Admissions & selectivity
University of California-Irvine Acceptance Rate & Admissions
What is the acceptance rate at UC Irvine?
UC Irvine’s reported acceptance rate is 28.6%.
- Acceptance rate · Fall 2024
- 28.6%
Source: College Scorecard · Fall 2024 admissions. Acceptance rates can change from year to year; this figure does not predict the current or next admission cycle.
How to interpret the acceptance rate
University of California-Irvine admits 28.6% of applicants, a rate well below the median of 78.1% for comparable institutions (same type and size). In its 2025-26 Common Data Set, the university reported 124,231 applicants, 35,964 admitted students, and 6,421 enrolled first-year students.
What SAT and ACT scores do UC Irvine students report?
SAT and ACT ranges are not available for UC Irvine in the data shown here. Missing scores do not establish whether tests are required, optional or excluded from review.
Figures cover fall 2024.
Who enrolls at UC Irvine?
- Pell Grant recipients
- 36.1%
- Entering students outside the first-time, full-time group
- 29.0%
- First-year retention
- 94.1%
Retention source: College Scorecard; full-time first-year retention.
About these student measures
These measures use different populations and reporting periods, rather than one current entering class. The entering-student group includes part-time entrants as well as other attendance patterns.
University of California-Irvine admits 28.6% of applicants, a rate far below the median of 78.1% for comparable institutions (same type and size). In its 2025-26 Common Data Set, the university reported 124,231 applicants and 35,964 admitted students, with 6,421 enrolling.
The undergraduate enrollment of 30,197 includes an estimated 29.0% share of entrants outside the first-time, full-time group, and Pell recipients make up 36.1% of undergraduates. For transfer applicants, the university received 25,377 applications and admitted 10,033, with 2,794 enrolling.
The University of California-Irvine posts persistence and completion figures that outpace its peer group. Among first-time full-time students, 94.0% return for a second year, well above the peer median of 83.1%.
The six-year graduation rate reaches 86.9%, while the median for comparable institutions sits at 65.0%. In its 2025-26 Common Data Set, the university reported a retention rate of 93% for the first-time, full-time fall 2024 entering class.
For the first-time, full-time fall 2019 entering class, the six-year graduation rate was 87.0%, and Pell Grant recipients in that cohort completed at 84.0%, below the overall rate. The federal completion data show a Pell completion rate of 74.2%, which is below the overall six-year rate by 12.7 percentage points.
Enrolled students can expect a university where the large majority of first-year students persist, and where graduation outcomes for the entering class as a whole exceed those of comparable institutions.
Data & methodology
A missing figure does not mean zero. Sources and reporting periods: methodology.
Analysis and methodology by Daniel Rogers, founder of College Azimuth.
Explanatory text is AI-assisted drafting checked against those figures; it is not an additional data source.
Admission rates describe past applicants, not an individual’s chance of admission; confirm requirements and deadlines with the institution.
Figure notes link to sources and limitations. About College Azimuth.