UCLA: acceptance rate by major

UCLA admits about 9% of applicants overall. That number is the one everybody quotes, and for most applicants it is the wrong one — you are not admitted by the university, you are admitted by a college or programme inside it, and those rates differ sharply.

The short version: Nursing is the hardest route in at 0.5%, roughly 18.0× harder than the headline rate. Physics admits 14%.

Published admit rates by major

Major	Admit rate	GPA (mid 50%)	SAT (mid 50%)
Nursing	0.5%	3.96–4.00	1500–1580
Communications and Media	1.3%	3.90–4.00	1420–1550
Robotics	3.9%	3.93–4.00	1490–1570
Engineering	6.5%	3.90–4.00	1450–1560
Computer Science	7.3%	3.92–4.00	1480–1570
Biology	11%	3.85–4.00	1380–1530
Chemistry	14%	3.82–4.00	1360–1520
Physics	14%	3.82–4.00	1360–1520
Whole university	9%	3.75–4.00	1290–1510

What this means if you are applying from outside the US

Two things follow from the table above.

Your odds depend on what you write in the major box. At UCLA the gap between the hardest and most accessible programme is 0.5% against 14% — a bigger difference than almost anything you can change about your profile this year.
International admit rates run below the published figure at most US universities. UCLA charges international students about $44,830 in tuition, and its aid policy for them is: Limited for international students.

Switching major purely for the admit rate is usually a mistake — a "why this major" essay written about a subject chosen for its odds reads exactly like one, and internal transfer after enrolment is capped and competitive at most schools. But if you were genuinely choosing between two subjects, the difference above is real and worth knowing.

Calculate your own odds at UCLA →

Other schools that publish by-major data

By-major rates University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Purdue University University of Washington Cornell University Carnegie Mellon University

Source: UCLA Fall 2025 first-year profile, admit rates by major.

These are published institutional figures, not predictions. Admission decisions also rest on essays, recommendations and institutional priorities, which no calculator can see. Not affiliated with any university.