Five-year regional analysis
More UC Davis applications, fewer admits in this fixed school group
Across the same 127 Bay Area high schools, UC Davis applications rose from 17,232 in 2021 to 19,124 in 2025, while admits fell from 6,385 to 5,569. The resulting admit rate moved from 37.1% to 29.1%. UCLA’s endpoint rate was nearly unchanged, showing that the four campuses did not move together.
Five years on the same scale
The chart keeps the school group fixed and shows every year. UC Davis’s 2025 rate recovered from 2024 while remaining below 2021. UC Berkeley’s 2024 increase also makes its latest-year decline look different from a simple five-year straight line.
Scroll sideways to see all five years.
Separate application growth from changes in offers
These are changes between Fall 2021 and Fall 2025. Rate differences are in percentage points; changes in applicant and admit counts are percentages relative to 2021. Changes are calculated before rounding.
| Campus | Applicants | Admits | 2021 rate | 2025 rate | Rate change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UCLA | +7.1% | +6.3% | 8.8% | 8.8% | -0.1 pp |
| UC Berkeley | +16.8% | -2.3% | 14.7% | 12.3% | -2.4 pp |
| UC Davis | +11.0% | -12.8% | 37.1% | 29.1% | -7.9 pp |
| UC San Diego | +11.2% | +2.1% | 20.1% | 18.5% | -1.6 pp |
Read your school against its own history
A regional average supplies context. It does not mean an individual school moved in the same direction, or that a campus changed its treatment of that school. Different application choices, majors and applicant profiles remain possible explanations that these counts cannot separate.
Browse the region
These are the nine counties used to define the region. County pages include schools outside the stricter five-year comparison group.
Full reported counts behind the chart
Show all five years of applicants, admits and rates
| Campus | Fall year | Applicants | Admits | Admit rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UCLA | 2021 | 17,319 | 1,530 | 8.8% |
| UCLA | 2022 | 18,823 | 1,704 | 9.1% |
| UCLA | 2023 | 18,471 | 1,613 | 8.7% |
| UCLA | 2024 | 18,828 | 1,607 | 8.5% |
| UCLA | 2025 | 18,548 | 1,627 | 8.8% |
| UC Berkeley | 2021 | 15,674 | 2,304 | 14.7% |
| UC Berkeley | 2022 | 17,826 | 2,381 | 13.4% |
| UC Berkeley | 2023 | 17,888 | 2,396 | 13.4% |
| UC Berkeley | 2024 | 18,085 | 2,671 | 14.8% |
| UC Berkeley | 2025 | 18,310 | 2,251 | 12.3% |
| UC Davis | 2021 | 17,232 | 6,385 | 37.1% |
| UC Davis | 2022 | 18,633 | 6,010 | 32.3% |
| UC Davis | 2023 | 18,552 | 5,969 | 32.2% |
| UC Davis | 2024 | 19,227 | 5,347 | 27.8% |
| UC Davis | 2025 | 19,124 | 5,569 | 29.1% |
| UC San Diego | 2021 | 17,062 | 3,436 | 20.1% |
| UC San Diego | 2022 | 18,750 | 2,958 | 15.8% |
| UC San Diego | 2023 | 18,268 | 3,091 | 16.9% |
| UC San Diego | 2024 | 19,162 | 3,374 | 17.6% |
| UC San Diego | 2025 | 18,972 | 3,509 | 18.5% |
Look up your school’s own results
These study groups have specific reporting requirements. Your school’s profile may still have useful data even if it is outside a study group.
Source, method and limitations
Use the nine Bay Area counties listed in the regional directory. A school must report at least 20 applicants and a valid admit count at all four campuses in every year from 2021 through 2025. The same 127 schools therefore contribute to every campus and every year. This deliberately excludes schools with gaps or small application groups. Schools may have different applicant populations each year, so the fixed school list is not a fixed student population.
Calculated from the site’s existing California public and private high-school records in the University of California admissions by source school dataset. All figures here use individual-campus records. A student may apply to more than one campus, so cross-campus application totals do not represent unique people.
Rates are ratios of summed reported counts, rather than averages of school percentages. Missing or suppressed counts are excluded under the stated rules and are never changed to zero. These are selected school cohorts, not campus-wide acceptance rates. Applicant characteristics can change even when the schools stay the same. Historical outcomes do not predict one student’s chances or show that a particular high school causes an admissions advantage.
Download analyzed counts and cohort school IDs (JSON). The calculation script reproduces the analysis from the existing source records.
For the separate preliminary campus-wide release, see Fall 2026 UC acceptance rates. The source-school methodology guide explains the underlying fields.
Questions about this comparison
Did every UC campus become harder to enter from Bay Area schools?
No uniform pattern appears in this selected cohort. The endpoint changes differ by campus, and rates fluctuate between years. This analysis does not estimate how admission difficulty changed for an otherwise identical student.
Does this cover every Bay Area high school?
No. It covers 127 schools with at least 20 applicants and reported admit counts at each of four campuses in every year from 2021 through 2025. Missing and smaller observations are excluded.
Why show applications as well as acceptance rates?
Admits divided by applicants determines the rate. A changing rate can reflect movement in both counts. Showing only the percentage hides whether the applicant pool expanded or the number of offers changed.