UC Santa Cruz Class of 2030 Official Thread

Colleges & Universities University of California - Santa Cruz
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Welcome prospective Banana Slugs. It’s that time of year again as the UC application has now opened and submission starts October 1 through December 1. 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.

UC Santa Cruz like all the UC’s are test blind this admission cycle 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 Cruz is a good option when applying.

2025 Freshman (First year) profile 25th-75th percentile:
Capped weighted GPA: 3.83-4.20

Freshman Admit rate: 72.7%

Freshman admission information:
Choice of major does not influence the selection of first-year students however, there are high demand majors with limited capacity for the College of Engineering, the Divisions of Social Sciences and the Division of Physical and Biological Sciences.

Freshmen who are interested in the College of Engineering programs should be sure to indicate a BSOE proposed major. Students who do not indicate a BSOE program or who apply as undeclared might not be able to pursue a BSOE program.

Selective majors include Computer Science (BA and BS).

UCSC has ten residential colleges (https://housing.ucsc.edu/publications/pdf/colleges-brochure.pdf ). Students do not need to select or rank the colleges on their UC application.

If a student chooses to enroll at UCSC , they will be asked to select five colleges when they submit their intent to register.

UCSC Campus tours: Tours

Best of luck to all applicants.

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Class of 2030 Official Regular Decision (RD) Threads
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UC Counselor conference information and updates are listed below.

UCSC Freshman admitted average GPA was an Unweighted UC GPA of 3.70 and Capped weighted of 4.0.

UCSC to partner with UC Davis for a New Central Coast Medical program. More information to come.

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That sounds promising. Accepting applications in 2026. Starting in summer, 2027.

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Did anyone else receive a “Your admissions portal has been updated” email today? My daughter won’t be home for several hours and I’m wondering if this is just a basic update, not an admissions decision, which I know would be very unusual.

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Just a basic update of Portal with important dates and reminders to fill out FAFSA and check email and contact info.

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Anyone think they’ll start releasing some early decisions this Friday? Based on last year, it seems like they might…

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maybe! So exciting! Is it for certain programs?

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Maybe. 2 years ago we got a decision on 2/29, which was a Thursday.

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For historical information on UCSC decision dates, here are the dates for the last 4 years.

2025: Some early admits Friday February 21, 2025. Dean’s Scholarship and Regents awards posted February 26, 2025. 2nd wave Friday March 7, 2025 around 12 PM PST.

2024: Early admits February 29, 2024 around 12 pm PST. Regular Decisions on Friday March 15, 2024 around 12 noon. Also early admits were notified of Regents and Dean’s scholarships on March 15, 2024.

2023: 1st Wave Monday February 27. 2nd Wave March 15, 2023. Scholarship notifications on March 16, 2023

2022: 1st Wave starting Friday February 25th. 2nd Wave March 15th.

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Thanks for posting this! Sounds like it’s not always a Friday! I did not realize this. And also looks like more likely to be next week than this week.

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:eyes: :hourglass_not_done:

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Good luck to all future banana slugs! Hopefully we start hearing today!

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Some kind of motion on the portals being reported on reddit. Sounds like there’s a few hiccups with it so far though.

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S26 has a new “view your admission offer letter.” But when he clicks on it it says not found. Things are definitely progressing.

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A cautious congrats! (what a massive screw-up that would be for it not to be an admit).

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There is now a button that says “once you have accepted your offer of admission, go to link for important business.”

Still can’t click on admission letter, but sounds like he is in. A bit anti climactic :rofl:

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How many people usually get UCSC early? What top percent of students get it?

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There has never a definitive number that they accept earlier unlike Berkeley. Most decisions will be posted in March.

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oh okay