UCLA Admissions: How Applications Are Evaluated
Los Angeles, California · Private
Published:
Avg GPA
4.60
Early Program
NA
Test Policy
Test Blind
Rebecca J.
Harvard & UCLA Graduate
What is UCLA's acceptance rate?
UCLA admitted 9.4% of first-year applicants for Fall 2025, from 145,085 applicants and 13,659 admits. It is the most-applied-to university in the United States, and 48% of admitted students enrolled. That single rate is the figure most often quoted, but it is also the least useful one for planning, because admission at UCLA is decided school by school.
What is UCLA's acceptance rate by school and major?
Your real odds at UCLA depend on which school you apply to, not the overall rate. You apply directly to one of UCLA's schools, and each admits at its own rate. The College of Letters and Science, which most applicants enter, admits at around 11%. The specialty schools are far more selective, and some admit well under the headline figure.
School | Applicants | Admits | Admit rate |
College of Letters and Science | 98,459 | 10,788 | 11% |
Samueli School of Engineering | 33,052 | 2,241 | 6.8% |
School of Nursing | 5,669 | 31 | 0.5% |
School of Theater, Film & Television | 3,293 | 140 | 4.3% |
School of the Arts & Architecture | 3,437 | 177 | 5.1% |
Herb Alpert School of Music | 1,175 | 282 | 24% |
Overall | 145,085 | 13,659 | 9.4% |
The range is the point. Nursing admits roughly one in 200 applicants, engineering about one in 15, and film and television about one in 23, while music admits closer to one in four because its applicant pool is smaller and pre-screened by talent. Applying to the right school for your profile matters as much as the strength of the application itself, and for first-year applicants UCLA does not consider an alternate major, so the school you choose is the school you are judged against.
At UCLA you apply directly to one school, and admit rates range from around 11% for the College to 6.8% for engineering and 0.5% for nursing. There is no alternate major, so choose the school that fits your profile.
How has UCLA's acceptance rate changed over time?
A decade ago, UCLA admitted close to one in five applicants. For Fall 2016 it took 17,474 students from 97,121 applications, a rate around 18%. For Fall 2025 it admitted 13,659 from 145,086, or 9.4%. The rate has roughly halved, and two forces drove it.
The first is application volume. Applications climbed 49% over the decade, with the sharpest jump in Fall 2021, the first cycle after the UC stopped using SAT and ACT scores, when first-year applications rose 28% in a single year. Removing the test requirement opened the pool to students who might not have applied, and the pool has stayed above 145,000 since.
The second is less obvious: UCLA admitted fewer students, not more. Even as applications surged, admit numbers fell from 17,474 in 2016 to 13,659 in 2025, a 22% drop. The entering class itself stayed close to flat, near 6,500 each fall, because UCLA's yield climbed at the same time, from 37% of admits enrolling in 2016 to roughly half today. A higher share of admitted students chose UCLA, so the university could fill the same class while extending fewer offers. More applicants competing for a smaller number of offers is what pushed the rate under 10% in Fall 2022, where it has held since.
Fall | Applications | Admits | Admit rate |
2016 | 97,121 | 17,474 | 18% |
2017 | 102,242 | 16,456 | 16% |
2018 | 113,761 | 15,970 | 14% |
2019 | 111,322 | 13,720 | 12% |
2020 | 108,877 | 15,602 | 14% |
2021 | 139,490 | 15,028 | 11% |
2022 | 149,815 | 12,844 | 9% |
2023 | 145,910 | 12,737 | 9% |
2024 | 146,276 | 13,114 | 9% |
2025 | 145,086 | 13,659 | 9% |
How does UCLA evaluate applications?
UCLA reads holistically, and at a scale few universities match. Every application is read in full by trained readers, scored, and checked for consistency. There's no formula: UCLA's faculty have approved 13 criteria for first-year review, with no fixed weights, so no single line decides your file. Those criteria are contextual by design, readers weigh the opportunities you've had against how fully you've used them, so a student whose school offered few AP courses isn't penalized for taking few.
What the criteria don't reveal is which ones count most, and here UCLA's Common Data Set is clearer. Only three factors are rated "very important": the rigor of your coursework, your academic GPA, and your essays. A tier below sit your activities, talents, character, and work. Test scores and recommendation letters aren't considered at all. That hierarchy is the strategy in miniature, grades and rigor get you taken seriously, and the essays and activities decide it from there.
One distinction matters. Meeting UCLA's requirements and being competitive aren't the same thing. UCLA says plainly that its successful applicants go beyond the minimums, which is why a file that merely clears the eligibility floor rarely survives a pool this strong.
I can never predict where kids are going to get into the University of California. Sometimes they get into all of them, sometimes they get into just one. They have a couple readers; if they disagree, they go to a third reader.
Rebecca J.
Platinum Strategy Consultant
What are UCLA's application requirements?
Every first-year applicant submits the same core application, and the list is shorter than at most private universities. There is no SAT or ACT, and UCLA does not accept letters of recommendation in the regular process.
Requirement | What to submit |
UC application | One application covers all nine undergraduate UC campuses. Includes the 20-entry activities list and your Personal Insight Questions. |
A-G subject requirement | 15 college-preparatory year-long courses, completed with a grade of C or better. |
Self-reported coursework and grades | You report your 10th and 11th grade courses and grades; UCLA verifies them against transcripts only after you enroll. |
Personal Insight Questions | 4 of 8 prompts, up to 350 words each. The same four responses go to every UC you apply to. |
School and major | Apply directly to one school. Alternate majors are not considered for first-year applicants. |
Nursing supplemental | The School of Nursing requires an additional supplemental application beyond the UC application. |
Portfolio or audition | Required by the arts schools (Theater, Film & Television; Arts & Architecture; Music), submitted separately. |
SAT / ACT | Not required and not used. UCLA is test-free. |
Letters of recommendation | Not required or read at the time of application. A campus may request them later in a supplemental review. |
Application fee | $80 per UC campus for domestic applicants, $95 for international. Need-based waivers cover up to four campuses for eligible US citizens, permanent residents, and AB540 students. |
When are UCLA's application deadlines?
UCLA has one path and one timeline. There is no Early Decision and no Early Action, so every applicant files in the same window and hears back at the same time. There is no advantage to submitting on October 1 versus late November, though filing in the final hours risks portal slowdowns.
Milestone | Date |
UC application opens | August 1 |
Filing period | October 1 – November 30 |
Application deadline | November 30 (11:59 PM Pacific) |
Financial aid deadline (FAFSA, Dream Act, Cal Grant GPA verification) | March 2 |
Admission decisions | Late March |
Statement of Intent to Register (commit) | May 1 |
Final transcripts due (enrolled students) | July 1 |
There's no early round to play at UCLA. The ED and EA timing that lifts your odds at private colleges doesn't exist here, so nothing about when you submit changes your chances, only what's in the file does.
Does residency affect UCLA admissions?
Yes, though not in the way most applicants assume. UCLA is a public university funded by California, with a mandate to serve the state, and that shows up most in who enrolls: about 76% of the entering class are California residents. Nonresidents, domestic and international together, make up the remaining quarter.
The bigger effect is on international applicants specifically. UCLA drew more than 24,000 international applications for Fall 2025 and admitted roughly 1,500 of them, a far steeper climb than the overall rate suggests. For a student applying from abroad, UCLA is realistic only with a record that stands out in a very large, very competitive pool. The other real consideration for any nonresident is cost rather than admissions, which we cover in the main UCLA guide.
Admitted vs Enrolled
Admitted Class
California resident63%Domestic resident26%International11%
Source: UCLA Information Center
Enrolled Class
California resident75%Domestic resident16%International9%
Source: UCLA Information Center
Does UCLA have a waitlist?
Yes, and it's a real if uncertain second chance. For Fall 2025, UCLA offered a waitlist place to 20,563 applicants, of whom 13,612 accepted the spot. From that group, 1,514 were eventually admitted, roughly one in nine of those who opted in. The waitlist is not ranked, so accepting a place doesn't put you in a queue, and decisions are released only after the May 1 commitment deadline, sometimes well into the summer.
The number admitted off the waitlist swings from year to year and depends entirely on how many admitted students decline their offers, which you can't control. Treat a waitlist offer as a genuine possibility worth accepting, but commit to another school by May 1 and plan as though the waitlist won't come through.
Your next step
UCLA's overall rate is the number you'll see quoted everywhere, and it's the one that matters least to your planning. Three things move your actual odds more than the headline 9.4%. The school you apply to sets the bar you're judged against, and it can swing from around 11% to under 1%. The strength of your file against a pool where near-perfect grades are common means the read turns on rigor, essays, and what you've done outside class, not the transcript alone. And the absence of an early round means there's no timing lever to pull, only the file itself.
The practical sequence follows from that. Confirm the school and major that fit your profile before anything else, since that choice is half the battle. Then build the academic record that clears UCLA's bar, and put real work into the activities and Personal Insight Questions that decide outcomes once grades are equal. Start with the guide that matches where you are:
— Academic requirements — the GPA you need, how UCLA calculates it, the test-free policy, and course rigor.
— Personal Insight Questions — the prompts, what UCLA reads them for, and example essays from admits.