UC Santa Barbara Class of 2029 Official Thread

Colleges & Universities University of California - Santa Barbara
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Welcome prospective Gauchos. It’s that time of year again as the UC application has now opened and submission starts October 1 through December 2. I am @Gumbymom one of the two UC Forum Champions/Moderators. My Co-Forum Champion is @lkg4answers and we are knowledgeable on the increasingly complicated UC admissions process and hopefully we can help any prospective UC applicants with their questions.

UCSB does NOT directly use the uncapped GPA; however they heavily take into account course rigor/number of APs etc, and use the uncapped GPA on their website/UC website for statistical purposes.

UC Santa Barbara like all the UC’s are test blind and will use 13 areas of criteria to review Freshman applicants. Each campus will weight the various areas of criteria differently so one size does not fit all. The UC application website has plenty of information that can help determine if UC Santa Barbara is a good option when applying. Below is some admit information specific to the school.

https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/how-to-apply/applying-as-a-freshman/how-applications-are-reviewed.html

https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/campuses-majors/santa-barbara/freshman-admit-data.html

https://admissions.sa.ucsb.edu/freshman

2024 Freshman (First year) profile 25th-75th:
Unweighted UC GPA average: 3.91
Capped weighted GPA: 4.13-4.29

College admit rates:
College of Creative studies- 11%
College of Engineering- 18%
College of Letters and Sciences- 37%

Freshman admission information:

College of Letters and Sciences: Choice of major is not considered in selection to the College of Letters and Science. The exceptions are the dance and music performance majors. Both majors require applicants to complete an audition in late January or early February.

In the College of Letters and Science, students are admitted to a major or a pre-major. If admitted to a pre-major, the student must meet additional requirements at UCSB prior to declaring the full major.

College of Engineering: Students are selected by major for all engineering and computer science majors. Only applicants with a solid background in advanced high school mathematics will be considered for admission to engineering. This includes high grades in all math courses through grade 11 and enrollment in pre-calculus or higher in grade 12. A student not selected for their first choice major will be reviewed for admission to an alternate major outside of the College of Engineering if one was selected.

College of Creative Studies:
Applicants to the College of Creative Studies submit a supplementary application in addition to the general UC Application, which is reviewed by Creative Studies faculty. Students are selected within Creative Studies majors only. Applicants not selected for Creative Studies will automatically be considered for admission to the College of Letters and Science.

Selective majors include all majors in the College of Engineering and College of Creative Studies.

UC Santa Barbara Events:

• Daily campus tours

• Virtual events

Best of luck to all applicants.

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With regards to the competition for the College of Engineering, is there any major specific data that demonstrates the competitiveness of each major in the COE. I’m planning on applying for Mech E but I’m wondering if it would be easier to get in if I apply for a different major in COE and then try to switch into Mech E later on.

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Overall admit rate for the COE was 18% 2024 Freshman

There is some information from the UCSB website:

For Computer Engineering:

CE Program Statistics (Fall 2023)

  • 2240 applicants | 87 enrolled
  • Average incoming GPA: 4.44 (UC Weighted uncapped)

For Electrical Engineering:

EE Program Statistics (Fall 2023)

  • 1985 applicants | 91 enrolled
  • Average incoming GPA: 4.40(UC Weighted uncapped)

For Computer Science (UCOP website) for 2023:
10% admit rate with a 4.23-4.31 UC Capped weighted admit range (25th-75th percentile). 9821 applicants/1006 admits/144 enrolled

I cannot find data for Chemical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering however this is the overall COE information for 2023

10,865 applicants/1919 admits/300 enrolled. CS is excluded from these numbers. UC Capped weighted GPA admit range was 4.20-4.30.

2024 COE had 337 enrolled Freshman students and 174 for CS. No specific GPA yet listed.

Make sure you understand the Change of major process before applying. My advice is to apply to your choice major and not try to game the system.

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in UCSB, for college of letter and science, based on above -

*College of Letters and Sciences: Choice of major is not considered in selection to the College of Letters and Science. *
*and *
In the College of Letters and Science, students are admitted to a major or a pre-major.

So does this mean that, irrespective of what we select as primary major within College of L & S, they will first decide admission based on the college, and then once admitted, they will assign to the major (or pre-major) selected (like say Psychological sciences for example)

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Duplicate post.

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I am not an Admissions officer so I cannot comment on the exact process used to determine admission into the College of Letters and Sciences but this is according to the UCSB website regarding Selective/Impacted/Capped majors:

Majors in UCSB’s College of Letters and Science are not selective, but Dance B.A., Dance B.F.A., and Music B.M. applicants must complete an audition before admission

If the majors have capacity limits, then they are identified as Selective/Capped/High Demand and will require additional evaluation for admissions.

Below is a UC Counselor presentation about Selective majors which explains the process but there is historical admission data and other factors used by the UC’s to determine their admissions process and major capacities. As I have stated before, there is a “method to the madness” : https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/_files/documents/2023-counselor-conference/pdfs-with-notes/major-mayhem_everyone-wants-my-major-what-do-i-do_with-notes.pdf

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this is super helpful. thanks. Its clear now.

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Is the College of Creative Studies like an honors college? I understand it is 400 students working closely with professors to explore one domain. Is it possible to apply to the College of Creative Studies after a year in the College of Letters and Sciences (sophomore or even junior year)? Or do you need to be admitted from the beginning?

My daughter is interested in natural sciences/ecology/biology, and possibly marine bio. It seems she has to select a major (with an alternate) in the application. If she selected Creative Studies Biology and does not get in, is she automatically considered for the College of L&S Bio, or does she need to select it as an alternate?

If she simply selects “Undecided,” can she easily pick biology, marine biology, ecology or something else as a major later, or are those areas so impacted that you have to get in as a first-year applicant?

It is very confusing above where it says “choice of major is not considered in selection to the college of L&S” because in the next paragraph it says, "students are admitted to a major or a pre-major. This implies that the major is considered, as you are admitted in that major!

Lastly, if you cannot answer these questions, do you know another place I could post them? I would be particularly interested in talking to students in the College of Creative Studies!

Thank you!!

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This discussion thread can answer many of your questions:

https://talk.collegeconfidential.com/t/considering-uc-santa-barbara-college-of-creative-studies-ccs/

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The college of engineering at UCSB is relatively small compared to other schools leading to competitive admissions. About 400 undergraduate degrees are awarded each year including all majors in COE. You can read some information in the link below:

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Do you by chance know if waitlist numbers are available from last year?

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These are the Preliminary numbers listed from the UC Counselor conference. I am waiting for the common dataset to confirm.

The number of applicants waitlisted: 15985
The number opting into the waitlist: 10641
The number admitted from the waitlist: 8747

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Has anyone gotten a portal invitation from them yet?

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The portal information was sent in January last year.

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This is the response from admissions office yesterday:

Thank you for contacting the Office of Admissions. We will begin downloading applications in mid-December. You can expect an application confirmation email from UCSB after mid-December. We will then send you instructions on how to access the Application Portal in a separate email.

Please note that the Applicant Portal for Fall 2025 is not yet open; it will open in January.

If you have received an email from the UC application that shows your UC application ID and includes UC Santa Barbara on the list of schools to which you submitted your application, you can rest assured that we will send you the confirmation email shortly.

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Thank you so much. We were becoming concerned. My older son did not apply here and so I wasn’t familiar with their process. You would think as a person who has been through this before I’d know what I was doing. LOL

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That’s an interesting tidbit. That explains why portal notifications don’t come out until later.

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They sent out the portal information and a video tutorial to set it up!

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We got it too.

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