Engineering Major Admission

UCSD does NOT admit based on your major. You are first admitted to UCSD, regardless of what major you choose. Once you are admitted to UCSD, you are then admitted to your major of choice. If the major is non-impacted, then this happens automatically. If the major is impacted (like any of the engineering majors), then this happens on a competitive basis. However, it does not effect at all whether you are admitted to UCSD or not, just whether you are admitted to the engineering major. If you do not get into the engineering major as an incoming freshmen, you can still apply to switch to the impacted major as a continuing student if you want to as a UCSD student.

I don’t think UCSD publishes information about which engineering major has the most students apply to it. However, you should apply to UCSD as the engineering major that you actually want to be, not the one you think is the “least competitive.” It’s better to know as an incoming freshman whether you were admitted into the major of your choice or not, so you can make an informed decision about whether you want to go to UCSD or not. It’s harder and riskier to switch into an impacted major as a continuing student because it’s based on your college GPA (which may be harder to get higher grades in) and there’s no guarantee that you will be admitted (and no way of knowing your chances of being admitted because it’s based on how many spots are open any given year and how competitive the other applicants are). Picking any impacted major will NOT impact your ability to get into UCSD, so if you are comfortable attending UCSD in a different degree program than the one you initially wanted, you will still be able to do so, regardless of which major you choose.