How many students get in off each UC waitlist

The odds depend almost entirely on the campus

In fall 2025, UCLA admitted 1,514 of the 13,612 students who took a spot on its waiting list, or 11.1%. UC Santa Barbara admitted 9,603 of 18,022, or 53.3%, and UC San Diego 20.8%. Across the campuses that filed numbers for that fall, 22,807 of 81,734 students who stayed on a list got in.

The share here is of students who accepted a spot, since only they can be admitted from it. A student offered a spot who did nothing is not counted in it. The waitlist moves after May 1, once a campus sees how many admitted students said yes, so a short list one year and a long one the next mostly reflects how many admits enrolled.

Wait-listed students admitted, divided by students who accepted a place on the waiting list, as each campus filed them in section C2 of its Common Data Set. UC Irvine filed N/A for fall 2025. UC Merced’s files could not be downloaded, so it is not drawn.

Every campus, as filed

Each campus name links to the file we read. We print the counts exactly as the campus filed them, including the ones that look wrong.

Figures we would check before relying on them

UC Berkeley, fall 2025. Berkeley filed 9,102 students offered a spot, 6,479 who took one, and 0 admitted from it, with a note that the sheet was updated in May 2026. We show it as filed. The offered figure, 9,102, is exactly the number of students Berkeley admitted from California high schools for fall 2025 in UC’s own source-school data (9,102). Two unrelated counts matching to the student is unusual, so the offered figure may be a filing error. For fall 2024 Berkeley filed 26 admitted from a list of 7,853.

UC Irvine. For fall 2025 Irvine marked every waitlist question N/A, so there is no Irvine figure for that year. For fall 2024 it filed 6,259 students who took a spot and 6,259 admitted from it, the same number, which would mean everyone on the list got in. We print it as filed. Irvine’s fall 2023 file sits behind a university sign-in, so it is not available to download.

UC Riverside, fall 2025. Riverside filed 2,019 students who took a spot and 0 admitted from it.

UC Davis. Davis’s data pages refuse scripted requests, but its Common Data Set files themselves downloaded, so all three falls are here. Its fall 2024 file is named 2023_2024 on the server; the pages inside it say 2024-2025 and fall 2024.

UC Merced. Merced’s server refused our downloads for every year, so Merced is not available to download and is left out rather than filled in from anywhere else.

What to do with a waitlist offer

Opt in on the applicant portal by the campus’s deadline if you would still enroll there. It costs nothing, and at Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz and Davis a large share of the students who stayed on the list in recent years were admitted. Then commit to another school by May 1, because UC waitlist decisions mostly come after that date and a deposit elsewhere is how you keep a seat. UC campuses do not rank their lists in a way students can see, and a waitlist decision cannot be appealed, so keep your senior grades up and follow only the steps the campus itself asks for.