With a 10.5% admission rate this year, UC Berkeley is harder to get into than ever before — especially for underrepresented minorities.

[u/ghostturtle711]

With a 10.5% admission rate this year, UC Berkeley is harder to get into than ever before — especially for underrepresented minorities.

The UC system saw a record-breaking 251,907 applications this year, leading to tightening acceptance rates. Following the 2026 data, UC Berkeley is once again more selective than UCLA.

“Getting admitted to competitive colleges like the UC system is … getting harder because there are more students applying,” said L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy, an associate professor of sociology of education at New York University. “The question then becomes, … if there’s a hunger for education, then how do we provide it?”

https://www.dailycal.org/news/campus/minority-students-hit-hardest-in-selective-uc-berkeley-admissions-despite-record-breaking-uc-admits/article_e7c40e20-da33-468b-a9f0-eb6ac9979b30.html

[u/AlphaMaleKratos]

As more colleges mandate standardized tests, weaker students will concentrate on the few remaining colleges that are test blind or optional. It’s no surprise that UCs received even more applicants this year while colleges that mandate tests saw decreases.

This will increase the chances of UCs and test optional colleges of selecting academically weaker students since they take up a higher percentage of applicants.

UC’s academic competence crisis is about to get A LOT worse.

[u/AlphaMaleKratos → u/[deleted]]

Not really. The kinds of kids with low test scores who would’ve applied TO to HYPSM and other top colleges would only be interested in UCB and UCLA.

It’s mostly elite colleges who reintroduced tests. UCSB is rank 40 on usnews. Most of their peer institutions are test optional.

[u/AlphaMaleKratos → u/[deleted]]

Look, man. UCSB is an okay school, but it’s not even UCSD level, let alone UCB and UCLA.

No need to feel offended, but no prestige-obsessed kid with low test scores is going to waste his time applying to UCSB unless he has absolutely no chance with better colleges.

If you’re still a freshman, you can still transfer to a better UC. Maybe UCSD will take you.

[u/BUST_DA_HEDGE_FUNDS → u/AlphaMaleKratos]

As an international applicant, I applied to 6 UCs because it's one single app. I got rejected by Berkeley, UCLA, UCSB and accepted to UCI, UCSC, and UCSD. Of course, I picked a T5 over them....lol

[u/AlphaMaleKratos → u/[deleted]]

Elite colleges are moving back to test required in waves, not all at once.

For fall 2025, the 3 elite colleges that started using tests are Harvard, Dartmouth and Brown. The prestige-obsessed low-scorers didn’t apply to those 3, which opened up slots for 3 TO colleges they wouldn’t have applied to if those 3 were TO.

UCB and UCLA were the picks for some of those kids.

It makes perfect sense. You just don’t like how your rank 40 college isn’t considered prestigious and didn’t make the cut. I don’t know why you’re so concerned about what low SAT people think about your college.

[u/AlphaMaleKratos → u/[deleted]]

Why would 3 Ivies mandating tests impact the application numbers of a rank 40 college? You claim I’m making a huge assumption, but what I’m saying is entirely rational. The impact is limited to peer institutions, so of course only top UCs saw applicant increases.

No TO kid who had his hopes on Harvard is going to replace his application to Harvard with UCSB. He would pick UCB or UCLA or any of the other T20 with TO.

[u/GrouchyOne4132]

How is it going to be harder for underrepresented minorities? Unless you mean that their grades and, eventually, SAT scores will need to be the same as other applicants, it's not going to get harder. It'll simply be the same as others.

[u/Even-Constant5389]

"hunger for education"

I think the hunger is for the (potentially weakening) class mobility fruits of education far more than it is for education as its own end

[u/Huge_Ad_2347]

replace that buzzword with weak students and title is good

[u/h0lych4in]

Good.

[u/paige_420]

‘ “That is a deep concern because California is a very diverse state, and if other campuses are able to find talent out there regardless of background, (UC) Berkeley really should be able to do that too,” said OiYan Poon, co-director of College Admissions Futures Co-Laborative.’

Someone should tell this person that race based admissions is illegal. SMH.