San Diego to 96% at Santa Cruz.

Six campuses offer the Transfer Admission Guarantee: Davis, Irvine, Merced, Riverside, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz. A guarantee is a different kind of promise than a 36.4% rate, and it is signed before the application goes in.

For a family looking at a 3.3 GPA junior, this is the plan with the best math in the whole pack. Two years at a California community college, then a TAG agreement, beats a first-year application to a campus that admitted 95 students from that GPA band.

Which UC campuses should a California family actually apply to?

Start with the four campuses that admitted more than seven in ten California residents in Fall 2025: UC Merced at 96.3%, UC Riverside at 86.9% and UC Santa Cruz at 71.0%. Systemwide, 76.8% of California applicants were admitted somewhere.

Then add the middle. UC Davis admitted 37.2% of Californians, UC Santa Barbara 32.1%, UC San Diego 24.6% and UC Irvine 21.9%. These four are where a strong 4.0-plus student has a real and reasonable shot.

Berkeley at 13.6% and UCLA at 9.6% belong on the list as reaches, not as the center of it. Even in the 4.00-and-above band, Berkeley's rate was 17.0% and UCLA's was 15.1%.

Match the major to the campus while you are at it. A student set on computer science can see UC Berkeley at 4%, UCLA at 7% and UC San Diego at 10% in the same table. All three are hard; they are not equally hard.

A balanced UC list for a California student usually means two reaches, three middles and two campuses from the high-rate group. That shape costs the same in fees as seven reaches and ends in an offer far more often.

What do these numbers not tell you?

They do not predict one student's outcome, and UCOP says so plainly: the major table is a guide to selectivity, not a predictor. UC admits to the campus, not the major, at most programs.

The GPA table uses UC's weighted, capped GPA for California residents only. There is no band table here for out-of-state or international students, so a family outside California cannot look up their own GPA odds in it.

The transfer rates are ours, not UCOP's. UCOP publishes raw counts and, for Fall 2026 only, the community college share. We divided one file by another, and those two files were issued months apart. That is why Merced's Fall 2025 rate lands at 100.9%.

The major table is also partial. We show the first 50 of the 60 rows we hold, and those 60 are the first 60 of 439 rows. Majors with fewer than 300 applicants are out entirely, so small programs are missing.

Final Fall 2025 transfer figures, which UCOP reported in December 2025, were not used here. Only the June 2025 preliminary data appear. Numbers can shift between the preliminary and final counts.

Related: UC Fall 2026 admissions brief · Admit rate by major at UCLA · The Berkeley Exception · Family Decision Report