University of California-Santa Cruz's admit rate has risen 20.9 percentage points across the 12 reported years on file.
The headline numbers, drawn from CDS sections A–H.
Per-cycle Common Data Set values. Enrolled is first-year matriculants (CDS B1), not total undergraduate population. Blank cells mean the field was not published in that year's source CDS.
| Year | Admit rate | Enrolled | 6-yr grad | Retention | SAT (50th) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-2026 | 72.7% | 4,596 | — | — | — |
| 2024-2025 | 65.4% | 4,201 | 75.0% | — | — |
| 2023-2024 | 61.3% | 4,379 | 74.0% | 90.0% | — |
| 2022-2023 | 47.0% | 3,679 | 77.0% | 87.7% | — |
| 2021-2022 | 58.9% | 4,062 | 78.1% | 88.6% | — |
Cross-admits and statistical look-alikes, surfaced from the CollegeNumbers peer model.
Comparative observations derived from this school's reported CDS values and from IPEDS / College Scorecard reference data. Every claim is grounded in a number — no editorial overlay.
Cross-admit cohort spans an unusually wide selectivity range.
The schools University of California-Santa Cruz applicants most commonly also apply to range from 28.6% admit to 86.1% admit — a 57.5 pp band. A reasonable read: applicants choose by region or program fit rather than selectivity tier alone.
Cross-admits concentrated in the home region.
6 of 6 cross-admit schools are in CA — University of California-Santa Cruz draws applicants weighing it against in-state and adjacent-state alternatives, not coastal or selective national peers.
Broadly accessible — admit rate near the national norm.
University of California-Santa Cruz's 72.7% admit rate is in line with the national 4-year-institution median of 76.6% (per IPEDS, n=1437 institutions). Most U.S. four-year colleges admit between 61.2% and 88.3% of applicants.
Sources: each school's officially-published Common Data Set; IPEDS / College Scorecard for federal comparisons. Methodology →
Compare every CDS field — admissions, aid, outcomes — side by side.
Open in CollegeNumbers compareThe Common Data Set is a standardized reporting form U.S. colleges file annually — sections A through J covering admissions selectivity, enrollment, aid, faculty resources, and outcomes. CollegeNumbers extracts every value directly from each school's officially published CDS PDF, xlsx, docx, or HTML, then normalizes into a unified schema.
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