Decisions for Class of 2026

Congratulations Class of 2026! March is always a bit of a roller coaster and sometimes it's hard to understand why some applicants are waitlisted while others are denied. Institutional priority always plays a role and sometimes it just comes down to what they're looking for in an applicant, whether that's a trombone player or a Latin major.

In general the UC acceptances landed the way I thought they would (with a few exceptions) but UC Davis was the one campus which waitlisted more students than I expected. Strong GPA and meaningful activities were crucial in this year's admissions especially at the four most sought after UC campuses. Cal Poly San Luis Obispo was another university which waitlisted more students than we expected, especially Engineering students.

Engineering and Computer Science were

still the most difficult majors to get into but with a balanced college list, all of my

students have strong choices, whether it's Purdue, Rutgers, UC San Diego, or UT Austin.

Similar to last year, my students applied to and were open to the possibility of attending liberal arts colleges (LACs) and we saw acceptances at Scripps College (CA). Baylor (TX), Willamette University (OR), University of Puget Sound (WA), and Gonzaga University (WA) - to name a few.

(The following information has been taken directly from newsletters and emails from the universities' admission offices)

USC is always popular among Bay Area students for business, film, and engineering. USC admitted 11.7% of regular decision applicants for the 2026-27 academic year, with 9,251 undergraduate admits, the Office of Admission wrote in a statement to the Daily Trojan. The early action admit rate was 9.5%. In January 3,800 students were admitted under this application deadline out of more than 40,000 applicants. The unweighted grade point average for the class is a record high of 3.92, the Office of Admission wrote, up 0.02 from last year.

Brown University received 47,937 applications for the Class of 2030, one of the largest applicant pools in University history, according to the Dean of Admission. Brown will make 1,674 Regular Decision offers of admission to the incoming Class of 2030, in addition to the 890 Early Decision admission offers made in December. The overall admit rate for this year's pool is 5.3%, with a Regular Decision admit rate of 3.8%.

Only a handful of colleges and universities have over 100,000 freshmen applications- Michigan is one of them (108,666 total applications) and Northeastern is another one. Northeastern received a record 105,092 undergraduate applications for the 2026-27 academic year — a significant increase over the past few years but Northeastern has the popular co-op program that draws a lot of interest and makes the ROI substantially better.

The unofficial University of VA numbers are as follows, keep in mind they aim to have a 2/3 majority of Virginians in the class. 

Total applications: 82,118

Total VA applications: 19,964

Total OOS applications:  62,154

Total offers of admission: 10,287

Total VA offers: 4,317 (22%)

Total OOS offers: 5,970 (10%)13%.

University of Pittsburgh is another popular school for Bay Area pre-med students. This year they received 72,000 applications and 50% of them had SAT/ACT scores. We're still waiting to see what the admit numbers look like.

Santa Clara University offers Early Action, Early Decision, as well as the regular cycle. Applying definitely helps and my students are always encouraged to apply EA. Out of 12,150 applicants, 6,075 were admitted, that's a 50% admit rate! The average unweighted GPA was 3.87 and 51% of the students were from outside California.

Similar to past years, San Diego State University was harder to get into for my Bay Area students because of the local mandate but San Jose State University came through especially for my engineering majors. While the overall 80% rate looks high at SJSU, it is misleading for STEM or competitive fields. SJSU is unique in its transparency. Decisions are based entirely on an Impaction Score, which is a calculation using your GPA. For the Class of 2030, students applying to Computer Science needed a 4.0+ GPA, Nursing was over 3.90 and Software Engineering was over 3.80.

From the University of California Office of the President:

The University of California received 251,907 applications for admission for fall 2026. This includes 205,431 applications for first-year admission and 46,476 transfer applications. These are unduplicated counts of applications received systemwide at all levels and include both California residents and nonresidents.

One reason why the UCs are always a bit hard to get into is the sheer number of applications they receive. Four of the nine campuses received over 125,000 first year applications.

First year class size: It's also important to keep in mind that most of the campuses have less than 8,000 first year seats. Based on the official Common Data Set for the 2024-2025 academic year, UCLA enrolled 6,565 freshmen and UC Berkeley enrolled 6,188. UC San Diego currently hosts the largest first-year class in the system at 7,272 freshmen, reflecting its recent campus expansions and the opening of new residential colleges.

Yield Protection: Also worth noting is that UCLA and UC Berkeley have slightly smaller classes than UCSD or UC Davis, but they typically have the highest "yield" (the percentage of admitted students who choose to attend), that means they offer fewer total admission spots to fill those seats.

Growth at Merced: UC Merced continues to expand its capacity as the newest campus, aiming to provide more access to California residents as the larger campuses reach physical capacity limits.

	Total CA freshmen applicants 2026	Total out of state freshmen applicants 2026	Total applications Fall 2026	Total applications Fall 2025
UCLA	89,729	56,943	146,672	145,058
UC San Diego	89,437	52,315	141,752	136,728
UC Berkeley	76,201	56,927	133,128	126,796
UC Irvine	87,177	38,810	125,987	124,214
UC Santa Barbara	73,187	35,316	108,503	110,165
UC Davis	70,354	34,496	104,850	102,958
UC Santa Cruz	65,600	13,232	78,832	66,178
UC Riverside	63,043	9,252	72,295	70,578
UC Merced	41,539	6,960	48,499	48,049

Waitlists It helps to remember that the waitlist is more of a pot than a list and we never know who's going to get pulled from it. I always advise my students to opt in and move on. Please don't hold your breath because we never know if and when it will move.

Class of 2026: Congratulations! Take your time and decide which school is right for you. Research the schools you've gotten into and visit them this month so that you can make an informed decision. Enroll and deposit by April 30th (or sooner!) so that you can start looking for a roommate and housing. Reach out to me early if you have any concerns or questions. Hourly sessions are useful to discuss financial aid letters and to compare your acceptances.

Class of 2027: Good luck as you finish up your school year. If you're still thinking about college counseling, now is the time to sign up. It's crucial that we get started on your college list and you should already be researching majors and programs. I cap the number of seniors I work with so if you are interested in signing up for senior year, please reach out to me this week. Once I'm full, I will only be able to take students on a need by need basis.

Class of 2028: Keep that GPA up and make the most of your summer. If you haven't planned anything yet, there's still time to do so. Let's talk about what works best for you; whether it's test prep, passion projects, volunteering, work, or classes. Personal growth should be your goal from here on forward. It's a good time to sign up for the College Application Package so that we can get going sooner rather than later.

Class of 2029 and beyond: I take a certain number of students every year and every year I get full sooner than the previous year. If you are interested in counseling packages please plan to meet as soon as possible so that we can make sure you are on the right track. The earlier we start, the fewer surprises we face!