The University of California offered seats to a record number of Californians this year, according to new statistics released Wednesday, as it faces scrutiny over its admissions practices, including pressure from Sacramento to enroll more out-of-state citizens and investigations by the Trump administration.
UC admitted 102,031 first-year California students in the fall, an increase of 1,458 from last year. In another record, it offered seats to 29,372 transfer students from California community colleges.
Overall, the nine-campus program accepted 78% of Californians who applied as first-year students. But acceptance rates vary widely among campuses across the state.
UC Berkeley and UCLA each accepted about one in 10 applicants. UC Davis took about half of those applicants. Merced admitted almost everyone who met UC’s academic requirements.
The university’s agreement with the government links its funding to student growth. The program must add at least 1% more California undergraduates each year. UC exceeds that, and says it is on track to reach its goal of enrolling fewer than 217,000 students who live in California by 2030. There were 200,532 California undergraduates who studied at UC last fall, among a total of 237,616 undergraduates and 301,093 students overall.
“For generations, a University of California education has been one of the state’s most powerful engines of social mobility, opening doors to talented students from all backgrounds and regions of the state,” UC President James B. Milliken said in a statement. “The record number of California students we are welcoming this year demonstrates UC’s continued commitment to expanding opportunity while preparing the next generation of leaders, innovators, educators and public servants.”
Race, income and government research
The admissions figures mark the first full admissions cycle UC has conducted since the organization’s investigators began examining its use of race in admissions. The Department of Justice opened inquiries at the Berkeley, Irvine and Los Angeles campuses in March 2025.
In addition, the department this year accused UCLA, Davis and San Diego medical schools of favoring Black and Latino applicants over whites and Asian Americans, and joined a federal suit against UCLA over the case. UC denies the charges and said it was following California’s ban on affirmative action, which has been in place for nearly three decades.
The racial composition of the latter class tends to change slightly from year to year. Black, Asian and white students rose slightly. Latino students, still the largest group at 38%, decreased by 37 students. Native Americans and Pacific Islanders agree, the two smallest groups, each down about 7%.
The campus-by-campus numbers showed significant shifts from year to year.
Berkeley admitted 87 fewer Black students from California, a 17 percent decrease. Black students make up 4.4% of Berkeley’s California admits. San Diego admitted 699 fewer Latino students, a 10% decrease, while Asian admissions increased by 642. Davis admitted 1,232 minority Californians, including several black, Latino, white and Asian students. Santa Cruz admitted another 1,249 black students.
UC said it admitted a large proportion of students from low-income families, 43%, which is an increase of one percentage point over last year. But part of that comes from changing how low income is defined. This year, a household earning at or below $85,000 is considered low income. Last year, the cutoff was $75,000. UC sets the threshold at 30 percent of California household income, recalculating each year using data from the US Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The share of those who agreed that they would be the first in their family to attend college fell by one point to 41%. In total, UC admitted 42,277 first-generation Californians.
What does the 78% rate mean.
The 78% acceptance rate reflects the percentage of California residents who applied for admission the first year and were accepted to any of the nine campuses, not their first choice.
Of all applicants, including transfer, out-of-state and international students, UC accepted 74%.
Berkeley accepted 10.5% of all first-year applicants. UCLA admitted 10.8%. San Diego took 27% and Irvine took 30%.
In Santa Barbara and Davis, the acceptance rates for all applicants were 44% and 46%, respectively. Santa Cruz received 82%, Riverside 89% and Merced 97%.
This year, Berkeley was the hardest UC campus to get into. For most of the past decade, UCLA has been a highly selective program, including last year with an acceptance rate of 9.4%. This year UCLA admitted 2,243 more first-year students and Berkeley admitted 484 fewer.
Among California-only applicants, UCLA remains the strongest campus, at 10% compared to Berkeley’s 12%.
Two factors have increased the penetration rate of the entire system. First, the applicant pool all but stopped growing. UC received just 273 more first-year applications than last year, and applications from Californians dropped by 496.
Second, campuses with a lot of room must grow, over the years, and change the way they hire. In recent years, Riverside and Merced have increased their numbers by following students who met UC’s admission requirements but did not include those campuses in their UC fall applications. Riverside and Merced invited students to add schools for free in December, weeks after the deadline and before any campus made decisions. Those students are then reviewed and notified along with everyone who applied in the fall. Santa Cruz joined that trend this year.
Santa Cruz welcomed 54,157 first-year California students, 45% more than last year. Riverside admitted 55,914, up 4%. This year, Merced admitted 636 minority Californians.
Californians often hold offers from several campuses before choosing one, and many choose less selective campuses as backups while waiting for seats at UCLA and Berkeley.
Transfer admissions have increased significantly this year. UC admitted 29,372 community college transfer students, up 6% from last year. California community colleges provide almost all UC transfers, as they have for years.
“There is no one path to UC Berkeley, but we are very proud that more than 93% of our incoming transfer students come from California community colleges,” said John Marfield, Berkeley’s associate vice chancellor and director of graduate admissions.
Emily D. Engelschall, associate vice chancellor for enrollment services at UC Riverside, said the campus accepted 13 percent of community college transfers.
“With our number of transfers, it is absolutely intended to do what we can to increase the number of students who apply,” he said.
Engelschall said Inland Empire community colleges were slow to recover from the pandemic but have begun rebuilding their transfer pipelines. “I think we’re finally starting to see that open up a little bit,” Engelschall said.
At Santa Monica College, which has sent more students to UC than any other community college for decades, administrators say UC’s demand remains strong.
“Individuals and families still see transferring to one of their campuses as a great cost-saving strategy and a path to a great education,” said Janet Robinson, SMC’s transfer leader.
International students
UC welcomed more international students for the third year in a row. Offers to first-year applicants worldwide increased by 6% to 23,569, up from 17,420 in 2023. Last year they increased by 17%.
But program leaders expect few of them to set foot on campus.
The Trump administration’s policies have tightened visa regulations, limited financial aid and increased monitoring of international students, making them less likely to enroll. Campuses have tried to offset the appeal by offering more seats to the full-tuition non-resident group. Last year about 27% of admitted international students ended up enrolling, compared to about 42% of admitted Californians.
Riverside has little room to absorb that risk, Engelschall said, and has reduced international first-year revenue by 3%.
Berkeley and San Diego also cut international recognition. Santa Barbara increased its numbers, from 8,998 first-year international admissions to 12,024.
Times photo editor Sean Greene contributed to this report.
