UC System Admits Record Number of California Students for Fall 2026
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UC System Admits Record Number of California Students for Fall 2026
- The University of California system offered admission to 102,031 California first-year students for Fall 2026, marking a record high and an increase of 1,458 from the previous year.
- This year, UC Berkeley was slightly more selective than UCLA for first-year applicants, with acceptance rates of 10.5% and 10.8%, respectively, across all applicants.
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The University of California (UC) system has announced a record number of admissions for California residents for the Fall 2026 academic year. The system extended offers to 102,031 California first-year students, an increase of 1,458 from Fall 2025. Additionally, a record 29,372 transfer students from California community colleges were admitted. Overall, the nine undergraduate campuses admitted 78% of California first-year applicants.
Despite the overall increase, acceptance rates varied significantly across the campuses. UC Berkeley admitted 10.5% of all its first-year applicants, making it slightly more selective than UCLA, which admitted 10.8%. In contrast, UC Merced accepted 97% of its first-year applicants, UC Riverside 89%, and UC Santa Cruz 82%. UC Davis admitted 46% of applicants, while UC Santa Barbara admitted 44%, UC Irvine 30%, and UC San Diego 27%.
The UC system is under pressure from state officials in Sacramento to enroll more California residents, with a compact tying state funding increases to at least a 1% annual growth in California undergraduate enrollment. The UC system states it is on track to meet its goal of enrolling 217,000 California resident undergraduates by 2030. These admission figures are preliminary and do not reflect final enrollment data, which will be released in December 2026.
The Trump administration has also been scrutinizing UC admissions practices, with investigations into several campuses, including UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UC Irvine, regarding compliance with the Supreme Court’s ban on race-based affirmative action. Separately, the UC San Diego School of Medicine, along with medical schools at Stanford and Ohio State, faced investigations regarding race considerations in admissions.