UC Berkeley Acceptance Rate by Major: 5%–25% Split

22 min read

10.5%. That is the campus-wide first-year admit rate Berkeley reported for fall 2026 entry.

5.18%. That is the Haas School of Business for fall 2025 entry.

18.08%. That is Rausser College of Natural Resources, same year, same campus.

None of those three numbers is your number until you choose a college and a major on the UC application. This page gives you the rate for each of Berkeley's seven undergraduate colleges, discipline-level rates that run from roughly 2% to 25%, admitted GPA ranges, and the switch-in rules that decide whether a "strategic" major is a real plan or a trap.

By the Unive admissions team. Published September 16, 2026.

UC Berkeley acceptance rate by major: the short answer

UC Berkeley does not admit students to the university, it admits them to one of seven undergraduate colleges, and in some cases directly to a major. For fall 2026 entry the campus first-year admit rate was about 10.5%. For fall 2025 entry, college-level rates ranged from 5.18% at Haas to 18.08% at Rausser College of Natural Resources. Discipline-level rates ran roughly 2% to 25%.

What Berkeley's most recent published numbers actually say

Berkeley released fall 2026 first-year decisions in spring 2026, and the summary figures surfaced in late July 2026: roughly 13,982 first-year offers from more than 133,000 applications, or about 10.5%, per Oriel Admissions' compilation of the class of 2030 data. The prior cycle (class of 2029, fall 2025 entry) was 11.4%, with 14,502 admits from 126,843 applicants.

You will see 10.8% quoted elsewhere. AcceptanceRate.com reports 13,967 offers against 133,100 first-year applications for fall 2026, which rounds to 10.8%, and an all-student rate of 12.1% (19,215 admits from 159,344 applications) once transfer admits are folded in. The gap is not an error. It comes from snapshot dates, whether incomplete or withdrawn applications sit in the denominator, and whether transfers are included. Treat anything between 10.5% and 10.8% as the same fact: roughly one in ten first-year applicants got an offer.

Why "by major" really means "by college" at Berkeley

Berkeley reads your application inside the college you selected. An Environmental Design applicant is not competing with a Rausser applicant for the same seat. That structure is why the campus average is close to meaningless as a personal prediction, and why Berkeley itself does not publish a clean official admit rate for every individual major.

What exists publicly is two layers of data: college-level rates from Berkeley's Office of Planning and Analysis dashboards and the Common Data Set, and discipline-level rates from the University of California Information Center, which aggregates freshman admissions by broad discipline for every campus. Everything below sits on those two layers. If you want the campus-level walkthrough of deadlines, PIQs and review factors first, our UC Berkeley admissions guide for Fall 2027 covers it.

Berkeley admit rate by college, fall 2025 entering class

For the fall 2025 entering class, Berkeley's seven undergraduate colleges admitted at rates from 5.18% (Haas) to 18.08% (Rausser College of Natural Resources), a spread of nearly 13 percentage points. Haas, Engineering and the College of Computing, Data Science and Society all admitted under 8%. Letters and Science, the largest college by far, admitted 13.91%.

The full seven-college table

College-level rates for fall 2025 are the most recent complete set published in that format; the fall 2026 figures released so far are campus-wide. Rates come from the Berkeley Office of Planning and Analysis dashboard as compiled by Dewey Smart, which cross-checks against the Common Data Set. Berkeley's own Office of Planning and Analysis is the primary host of the underlying dashboards.

How much each college tightened

Every one of the seven colleges was easier to enter in 2020-21 than in fall 2025. Application volume is the mechanic: Engineering drew 15,881 applications in 2020-21 and L&S drew 47,529, and both grew while seat counts barely moved. Test-blind review since 2021 widened the applicant pool at the top campuses, and Berkeley has no early round to absorb demand.

The sharpest compression is at discipline level, not college level. StrivePath's multi-year view of UC Information Center data shows Berkeley computer science falling from roughly 25% in 2019 to about 4% in 2022. That is a 6x change in three admissions cycles, which is why advice written before 2022 about "applying L&S CS instead" is actively dangerous now.

Why Rausser is the outlier

Rausser College of Natural Resources sits at 18.08% for two reasons: it is small and its majors (Environmental Economics and Policy, Molecular Environmental Biology, Nutritional Sciences, Genetics and Plant Biology, Society and Environment) are less famous than "Berkeley CS" or "Berkeley Haas." It also permits broad declaration flexibility once enrolled, which matters enormously in the framework further down this page.

What the college numbers cannot tell you

A college rate blends a 4% major with a 20% major. L&S at 13.91% includes capped, high-demand majors admitting in the single digits and humanities majors admitting above 20%. So college data tells you which door is narrow; discipline data tells you which room inside is narrow.

Berkeley admit rate by discipline: from about 2% to about 25%

At discipline level, Berkeley's fall 2025 admit rates ranged from roughly 2% in public health to about 25% in arts and humanities, with computer science near 6%. The San Francisco Chronicle's September 2026 data project, built on official UC and CSU submissions, is the only public source pairing those admit rates with admitted-GPA percentiles by program.

Computer science versus arts and humanities

The campus middle 50% of about 4.15 to 4.29 UC-weighted GPA is the number to internalize. UC's capped weighted GPA tops out near 4.4 because honors points are limited, so a 4.15 floor means the admitted pool is compressed against the ceiling. Architecture, business, engineering and CS admits sit above that campus range, per the Chronicle's analysis.

Read the methodology before you quote the number

Three caveats that consultant listicles skip:

1. Admit rate = admits ÷ applicants, for the fall entering class named. It is not a yield rate and not an enrollment share.

2. The Chronicle reports only programs with 70 or more applicants, so micro-majors are excluded.

3. In-state and out-of-state applicants are combined in discipline-level rates. Your residency-adjusted odds differ (see below).

A small number of selective majors got marginally easier in fall 2025 as applicants redistributed across the system. The most dramatic system example is UC Santa Barbara computer science moving from roughly 17% to 34% in a single cycle. Berkeley CS did not do that. Do not build a plan on a one-year wobble in someone else's program.

The two Berkeley computer science majors, explained

Berkeley has two undergraduate computer science paths. EECS is a Bachelor of Science in the College of Engineering, admitted directly by major, with a reported admit rate under 5%. Computer Science is a Bachelor of Arts now housed in the College of Computing, Data Science and Society (CDSS), which admitted 7.26% for fall 2025 and admits students straight into the declared major.

EECS versus CS in CDSS

EECS and CS share most upper-division coursework and the same faculty. The differences that matter for your application are structural: EECS carries Engineering's math, physics and design requirements and is admitted inside the College of Engineering, while the CS BA sits in CDSS with more room for a second field. If you want the maximum single-major shot, those are two separate 5% to 7% competitions, and you can only pick one college on the UC application.

What CDSS admission actually commits you to

CDSS does not admit undeclared students. You are admitted to Computer Science, Data Science or Statistics, and that is your major. The important consequence: for first-years entering from fall 2023 onward who were not admitted directly to CS, moving into CS requires a comprehensive review application, with a 3.0 minimum GPA just to be eligible to apply. Eligibility is not admission.

Can you switch into CS after you arrive?

Mostly, no. Beyond the comprehensive-review requirement for first-years, transfer students admitted fall 2024 and later cannot switch into Computer Science or add it as a double major at all. That single rule invalidates the most common piece of internet advice on this topic, which is "get in anywhere, then switch to CS."

Data Science and Statistics inside CDSS

Data Science and Statistics are separate CDSS majors with their own applicant pools. They are not fallback switches into CS. They are legitimate destinations if the work genuinely interests you, and terrible ones if you are treating them as a waiting room.

Haas, Engineering and the other capacity-capped paths

Haas is the most selective undergraduate college at Berkeley (5.18% for fall 2025) and now admits first-year students directly into a four-year business path, alongside its traditional junior-entry route. Engineering, CDSS and Environmental Design also admit by major or by tightly capped college, which means your major choice is locked in more firmly than at most private universities.

Haas: four-year direct admit versus junior entry

Outdated guides still claim Haas does not admit high school seniors. It does. The Berkeley Haas undergraduate program now runs a four-year direct-admission cohort for entering first-years, plus the classic path where enrolled Berkeley students apply for junior entry, plus joint programs such as Management, Entrepreneurship and Technology with Engineering, and the Global Management Program.

The practical read: direct admission at roughly 5% is the hardest door, and junior entry is a second competition against students who are already at Berkeley and have two years of college transcripts. Neither is a back door for the other.

College of Engineering by major

Engineering's 6.81% is an average across majors with very different demand. EECS sits below the college average, reported under 5%. Less-subscribed majors such as Civil and Environmental Engineering, Materials Science, or Industrial Engineering and Operations Research admit above it. Changing majors inside Engineering after enrollment requires a petition and depends on capacity in the receiving department.

Environmental Design and Chemistry

CED (8.36%) is worth a hard look if design and the built environment actually interest you: Architecture admits are strong on GPA, but total applicant volume is a fraction of L&S. College of Chemistry (12.06%) is the quiet option for students who like chemistry more than they like pre-med signaling, and it houses Chemical Engineering, which sits in Chemistry rather than Engineering at Berkeley.

Rausser and the undeclared options

Rausser (18.08%) and L&S both accept undeclared applicants. That is the flexibility lane, and it is the only lane where "decide later" is a real feature rather than wishful thinking. The catch is what you cannot reach from there, which is the next section.

L&S high-demand majors: what selecting one locks in

In Berkeley's College of Letters and Science, majors designated "high-demand" work on two pathways. If you select a high-demand major on your UC application and you are admitted, the seat is guaranteed. If you do not select it, you get one attempt at admission through comprehensive review after you enroll, and you must also declare a non-high-demand alternate plan.

Which L&S majors are high-demand

L&S publishes and updates the current list, and the list has changed. Designations in recent years have included Economics, Psychology and Public Health; Computer Science, Data Science and Statistics carried the designation before those programs moved into CDSS. Check the live list in October 2026 before you submit, because the roster is revised as demand shifts.

Pathway 1: select it, get admitted, keep the seat

This is the clean route. Admitted L&S students who selected a high-demand major on the application enter with the major secured. No sophomore-year competition, no GPA threshold anxiety.

Pathway 2: comprehensive review, one attempt only

If you enter L&S undeclared or in a different major and then want a high-demand major, you apply through comprehensive review. You get one attempt. You must simultaneously maintain a viable alternate major that is not high-demand. And you must be declared by the end of your fifth semester, which for a standard four-year timeline means fall of junior year.

Stack that against the CDSS rules and the picture is consistent: Berkeley's post-admission mobility into its most in-demand programs runs below 10% and is capped by policy, not by your effort.

Does applying to an "easier" major actually help?

Sometimes, and only when three conditions hold: the less selective major is one you would genuinely study, the college you enter gives you real declaration freedom, and you are not counting on switching into a capped program later. Berkeley's own application guidance notes that applicants are likely reviewed for their first-choice major, not an alternate, so the alternate is not a safety net.

What Berkeley says about alternate majors

Berkeley undergraduate admissions advises applicants that selecting an alternate major does not mean the alternate gets a separate review. Plan as though your first choice is the only one being evaluated.

The switch-in cost, quantified

Think of it as four tiers of friction:

A strategy that ends in the "closed" or "one-shot" tier is not a strategy. It is a bet with someone else holding the dice.

When it backfires

It backfires when the application does not match the major. Readers see your coursework, activities and four personal insight questions together. A student with three years of competitive programming, a CS-heavy activity list, and a PIQ about building an app who applies to Society and Environment reads as arbitrage, and arbitrage reads as a weak application in a review process with no test scores to hide behind. We break down similar mismatch signals in our guide to college application red flags.

It works when the pivot is honest. A student interested in environmental markets who applies to Environmental Economics and Policy in Rausser at 18.08% instead of Economics in L&S is not gaming anything. Same intellectual territory, different door, materially better odds.

The Berkeley Major Risk Matrix: admit odds versus switch-in cost

Most pages rank Berkeley majors on one axis, admit rate. That is half the decision. The other half is mobility: if you get in, how hard is it to end up where you actually want to be? Score your target on both and you get four very different plays.

Score admit odds (1 to 5): 1 = above 15%, 3 = 8% to 12%, 5 = under 6%.

Score switch-in cost (1 to 5): 1 = open declaration, 3 = petition, 4 = one-shot comprehensive review, 5 = closed by policy.

Quadrant 1: apply direct (low odds, high switch-in cost)

EECS, CS in CDSS, Haas direct. Odds score 5, switch-in score 4 to 5. If this is the destination, apply to it directly in the first-year cycle. There is no cheaper entry later. Then build a college list where Berkeley is honestly a reach, with two or three realistic CS or business programs you would be happy to attend.

Quadrant 2: the trap (low odds, locked after admission)

Applying to a capped major you are underqualified for while assuming you can pivot inside the college. Example: transfer applicants targeting anything in CDSS with a plan to add CS. Policy closes that. This quadrant produces the students who arrive at Berkeley and discover their plan was never available.

Quadrant 3: enter through L&S or Rausser, declare later

L&S undeclared at 13.91% and Rausser at 18.08% with an open-declaration major. Odds score 2 to 3, switch-in score 1 to 2. This is the strongest risk-adjusted play for students who want Berkeley more than they want one specific capped major, and who are honestly interested in a non-high-demand field.

Quadrant 4: the efficient frontier

Majors in the 8% to 18% range that lead to the outcomes you want without capacity locks: Environmental Economics and Policy, Chemical Engineering in the College of Chemistry, Urban Studies in CED, Statistics as a destination rather than a detour, the less-subscribed Engineering majors. Least discussed, best value.

Worked examples

• CS applicant, 4.28 UC-weighted, strong CS activities. Apply EECS or CDSS CS directly. Do not apply L&S undeclared "to switch," because the switch is a one-shot review with a 3.0 filter and low admit volume. Add UCSD, UCLA, UW and one out-of-state program with easier internal mobility.
• Pre-business applicant, 4.20, DECA and a small e-commerce venture. Haas direct at about 5% is the reach. The hedge is L&S Economics (high-demand: select it on the application to guarantee the seat) or Rausser Environmental Economics and Policy, both of which leave junior-entry Haas open as a second attempt rather than a requirement.
• Undecided STEM applicant, 4.10, strong bio and chem, no clear direction. Rausser (Molecular Environmental Biology or undeclared) or College of Chemistry at 12.06% beats L&S undeclared on odds and beats any capped major on flexibility. Berkeley is winnable here.

Pressure-test your major choice before November 30

The decision on this page is worth more than any essay edit you will make this fall, and you have about ten weeks to make it. Unive's College Matching tool builds your reach, target and safety list against program-level odds rather than campus averages, and the Application Roadmap turns your UC choices into dated tasks (PIQ drafts, activity list, submission window) so nothing slips past November 30, 2026.

Students on the platform see a 3.48x higher acceptance rate, and the Profile Evaluator will tell you bluntly whether your activity record supports an EECS application or points somewhere with better odds. It is a paid subscription built by Yale graduates, with a 7-day money-back guarantee, which is roughly what a single hour with a $20,000 private consultant costs. If you are still deciding whether to hire a human at all, we wrote an honest comparison of what college consulting actually costs.

In-state, out-of-state and international: same major, different odds

For fall 2026 entry, Berkeley admitted about 12.4% of California resident first-year applicants, 10.0% of domestic out-of-state applicants, and roughly 5% of international applicants. Residency changes your odds within the same major, because state budget agreements have pushed Berkeley to shift nonresident seats toward Californians.

What the splits mean in practice

Stack residency on top of major selectivity and the compounding gets brutal. An international applicant to EECS is combining a sub-5% major with a roughly 5% residency pool. The published discipline rates on this page combine in-state and out-of-state applicants, so an out-of-state CS applicant should treat the ~6% figure as optimistic, and an international applicant should treat it as very optimistic.

For out-of-state and international families, two adjustments matter more than essay polish: widen the Quadrant 3 and 4 options above, and check the actual price. Nonresident supplemental tuition makes Berkeley one of the most expensive public options in the country for out-of-state students, which we break down in UC Berkeley cost for 2026-27 by residency.

The transfer route

For fall 2026, Berkeley received 26,216 transfer applications and admitted 5,248, about 20%, roughly double the first-year rate. For California community college students that is a genuine advantage, since UC gives CCC transfers priority. Two warnings: Berkeley does not participate in UC's Transfer Admission Guarantee (TAG is offered at six other campuses), and transfers admitted fall 2024 or later cannot switch into or double major in Computer Science. Transfer into CS means being admitted to CS as a transfer, with full major prep completed.

Your Fall 2027 timeline and major-selection checklist

If you are a rising senior reading this in September 2026, you are applying for fall 2027 entry. The UC application opened August 1, 2026, the submission window runs October 1 to November 30, 2026, first-year decisions arrive in March 2027, and your Statement of Intent to Register is due May 1, 2027. There is no Early Action or Early Decision anywhere in the UC system.

Dates follow the University of California admissions calendar. Berkeley is test-free: SAT and ACT scores are not considered for admission, so your GPA, course rigor, activities and four personal insight questions (350 words each, chosen from eight) carry the whole file.

A 10-point check before you lock your college and major

1. Name the college, not just the major. Confirm which of the seven houses your target.

2. Look up the fall 2025 admit rate for that college in the table above.

3. Score switch-in cost using the four-tier table. Anything "closed" or "one-shot" means apply direct.

4. If it is an L&S high-demand major, select it on the application. The seat is only guaranteed that way.

5. Check the live L&S high-demand list in October 2026, because it changes.

6. If you are eyeing CDSS but not CS, know that CS later needs comprehensive review and a 3.0 floor to apply.

7. Compare your UC-weighted capped GPA to the 4.15 to 4.29 admitted middle 50%, and add a margin for selective programs.

8. Apply your residency multiplier. Out-of-state and international applicants should widen the list.

9. Audit whether your activities and PIQs actually support the major you chose.

10. Build the rest of the list so Berkeley is one outcome, not the plan.

On point 10: a Berkeley-shaped applicant is usually also a strong candidate at programs with far friendlier mobility rules. Our breakdown of easiest college majors ranked by GPA and admission odds is useful for pressure-testing whether your "strategic" choice is actually one you would enjoy for four years, and the weakest part of your college application walkthrough will tell you which piece to fix in the ten weeks you have left. For calibration on how brutal the top of the market is, compare Berkeley's numbers with Stanford's real 3.8% and the Ivy League acceptance rates.

Turn this data into a submitted application

Knowing that Haas admits 5.18% and Rausser admits 18.08% only helps if it changes what you submit by November 30, 2026. Unive gives you the Application Roadmap that sequences your UC work backward from that deadline, the Essay Grader and Brainstorming tools for your four PIQs, scholarship matching so a Berkeley admit is affordable, and access to human mentors who went through top-school admissions themselves. Start with Unive and there is a 7-day money-back guarantee if it is not the right fit. If you would rather see how the tooling compares first, we published an unvarnished look at the best AI tools for college applications.

UC Berkeley acceptance rate by major FAQ

What is the hardest major to get into at UC Berkeley?

Business Administration at Haas is the hardest entry point, with a 5.18% college admit rate for fall 2025 entry. EECS in the College of Engineering is reported under 5%, and undergraduate public health has been reported as low as about 2% in discipline-level analysis. All three sit far below Berkeley's roughly 10.5% campus first-year rate.

What is the easiest major to get into at UC Berkeley?

Nothing at Berkeley is easy, but arts and humanities disciplines admit at roughly 25%, and Rausser College of Natural Resources admitted 18.08% for fall 2025. Majors such as Society and Environment, Conservation and Resource Studies, and non-high-demand L&S humanities fields carry the best odds plus the most freedom to declare later.

Does UC Berkeley publish official acceptance rates by major?

No. Berkeley publishes admit data by undergraduate college through its Office of Planning and Analysis and the Common Data Set, and the UC Information Center publishes freshman admissions by broad discipline. Single-major rates are derived from those datasets by outside analysts, which is why figures vary slightly between sources.

Can I change my major after being admitted to Berkeley?

Sometimes, and the rules differ sharply by program. Non-high-demand L&S majors are open declaration. L&S high-demand majors allow one comprehensive-review attempt and require an alternate plan. Computer Science in CDSS requires comprehensive review with a 3.0 minimum GPA to apply, and transfers admitted fall 2024 or later cannot switch into CS at all.

Is applying undeclared to L&S easier?

Undeclared applicants compete inside L&S, which admitted 13.91% for fall 2025, better than Haas, Engineering or CDSS. But undeclared does not create access to high-demand majors: those require the one-shot comprehensive review after enrollment. Undeclared is a strong choice if you are open to non-capped majors, and a poor one if you need CS.

Does Berkeley consider your alternate major?

Berkeley's admissions guidance indicates applicants are likely reviewed for their first-choice major rather than an alternate, so treat the alternate as a formality, not a second chance. Choose a first-choice major your coursework, activities and personal insight questions genuinely support, and build your safety options across other campuses instead.

Is the transfer route easier than first-year admission?

Statistically yes. Berkeley admitted 5,248 of 26,216 transfer applicants for fall 2026, about 20%, versus roughly 10.5% for first-years. Two caveats: Berkeley does not participate in UC's Transfer Admission Guarantee, and transfers admitted fall 2024 or later cannot switch into or double major in Computer Science after enrolling.

Does Berkeley have Early Action or Early Decision?

No. Every UC campus uses one application with a single filing window, October 1 to November 30, 2026 for fall 2027 entry, and there is no early round, no binding option and no demonstrated-interest advantage. UC is also test-free, so SAT and ACT scores are not considered in admission decisions.