Key Takeaways

• Los Angeles County contributes about 25% of all first-year enrollees and 46% of all transfer enrollees.
• Applicants from private high schools had a slightly higher admission rate of 11.58% compared to 9.50% for public high school students.
• Southern California counties typically had higher admission rates compared to the rest of the state for first-year applicants.

Introduction

For the past several years, UCLA has received more applications than any other university in the U.S. – receiving over 500,000 applications from around the world between 2021 and 2023. Despite the increasing number of applications, the number of admitted students remains largely fixed, slightly fluctuating each year to account for an increasing yield rate – the percentage of admits who enroll at UCLA. Out of the approximately 10,000 students who enroll each year as first-year admits or transfers, an average of 79.4% are California residents, making up a clear majority of the UCLA student body. Within each county and high school, the statistical admission rates can very dramatically. The Stack explores where UCLA’s California students originate and the differences in admission rates between counties.

About the data

The data discussed below was gathered from the University of California’s “Admissions by source school” dashboard for 2023. Data from source schools with fewer than five applicants are not included in this dataset. Additionally, data from source schools with fewer than three admitted or enrolled students are excluded from the respective category. As a result, this dataset is incomplete and is only an estimation. Source schools with excluded admitted students data were not included in visualizations. Counties with fewer than 50 applicants were not included in visualizations. All counties without sufficient statistically significant data are excluded from visualizations.

UCLA first-year admission rates by county (2023 data)

Across the state, smaller counties tended to have higher admission rates in 2023, peaking in Napa County with an admission rate of 13.94%. Correspondingly, larger counties had relatively low admission rates, including Riverside County, which had the lowest admission rate of 8.39%. Over 17% of all 2023 first-year applicants resided in Los Angeles County, which had the 12th-highest admission rate of 10.52%. In general, applicants from Southern California had higher admission rates than applicants from the Bay Area. Applicants from private high schools had a higher admission rate of approximately 11.58% compared to applicants from public high schools, who had an average rate of 9.50%.

Enrolled first-year UCLA students by county (2023 data)

Most notably, residents of LA County made up around 25% of all 2023 first-year enrollees. Orange County, San Diego County and Santa Clara County followed as the second, third and fourth most contributing counties (CQ).

UCLA first-year admission by source school (2023 data)

UCLA transfer student admission rates by county (Fall 2023-2024 data)

Among UCLA transfer applicants, Ventura County had the highest admission rate of 36.70%, followed by Sonoma County (35.54%) and Santa Cruz County (34.78%). The counties with the lowest admission rates were San Luis Obispo (17.53%), Solano (19.35%) and Kern (21.05%). Overall, the average admission rate for 2023 UCLA transfer applicants was 26%.

Enrolled UCLA transfer students by county (Fall 2023-2024 data)

Similarly to first-year enrollees, LA County produced the highest number of enrolled transfer students: approximately 46% of all enrolled transfers. The following three counties were Orange, Santa Clara and San Diego. Overall, 92.12% of enrolled transfer students were California residents.

UCLA transfer source schools (Fall 2023-2024 data)