UC's Fall 2026 numbers: a record year for California admits — and a nine-fold spread between campuses

The findings, in plain English

A record year for Californians. 102,031 California high school students received a UC offer for Fall 2026 — the most ever, and 43% of those admits come from families earning about $85,000 or less. 41% would be the first generation in their family to finish college.

The record and the flagships are different stories. The growth in offers came overwhelmingly from the system's more open campuses — Merced admitted 94.7% of applicants, Riverside 88.2%, Santa Cruz 82.1%. UCLA (10.8%) and Berkeley (10.5%) remain as selective as the Ivy League. A family reading "record admits" in a headline and a 10% flagship admit rate are both seeing the truth — about different campuses.

The flagships now split on in-state share. At Berkeley, Californians are 67.6% of first-year admits; at UCLA, 57.3%. Same system, same year — a roughly ten-point gap in how much of the class each flagship hands to in-state students, the divergence education reporters flagged the week the data dropped.

Four takeaways for a family planning applications

1. There is a UC for nearly every strong California student. Merced's admitted middle-50% GPA runs 3.57–4.16 and Riverside's 3.66–4.17 — real UC degrees, high admit rates, and the same UC system name on the diploma. The record year happened at these campuses.
2. The flagships did not get easier. UCLA took 10.8% and Berkeley 10.5% of first-year applicants, with admitted-GPA bands starting at 4.16 weighted. Treat both as reaches for everyone — and read the record-admits headline as being about the system, not about them.
3. The campus admit rate is only half the answer — the major is the other half. At UC San Diego, engineering applicants were admitted at 19% against a 28% campus rate last cycle. Every UC profile on our site now shows admit rates by discipline, and our Family Decision Report judges each college on your student's list against their intended major, not just the campus headline.
4. Preliminary means preliminary. These are offers as of June 17 — waitlist activity through the summer moves final counts, and campus-level rates here will differ slightly from the final federal figures published next year. The shape of the story won't change; individual decimals will.

Method & sources: Systemwide counts (185,632 total admits; 153,272 first-year; 102,031 CA-resident first-year; 27,381 CCC transfer admits; low-income and first-generation shares) are from the UCOP Fall 2026 admissions fact sheet (07.29.26); systemwide totals are unduplicated. Per-campus applicants, admits, and admitted-GPA ranges are from UC's first-year admit data pages (preliminary, as of June 2026). UC Irvine's rate is derived from its published applicant and admit counts. Low-income = weighted household income of roughly $85,000 or less. See our methodology.