New data for fall 2025 shows which high schools sent the most graduates to the University of California system, as the overall acceptance rate for in-state applicants reached its highest level in nearly a decade.
According to UC data, more than 77% of California students who applied to UC campuses for fall 2025 were accepted to at least one school. Acceptance rates hadn’t reached that level in nine years, according to a data visualization by the San Francisco Chronicle (SFGATE and the San Francisco Chronicle are both owned by Hearst but have separate newsrooms).
The most competitive campuses in the system were UCLA (9.4% acceptance rate), UC Berkeley (11.4%), UC San Diego (28.4%), UC Irvine (28.7%) and UC Santa Barbara (38.3%).
San Francisco’s Mission High School had the highest acceptance rate at UC Berkeley, far ahead of all other public and private schools in the state, a Chronicle visualization showed. The school’s top university had a 45% acceptance rate, with 34 of its 76 applicants making the cut.
Mission High applicants who applied to UC Berkeley had an average GPA of 3.93, and students who were accepted had an average GPA of 4.08, according to UC data. This follows a growing trend for Mission High, a school with a large student population who are socioeconomically disadvantaged, and which has been an outstanding school for years, leading the pack in UC Berkeley acceptances.
Edison High School, a public school in Fresno, had the second-highest UC Berkeley acceptance rate at 34%, with 21 students admitted out of 62 applicants. Next in line, and the highest private school on the list, was Geffen Academy at UCLA with a 31% acceptance rate (19 of its 61 applicants were accepted).
Other Bay Area schools with high acceptance rates on UC’s main campus were Stanford Online High School in Redwood City (27%), Bishop O’Dowd High School, a private school in Oakland (27%), Berkeley High (23%), El Cerrito High (23%), Hercules High (22%) and Danville High in the San Ramon Valley (22%).
Schools that fell far behind the average acceptance rate were Westmont High in Campbell (4%), Aquinas International Academy in Ontario (2%), Pleasant Grove High in Elk Grove (4%), River City High in West Sacramento (5%).
The most competitive major at UC Berkeley was Public Health, with a 2% acceptance rate, and the least competitive was Arts and Humanities with a 25% acceptance rate.
Geffen Academy at UCLA had the highest acceptance rate for UCLA at 26%, or 16 out of 61 applicants, gaining admission. With a 25% acceptance rate, LA County High School for the Arts wasn’t far behind.
Southern California high schools were ahead of UCLA acceptance rates while Bay Area high schools were slightly behind. Some of the top in the region were BASIS Independent Silicon Valley, a private school in San Jose (14%), De La Salle High School, a private school in Concord (13%), Prospect High in Saratoga (13%), Miramonte High in Orinda (12%) and American Canyon High (11%).
The most chosen UCLA major for applicants was nursing with a 1% acceptance rate. Physics and Mathematics each had the highest acceptance rate of 15%.
Outside of the two most selective UC campuses, there were a few colleges that accepted large numbers of students.
In San Francisco, 13 high schools had 100% acceptance rates to UC Merced. Overall, UC Merced’s acceptance rate was 95.1%. Many other Bay Area counties saw a large number of high schools with 100% acceptance rates at UC Merced. The list includes Alameda County (23 schools), Contra Costa County (18 schools), Napa County (four schools), San Mateo County (14 schools), Santa Clara County (27 schools), Solano County (six schools) and Sonoma County (eight schools).
Another UC campus with a 100% acceptance rate among Bay Area high schools was UC Riverside. The university’s overall acceptance rate for first-time students was 87.1%.
Among all Bay Area counties, UC Riverside was the school with 100% acceptance rates in Alameda, Santa Clara, Solano and San Francisco counties. Alameda had eight, Santa Clara five and Solano and San Francisco four.
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This article was originally published These California high schools had the highest acceptance at UCLA, UC Berkeley.
