We all know that top-ranked UC campuses, such as UC Berkeley and UCLA, although their average admission rate has hovered around 20%, still attract a wave of eager transfer applicants from California community colleges.
However, due to new policies implemented by the UC system in recent years and the limited resources of public universities, each UC campus has become increasingly strict in its admission standards, and acceptance rates have been dropping year after year, even reaching new lows. In this fierce competition, many students with a 4.0 GPA still failed to get into these two schools.
UC Berkeley admission data
UC Los Angeles admission data
In fact, undergraduate programs at UCB and UCLA offer hundreds of different majors, but over half of applications are concentrated in a few majors, such as Economics, Computer Science, Psychology, etc.
For popular majors with high applicant numbers, acceptance rates naturally decline. If your competitiveness is not strong enough, you risk missing out on the opportunity to enter a top school.
Today, CheersYou（清柚教育） will help you sort out the high and low acceptance rate majors at several top-ranked UC campuses, providing some selection ideas for your transfer applications.
UC Transfer High-Acceptance Majors
UC Berkeley
Acceptance rates over 40%
American Studies 58%
Philosophy 51%
History of Art 53%
Art 42%
French 50%
Comparative Literature 53%
East Asian Religion, Thought and Cultures 53%
South& Southeast Asian Studies 70%
Italian Studies 71%
…………
UC Los Angeles
Acceptance rates over 40%
Japanese 51%
Asian American Studies 75%
Gender Studies 40%
Geography 51%
Geography/Enviromental Science 50%
Pre-Mathematics of computational 45%
Linguistic- English 47%
Philosophy 41%
Art History 41%
Labor Studies 61%
…………
UC San Diego
Acceptance rates over 50%
Environmental Systems – Enviromental chemistry 70%
Bioengineering(biotech) 60%
Studio Art 62%
Mathematics -scientific computation 67%
Probability and statistics 70%
Oceanic and atmospheric science 73%
Psychology 58%
Public health 66%
International studies-economics 66%
…………
UC Irvine
Acceptance rates over 50%
Enviromental Science and Policy 53%
Gender and Sexuaility Studies 73%
Literary Journalism 54%
Art History 70%
Drama 60%
International Studies 55%
Mathematics 61%
English 71%
Psychological Science 79%
……………
UC Santa Barbara
Acceptance rates over 50%
Global Studies 64%
Mathematics 69%
Statistics and Data Science 79%
Economics 58%
Economics and accounting 60%
Financial Mathematics & Statistics 72%
Linguistics 63%
Political Science 55%
…………
UC Davis
Acceptance rates over 50%
Gender, sexuality, and women's studies 78%
Managerial Economics 60%
Communication 64%
Pre-Landscape Architecture 66%
English 72%
Animal Science 63%
Plant Science 63%
Anthropology 71%
Linguistics 80%
…………
It’s not hard to see that at several UC campuses, programs in Asian Studies, American Studies, Linguistics, and other humanistic fields tend to have higher acceptance rates; other majors such as Gender Studies, Arts, etc., also have admission rates above the average.
Language and literature disciplines also often have relatively high transfer acceptance rates, such as Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Spanish, American Literature, etc.
Another interesting point is that mathematics-related majors at various UC campuses also have consistently high acceptance rates, making them very suitable for Chinese international students to apply to.
For example, majors such as Mathematics, Statistics, and Mathematics of Computation have acceptance rates of over 30% or even 40%, even at schools like UCB or UCLA. Students with specific major requirements might consider applying to math-related fields.
Get the complete latest UC transfer admission rates by major summary
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UC Transfer Low-Acceptance Majors
Of course, in addition to the high-acceptance majors introduced above, there are also some popular and extremely difficult majors that require extra attention when applying.
UC Berkeley
Acceptance rates below 10%
Ethnic Studies 9%
Business Administration 4%
Computer Science 4%
Cognitive Science 9%
Psychology 6%
…………
UC Los Angeles
Acceptance rates below 10%
Communication 9%
Computer Science 2%
Computer Engineering 6%
Computer Science & Engineering 7%
Art 8%
Film & Television 1%
Theater 3%
Pre-Business Economics 9%
…………
For instance, Dance, Music, and Arts have acceptance rates above 30% at UCB, while at UCLA they have dropped to single digits.
Popular majors like Computer Science have extremely low acceptance rates regardless of the school, even falling to 2%.
Especially for students whose standardized GPA is not strong enough and whose activity background is not particularly rich, whether to prioritize school prestige or major is something worth careful consideration.
Students must choose carefully when applying for transfer to avoid missing out on the opportunity to enter a top school.
UC Transfer Application Tips
Fortunately, for UC transfers, except for Berkeley, all other campuses allow applicants to apply for two majors.
Therefore, while diversifying your school list, you can also diversify within the same school by selecting majors with different admission difficulties. It is recommended that applicants avoid choosing first and second majors that are very similar or have extremely close admission difficulty.
What kind of transfer students does UC want?
Beyond that, what kind of students are more favored by the admissions office is clearly stated on the UC website. The UC admissions office will review each application based on nine criteria, not just the student's GPA.
The university will comprehensively evaluate applicants' academic performance based on the resources and opportunities available to them and the abilities they have demonstrated.
The following are the nine transfer review criteria from UC Admissions:
1. Complete specific courses to meet General Education (GE) requirements.
2. Complete specific courses that articulate to the student's intended major's upper-division coursework, such as the UC Transfer Pathway, an associate degree for transfer (ADT), or other major prerequisites.
3. GPA in all transferable courses.
4. Participation in academically related honors programs or projects.
5. Special talents, skills, and achievements in a particular field.
6. Any in-class or extracurricular projects completed in college.
7. Academic achievements accomplished in light of your life experiences and special circumstances.
8. The location of your college and your geographic location.
9. Completion of a UC Transfer Pathway or an associate degree (ADT).
Based on the criteria outlined by UC, the review mechanism for transfer students is slightly different from that for freshmen. For freshmen, UC values comprehensive ability, whereas for transfer students, UC places greater emphasis on their major-specific capabilities.
The application cycle for the new year is about to begin; students preparing to apply should start planning their applications as early as possible.
With UC application competition intensifying, we strongly recommend that students plan as early as possible. Only by using resources wisely and effectively can you achieve satisfactory results.
Finally, CheersYou（清柚教育） wishes everyone a smooth application and may everyone receive a satisfactory offer!
