Every one of these schools sent UC San Diego more than a hundred applications in each period. The ones that lost ground averaged 1250 to 1350 on the SAT. The ones that gained averaged under 1000.
UC San Diego admit rate, Fall 2015–2020 pooled (SAT required) against Fall 2021–2025 pooled (test-free). Average SAT is the school’s class of 2016, from the CDE SAT Report 2015–16. Tap a school for its full record at every campus.
Every high school page now shows each UC campus’s admit rate for that school with the SAT, beside today’s, and the school’s own average SAT from the last years the state published it.
| Campus | Applied | Admitted | Admit rate 2025 | With SAT 2015–20 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UCLA | 224 | 19 | 8% | 10% |
| UC Berkeley | 126 | 21 | 17% | 8% |
| UC San Diego | 155 | 59 | 38% | 24% |
| UC Davis | 94 | 47 | 50% | 30% |
The middle half of every UC campus’s admitted freshmen, the last class admitted with the SAT required, as UC published it. A school averaging 1200 sat at the edge of most of these ranges; one averaging under 1000 sat well below all but Merced’s.
| Campus | Middle 50% of admits, SAT |
|---|---|
| UCLA | 1350–1550 |
| UC Berkeley | 1320–1540 |
| UC San Diego | 1310–1520 |
| UC Santa Barbara | 1290–1520 |
| UC Irvine | 1280–1510 |
| UC Davis | 1230–1490 |
| UC Santa Cruz | 1170–1440 |
| UC Riverside | 1110–1380 |
| UC Merced | 980–1260 |
UC Admissions, “Freshman admit data” for fall 2020, each campus (archived August 2020–March 2021). Ranges add the reading/writing and math section ranges, the usual shorthand; all admitted freshmen.
Admissions: the UC Information Center’s Admissions by source school — applications and admits from every California high school to every campus, Fall 2015 through Fall 2025. UC withholds counts under 3 (admits) and 5 (applicants); this page pools six years against five so the small schools don’t wash out.
SAT averages: the California Department of Education’s SAT Report for 2015–16 — each public high school’s average reading/writing and math score for the class of 2016, on the 1600 scale. CDE stopped publishing the report in 2022. Schools with fewer than 15 test-takers are left out.
Admitted ranges: UC Admissions’ freshman admit data for fall 2020, each campus.
Because that’s how UC publishes it: every campus’s applications and admits from every high school, every year. A school’s average SAT says where its students stood on the one test everyone took, and the same school can be followed from the SAT years into the test-free ones.
Fall 2020 was the last class that applied with the SAT required; UC’s April 2020 suspension began with students applying for Fall 2021. Fall 2025 is the latest year UC has published.
Yes. Applications rose sharply at the most selective campuses, and pandemic-era grading reached transcripts. Those affect every school; what the charts show is which schools gained and which lost as the SAT went away.
For Fall 2021 through Fall 2025 — the years on this page — UC did not use SAT or ACT scores in freshman admission decisions. Cal State stopped requiring them too.
Type its name above. Every page with enough applications shows a “With SAT 2015–20” column beside today’s rate, and the school’s class-of-2016 average SAT. It’s free.
No. $47 once, for one student. A second student can be added at checkout.
Every UC and every Cal State, read against what each campus does today with students from your student’s own high school.
