What Does it Take to Get into the University of California—Santa Cruz?

UC Santa Cruz has an acceptance rate of 47.7%. What does it take to get in?

The University of California—Santa Cruz, fondly known as UC Santa Cruz or UCSC, is a modern and scenic college located just off the water in sunny Santa Cruz, California. Founded in 1965, UC Santa Cruz has state of the art facilities with 65 different undergraduate majors in the arts, humanities, physical and biological sciences, and social sciences. With 16,952 undergraduates and 1,813 graduates, it is one of the more tight-knit colleges in the University of California system, which means that each student has plentiful access to the university’s vast resources.

According to US News’ 2019 College Rankings, UC Santa Cruz ranked as #70 in the entire nation. Its in-state tuition and fees are $13,949, and its out-of-state tuition and fees are $41,963.

Interested in learning more about this institution and what it takes to get in? Read on.

Applying to UC Santa Cruz: A Quick Overview

As part of the University of California system, UC Santa Cruz is on the larger UC application. When you fill out the UC application, you will simply need to check “UC Santa Cruz” on the list of schools.

In order to apply to UC Santa Cruz, you need to meet the basic UC requirements through your academic coursework. These requirements are as follows:

• Completion of a minimum of 15 Preparatory Courses, with at least 11 finished before senior year of high school.
• A GPA of 3.0 or better for California residents, 3.4 or better for non-California residents.
• Completion of the ACT with Writing or SAT with Essay by December of senior year. SAT Subject Tests are not required by UC Santa Cruz, but certain colleges within the university do recommend them. You may also use SAT Subject Tests to fulfill some of the 15 preparatory course requirements.

The UC applications is unique in that they do not require you to send in letters of recommendation or official transcripts. If accepted, you will be asked to send in a final transcript to the university. The university will not read any letters of recommendation unless they specifically ask for them as part of a supplemental review process.

UC Santa Cruz Acceptance Rate: How Hard is It To Get In?

In 2018, UC Santa Cruz had a freshman acceptance rate of 47.7%.

Of that 47.7%, 49.3% were men, 50% were female, and 0.7% identified as other. 51.1% of accepted applicants had a GPA of 4.0 or higher, and 40.4% had a GPA between 3.5 and 3.99. 71% of accepted applicants had an ACT score of 27 or higher, but only 32.6% had an SAT score of 1400 or higher. Nearly all accepted students are from California, with only 4.8% of students from other states and 9.2% from other countries.

Curious about your chances of acceptance to your dream school? Our free chancing engine takes into account your GPA, test scores, extracurriculars, and other data to predict your odds of acceptance at over 500 colleges across the U.S. We’ll also let you know how you stack up against other applicants and how you can improve your profile. Sign up for your free CollegeVine account today to get started!