Most families researching the University of California system fixate on one number, the campus acceptance rate. UCLA admits 9 percent of applicants. UC Merced admits 94 percent. That spread is real, but it hides a second layer of selectivity that gets far less attention and can be just as decisive. The discipline a student lists on the application often swings the odds more than people expect, and sometimes more than the campus itself.
We pulled five years of UC admissions data broken out by broad discipline, Fall 2021 through Fall 2025, and looked at admit rates, admitted-student GPA ranges, and yield. The patterns underneath the campus headlines are sharp enough to change how a list gets built. At the same campus, in the same cycle, an applicant’s intended major can move the admit rate several times over, and at the extreme by a factor of ten.
The Discipline Gap
Take UC Berkeley in Fall 2025. The campus admitted 11 percent of applicants overall. Inside that average, the range was wide. Arts and humanities applicants got in at 25 percent, more than double the campus rate. Life sciences and physical sciences each landed at 16 percent. Social sciences matched the overall rate at 9 percent. Computer science came in at 6 percent, business at 5 percent, engineering at 7 percent. A Berkeley engineering applicant faced roughly a quarter of the odds of someone applying to the same campus in the humanities.
The same split shows up elsewhere. At UCLA, where the overall rate was 9 percent, nursing admitted just 1 percent of applicants while life sciences ran comparatively open at 13 percent, and computer science and engineering each sat at 7 percent. At UC San Diego, 28 percent overall, engineering was 19 percent and computer science 20 percent, both well under the campus average, while physical sciences came in at 39 percent.
What makes this useful to applicants is that two students with the same GPA and the same profile can face very different odds based only on the major box they check. The data is public, but few families build it into their plans.
| Campus | Overall | Engineering | Computer science | Least selective listed |
| UC Berkeley | 11% | 7% | 6% | Arts & humanities, 25% |
| UCLA | 9% | 7% | 7% | Life sciences, 13% |
| UC San Diego | 28% | 19% | 20% | Physical sciences, 39% |
| UC Santa Barbara | 38% | 21% | ~34% | Physical sciences, 55% |
| UC Davis | 44% | 39% | 19% | Physical sciences, 60% |
Admit rates for the most-discussed campuses, Fall 2025, drawn from the figures cited in this article. Nursing, near 1 percent at both UCLA and UC Irvine, is the single most selective program in the system. Santa Cruz CS and engineering are omitted here pending a source check (see note in the campus section).
Why Engineering and Computer Science Are the Tightest Admits
The clearest story in the data is how hard computer science and engineering have become at the most selective UC campuses. Berkeley’s CS admit rate has sat between 4 and 6 percent since 2022, routinely below the campus’s overall rate. UCLA’s CS program fell to 3 percent in Fall 2023 before climbing back to 7 percent in 2025. The premium reaches the mid-tier campuses too. UC Davis admitted 19 percent of CS applicants in 2025 against 44 percent overall.
Engineering follows the same line. Berkeley’s College of Engineering admitted 7 percent in 2025, close to the campus rate but drawn from a much larger pool, with more than 25,000 applications for engineering alone. UCLA engineering also came in at 7 percent.
The driver is demand. Engineering applications to Berkeley grew from roughly 22,000 in 2021 to more than 25,000 in 2025, and interest in computing has outrun the capacity of universities to add faculty, lab space, and course sections. STEM-focused students end up filtered twice, once by the campus and again by the department.
Nursing sits in a category of its own. At both UCLA and UC Irvine, nursing admits roughly 1 percent of applicants, which makes it more competitive than any other program in the UC system, including Berkeley’s most selective divisions. These programs enroll tiny cohorts, on the order of 29 to 39 students, and almost everyone admitted enrolls, with yields running from 68 to 94 percent.
What Admitted Students’ GPAs Actually Look Like
The UC system uses a weighted, capped GPA that adds up to eight extra grade points for honors, AP, IB, and UC-transferable college courses taken in the sophomore and junior years, so the ceiling sits well above 4.0. At the most selective campus-and-discipline pairings, the floor for admitted students is high. Berkeley’s admitted computer science students in Fall 2025 ran from 4.20 at the 25th percentile to 4.29 at the 75th, a very narrow band. Engineering was almost identical, 4.20 to 4.30.
Arts and humanities admits at Berkeley ranged more widely, 4.06 to 4.27, which leaves more room for the rest of the application to carry weight. At UCLA the tightest bands belonged to engineering, 4.25 to 4.32, and life sciences, 4.21 to 4.30, both effectively requiring near-perfect weighted GPAs.
Lower down the selectivity ladder the GPA picture loosens without disappearing. UC Davis engineering admits ranged from 4.08 to 4.28, social sciences from 4.00 to 4.24. At UC Riverside, the most accessible of the established campuses, life sciences admits ran from 3.68 to 4.04, a range that finally reaches students whose unweighted grades sit closer to the A and A-minus line.
For counselors and families, the takeaway is that GPA alone rarely predicts admission once you account for discipline. A 4.15 weighted GPA looks strong for many programs at UC San Diego or UC Irvine, but it falls below the 25th percentile for CS and engineering at Berkeley and UCLA. Telling a student to aim for a 4.0 misses the real benchmark, which depends on the specific campus-and-discipline pair.
Yield, and Where Admitted Students Choose to Go
Yield, the share of admitted students who actually enroll, gets little attention but reveals real preference. Berkeley’s computer science yield was 63 percent in 2025, meaning nearly two-thirds of admitted CS students picked Berkeley over everything else. Engineering yield was 56 percent. Those figures rival the yields of top private universities. Arts and humanities yield at Berkeley, by comparison, was 44 percent, and physical sciences 47 percent.
At UCLA, life sciences yield reached 53 percent and business 50 percent. Nursing yield was 94 percent, which is to say essentially every admitted student enrolled.
The pattern inverts at the more accessible campuses. UC Santa Barbara’s CS program yielded just 9 percent, and UC Davis’s CS yield was 8 percent, so more than nine in ten admitted students went elsewhere. For applicants who do want those campuses, the low yield works in their favor. A program that loses most of its admits has to offer far more seats than it can fill, which pushes the admit rate up.
Across the system the relationship holds. The most selective campus-and-discipline combinations carry the highest yields, the most accessible ones the lowest. That hierarchy is worth keeping in view while building a list.
Choosing a Major Strategically
Applying in arts and humanities or social sciences at a competitive campus does raise raw admit chances against engineering or CS, and the data is blunt about it. The Berkeley gap between humanities at 25 percent and CS at 6 percent is large. The catch is that UC readers evaluate applications within discipline pools, and an applicant whose entire profile points at engineering will draw questions about fit if they apply under humanities.
There are honest moves for students with real cross-disciplinary interests. Someone drawn to both biology and data work might apply in statistics, which falls under physical sciences and math at 16 percent at Berkeley rather than computer science at 6 percent, and find the curriculum fits. A student interested in environmental policy might enter through social sciences rather than engineering. These reflect the ordinary fact that most students hold more than one legitimate academic interest, not a trick.
One strategy deserves a direct warning. At most competitive UC campuses the highest-demand majors are formally impacted or capped, and switching into them after enrolling is difficult to impossible. Berkeley’s College of Engineering does not, in most years, take internal transfers from the College of Letters and Science. UCLA’s Samueli School of Engineering and its CS program are similarly closed, with internal transfer spots in the single digits when they exist at all. UC San Diego caps CS, data science, and several engineering majors behind a screening sequence of prerequisites with minimum GPAs that can top 3.5. UC Irvine designates CS, engineering, informatics, nursing, and several business tracks as impacted, with change-of-major petitions subject to capacity limits and GPA thresholds that move year to year.
The walls are rising further down the ladder too. UC Davis now runs a selective declaration process for CS, and UC Santa Barbara screens engineering pre-majors through gateway courses with GPA cutoffs. The practical result is that a student who enrolls at Berkeley or UCLA in a humanities or social-science major intending to switch into CS or engineering will most likely find the door locked. Counselors should say this plainly. If the goal is computer science or engineering, the student needs to apply directly to those programs as a first-year applicant at every campus where they want the option. Using a softer major as a side entrance into an impacted program is a route that, in most cases, no longer works.
The undeclared option looks the same under scrutiny. At UCLA, undeclared admits at 7 percent, the same as CS and engineering, and undeclared students land in the College of Letters and Science, from which moving into engineering or nursing is nearly impossible. At Berkeley, undeclared came in at 12 percent, a touch above the overall rate, but undeclared students hit the same impaction walls when they try to declare a capped major. At UC San Diego, undeclared was 35 percent against 28 percent overall, yet students still have to clear capped-major prerequisites to enter CS or engineering. At the most competitive campuses, undeclared is not a backdoor. At the mid-tier campuses, where fewer majors are impacted, it offers more genuine flexibility.
Campus-by-Campus Notes
UC Berkeley
The widest discipline spread in the system in Fall 2025, from business at 5 percent to arts and humanities at 25 percent. Engineering drew more than 25,000 applicants, the largest single-discipline pool at any UC campus, and admitted 7 percent. Its CS yield of 63 percent was the highest of any competitive discipline anywhere in the system.
UCLA
Nursing, at 1 percent with a 94 percent yield, is the single most selective program in the UC system. CS and engineering each admitted 7 percent. Life sciences, the campus’s largest program by enrollment at 1,657 students, admitted 13 percent with a 53 percent yield, which makes it UCLA’s most realistic STEM target for strong applicants.
UC San Diego
Engineering at 19 percent and CS at 20 percent both run well below the 28 percent campus average. Physical sciences at 39 percent is a more open route into STEM. Business has grown more competitive, at 21 percent.
UC Irvine
Business is Irvine’s most competitive non-nursing discipline at 16 percent, helped along by its location in Orange County’s business economy. CS came in at 28 percent, much more reachable than at Berkeley or UCLA. Nursing, as at UCLA, admits about 1 percent.
UC Santa Barbara
Engineering at 21 percent runs well under the 38 percent campus average. CS and arts and humanities both sit near 34 to 35 percent. Physical sciences, at 55 percent, is one of the more open STEM options in the system.
UC Davis
CS is the most competitive discipline here at 19 percent, with business next at 26 percent. Physical sciences is notably open at 60 percent, and life sciences at 50 percent is a strong landing spot for pre-med students who want a UC research setting.
UC Santa Cruz, Riverside, and Merced
At these campuses the discipline-level swings are smaller because the overall rates are so high. The STEM premium still shows at Riverside, where CS at 81 percent runs below the 87 percent campus average. At Santa Cruz the reported CS and engineering figures sit at or above the campus rate, which runs against the system-wide pattern and against Santa Cruz’s own capped CS major, so those two numbers are worth re-checking against the source data before publication. Merced’s engineering, at 97 percent, stays effectively open.
Practical Guidance for Counselors and Families
- Look up discipline-level data, not just the campus rate. The University of California publishes admit statistics by broad discipline for every campus and year. Before locking a list, check the rate for the intended major at each campus. Applying to UC San Diego in engineering at 19 percent is a different proposition from applying in social sciences at 26 percent.
- Build the list with discipline selectivity in mind. An engineering applicant who treats UC Davis as a safety at 39 percent in engineering and lists only Berkeley and UCLA as reaches has a thin margin. Adding UC Santa Barbara at 21 percent and UC San Diego at 19 percent as further competitive targets, with Riverside and Santa Cruz as genuine safeties, makes for a sturdier list.
- Set GPA targets by discipline. A 4.10 weighted GPA clears the 25th percentile for most disciplines at Davis, Irvine, and San Diego, but falls short for CS and engineering at Berkeley and UCLA. Anchor the target to the campus-and-discipline pair, not the campus alone.
- Read yield as a signal. Low-yield programs have to admit more students to fill a class, which can work in an applicant’s favor. A student who genuinely wants CS at UC Davis or UC Santa Barbara should know that many admitted peers will go elsewhere, so the campus has reason to extend the offer.
- Keep the major choice authentic. Readers judge each application inside a discipline pool and can tell when a stated interest does not match the rest of the file. Real cross-disciplinary interests are fair to use. A profile that points entirely at engineering should not arrive under a humanities label.
- Do not count on switching into an impacted major later. If the goal is CS or engineering, apply directly to those programs everywhere the student wants them. Change-of-major rules vary widely and some are closed outright. A student admitted to Berkeley’s Letters and Science cannot move into the College of Engineering, and a UCLA undeclared admit cannot switch into nursing or, in most years, engineering.
Building a Stronger UC List
The discipline-level data shows a landscape with far more texture than the campus headlines suggest. A 5 percent admit rate and a 25 percent admit rate at the same campus mark the difference between a long shot and a reasonable target. Families and counselors who fold this into their planning end up with lists that are both more ambitious and more realistic, and they avoid treating a hard major at a hard campus as a safe bet.
The information is sitting in public, the patterns hold steady year to year, and the moves they suggest are concrete. In a system that takes more than a million applications a year, knowing where a major lands on the curve is one of the few edges a family can build before the application ever goes in. If you want help turning these numbers into a balanced campus list, that is the kind of work a counselor can do with you.
Data is drawn from the University of California’s public admissions data by broad discipline for all nine undergraduate campuses, Fall 2021 through Fall 2025. Figures cover first-year applicants, admits, and enrollees, along with 25th to 75th percentile weighted-capped GPA ranges. Supplementary context on overall selectivity, cost, and earnings draws on IPEDS, the College Scorecard, and PayScale. Some disciplines with very small cell sizes are omitted in line with UC reporting practice.
