How the University of California evaluates student applications

Robert Penman leads undergraduate admissions for UC Davis and previously worked in the admissions department at UC Berkeley and UC Riverside. Blia Yang directs undergraduate admissions at UC San Diego; like Penman, she has the benefit of a multicampus perspective, having also worked in admissions leadership at both UC Santa Cruz and UC Santa Barbara.

Read on to get a behind-the-scenes look at comprehensive review.

Last year, UC saw nearly 207K first-year applicants across its nine undergraduate campuses. That's a pretty big number. So how are all those applications actually evaluated?

UC uses a process known as "comprehensive review." It takes a student's full picture into consideration by looking at more than just GPA and other quantifiable measures to get a total view of the individual and how they might add to a particular campus community.

The University of California first implemented comprehensive review in 2002. At that time, UC applications were starting to tick up (a trend that has magnified over the intervening years), and several UCs were seeing many more qualified first-year applicants than they had space for.

Comprehensive review provides a more nuanced way of admitting students because it takes factors into consideration that go beyond the old "eligibility index," a quantitative formula of GPA plus test scores.

Working within UC-wide guidelines, each undergraduate campus has its own way of applying comprehensive review at the local level. Some campuses call their process "comprehensive review," while others have moved toward "holistic review," but they all follow the same systemwide policy that calls for considering up to 13 factors when evaluating applications.

For example, UC Davis and UC San Diego both use holistic review for first-year applicants, and while the process may look a little different at the two campuses, the same application will get similar treatment by both admissions offices.

Each campus has leeway to implement comprehensive review in the way that works best for them, so UC's local admissions departments all work a little differently. UC Merced and UC Riverside use "comprehensive review," which gives slightly more weight to quantifiable factors like GPA. The seven other undergrad campuses use "holistic review," an approach to implementing comprehensive review where each application ends up with a holistic review score, with no fixed weight given to any aspect of the application.

What does holistic review look at?

In a nutshell, everything on your application is evaluated. That includes grades, the courses you chose to take, your academic performance, extracurricular activities and community involvement both at school and outside of it. It includes your school environment and your home environment. Reviewers may also consider your choice of major and alternate major, if you've selected one. Importantly, no single factor determines whether you are offered admission.

Every application is read and evaluated by application readers - it's a human process, not an algorithm. And there's no set weight given to any piece of the application. Readers seek to understand the context of your high school experience along with your achievements. At campuses doing holistic review like UC Davis and UC San Diego, those readers evaluate your full application to develop a holistic review score for your application.

"We want to look at these various aspects to really get a full view of the different things that make up a student's experience when they are going through the high school educational system," explains Yang.

If that sounds like a tall order, it is. An admissions process that takes the complexity of individual students into account necessarily becomes complex in and of itself. An algorithm would take much less time, effort and money to implement. "It makes it complicated," says Yang, "but I think looking at a student in this way is the right thing." Holistic review isn't the easy way, but it is a more equitable way to consider applications.

How do readers get a sense of a student's full picture?

Comprehensive review recognizes the importance of a student's lived experience. UC applicants come from wildly different backgrounds. They come from different neighborhoods and regions, and they have different resources and access to opportunities.

Admissions reviewers seek to understand a student's achievement within the setting of their school, or their academic context. How does a student's GPA sit relative to others in their school? What courses does the school offer? Some schools don't offer Advanced Placement (AP) courses or even all the "A-G" classes required for entry to UC, while others have AP courses along with International Baccalaureate and community college dual enrollment options. UC considers all of that when looking at your record.

Penman gives an example: "I don't expect a student coming from an under-resourced school in a rural area to have had the same access to AP coursework, for example, as one of the private BASIS schools that have practically every AP course offered. With holistic review, we're considering a student's performance in the context of their environment. It's about what you did with the resources you had access to."

The home context is important, too. "Talking about the rural student who has to drive 45 minutes to get to school, or the student who lives in a city and has to take two buses and a train to get to school every day - those things are important," Penman continues. "The home environment also matters. Some folks have a really stable environment, but others don't. If that has affected a student's ability to prepare for university - or if they've succeeded in spite of it - we want to know about it."

Get more information about UC admissions requirements and apply now for Fall 2025. Applications are due by Dec. 2.

What does holistic review look like in practice?

For the fall 2023 admission cycle, UC Davis had 94,638 first-year applicants, and UC San Diego saw 130,835. Other campuses range from 30,232 applicants for UC Merced, the smallest campus, to 145,903 for UCLA, the most in demand. The numbers are huge.

So how do admissions offices handle the volume? It takes a big team and a lot of planning. Months before the first applications roll in, each campus hires a small army of readers. The UC Davis admissions staff grows from 65 to almost 150 for application season, while UC San Diego's team balloons from 50 year-round staff to nearly 300.

Readers go through extensive training to learn norms and expectations, and they log some serious hours honing their skills. A new reader at UC Davis, for example, has to read and score about a hundred sample applications before they can work on "live" files. For returning readers and newcomers alike, scoring is routinely quality checked to make sure it's in keeping with the norms. Readers are sent blind test applications throughout the application review period to make sure their scoring stays in line with the training. Their scores are checked against other reviews, and anything that's off by a set amount gets sent to another reader for an additional review. Each campus admissions office trains their readers according to its own method, but they all take the role of the reader very seriously.

Another similarity among campuses: the application read-throughs aren't a one-and-done situation. Each application is touched more than once. Depending on the campus, an application might have multiple reads, cross-checks and other reviews based on quantitative data. A student's grades and course selection are also reviewed in the context of their school. By the time the process is done, each application has received a thorough review.

How important are Personal Insight Questions (PIQs) vs. GPA?

In holistic review, there's no set weight for any piece of the application. PIQs are important, but they're just one piece. They'll help you the most if you use them to give readers a fuller description of your experience, adding clarity and depth to the rest of the application.

The best PIQs don't simply restate something you listed somewhere else but explain the impact of that activity or give new information that doesn't come through elsewhere. Students can expand on the things they've been doing outside the classroom, at home or in their community. If their grades dipped at some point, they can give a clearer picture of why that happened.

Similarly, grades are also important, but they are just one factor that is taken into consideration along with everything else. It's more about the entire picture put together.

Now that UC no longer accepts standardized test scores, has another quantitative measure taken their place?

UC dropped its standardized testing requirements in 2021. The change hasn't altered the review process, other than simply eliminating one piece of information.

"On a macro level, I don't think it has had the impact people thought it might," says Yang. "The GPAs are still there. The rigor of coursework is still there. But what did happen was that we saw a bump in the number of students applying to UC overall."

"I think for many students, dropping the standardized testing requirement removed a stigma," she continues. "We're considering students who wouldn't have applied back then because they would have taken themselves out of the running. Now students are raising their hand who we didn't see before, and that's expanding opportunity."

Does UC screen for AI in applications or use it to review them?

Though UC doesn't use artificial intelligence in its application review process, AI may be helping students complete their applications. But if you're tempted to use ChatGPT to complete your PIQs, be forewarned - that "help" may not work in your favor.

"A personal insight question written by AI is not going to be very good, because it's not going to teach us anything about the student," says Penman. "It's not going to help us understand more about the student in their context, their hopes and dreams, their trials and tribulations, their achievements. That can't be generated by a machine, it really has to come from the student."

And, while using AI as a tool is one thing, using a completely AI-generated answer is another - and one that is equivalent to academic dishonesty. UC runs plagiarism checks on applications, and if your PIQs are found to have been generated by AI with unattributed sources, you could be disqualified from UC admission entirely.

Does UC really read every application?

Every single UC application is read, even those that don't meet UC GPA or A-G requirements. In certain cases, a student who doesn't meet the minimum requirements might be admitted "by exception," such as a student who has performed well but who lives in a remote area and doesn't have access to all A-G courses through their high school.

If you apply to multiple UCs, your application will be read thoroughly at each campus you apply to. (And no, the campuses don't talk to each other about admissions decisions.) "We spend a lot of our resources on this effort," says Yang. "We want to get it right and make sure that every student gets a thorough and equitable review."

While transfer applications also get a comprehensive review, transfer admission is more focused on academics, specifically GPA and major preparation. "We're looking for students to be prepared for their major and to be ready to enter upper division courses so they can graduate within two or two-and-a-half years," explains Penman.

What factors influence admission beyond the application?

All UCs are looking for students who will contribute to the cultural and intellectual vitality of their campuses. They want to bring in students who are well prepared for college and represent a diversity of experience - from geographic location to economic background and academic interests.

"By and large, it's not a challenge to find students who are going to do well here - the applicant pool is incredibly strong," says Penman. "We're hoping to shape a class of students who come from all walks of life. Our students benefit when they come into a space where they're with others who have not had the same experiences they've had. Bringing together students with such different perspectives on the world creates a unique learning environment, one that maybe can only be found at UC. It gives them exposure to new ideas. I think it creates a better environment for students, which is why we work so hard to do it. Holistic review allows us to build a stronger class, and that makes for a stronger institution."

The limiting factor for both students and admissions departments is capacity, both physical and financial. Each year, enrollment targets are determined by the undergraduate campuses in concert with UC's central Office of the President, the Academic Senate, the UC Regents and the state of California. Key factors determining the number of seats available at each campus are classroom space, housing availability, state funding support and how many students will graduate (opening up additional seats). In recent years, UC has limited out of-state enrollment, particularly at the campuses in highest demand. Certain majors are also in very high demand, requiring UC campuses to set caps for those as well. "At UC San Diego, we set enrollment targets for those highly selective majors to make sure we can protect the quality of education," says Yang. "We don't want to bring in more students than we can handle."

It seems like very qualified students don't always get into UC. Why is that?

Students, and especially their families, often underestimate the strength of the UC applicant pool. At the same time, they may overestimate what they know about other applicants.

Yang explains: "What I often hear is, well, Johnny down the street has a 3.9 and my son has a 4.2, and Johnny did this or didn't do that, but he got in and my son didn't. If you believe admission is based on GPA or a specific set of activities, then I can see how it can feel random when a student gets in who has a lesser GPA or maybe did one or two activities where another did four or five. But perhaps that student did other things you don't know about. Do you know the major or the alternate major the student applied for? Do you know what that student wrote about in response to the Personal Insight Questions? I can see how it might feel haphazard from the outside if you don't have all the information."

Penman describes the impact of major selection: "At UC Davis we have four majors that have an admission rate below 25 percent: design, computer science, mechanical engineering and psychology. I think it can feel more like a lottery in that kind of space, and I empathize with that. It can be really jarring, particularly for parents. When our generation applied to college, it was much more straightforward. But the demand for spaces has grown so much, and UC hasn't been able to keep pace due to a variety of factors. And so we find ourselves with a math problem, particularly with those more selective majors."

Yang agrees. "Sometimes when a student doesn't get the offer, they turn it in on themselves. What did I do wrong? Often, it's not a reflection on the student. They are doing everything they should. It's more of a reflection on the institution. Last year approximately 12,500 students raised their hand for 300 spots in computer science at UC San Diego. How can any institution admit all those students? We can't. That's a reflection of limits, not the student's achievement."

What would you say to high school students in the process of preparing for or applying to college?

Ultimately, Yang advises students to think beyond college admissions and do some soul searching: "It's really important to think about who you are, to follow your own curiosities and interests. Part of the challenge of being alive is the discovery of who you are - your path and your purpose. I would much rather see students pursue their passions than what they think they need to do to get into UC San Diego or anywhere else."

Penman echoes those sentiments: "If you spend your time comparing yourself to others, you'll be consistently miserable. There are 4,000 colleges in the U.S., and UC is just nine of those. Focus on the school you want to attend, not just for the name or the ranking, but for the right reasons."

Get started on your UC application! Find all the information you need about admissions requirements and apply now for Fall 2025. Applications are due by Dec. 2, but you can always submit earlier.

Myth: UC doesn't read every application.
Reality check: UC admissions reviewers really do read every single application. If you apply to multiple campuses, your application will get a separate but equally thorough review at each school on your list.

Myth: It's a yes or no the first time your application is read.
Reality check: Each application gets multiple reviews.

Myth: Campus admissions departments talk with one another to decide which school will accept a student.
Reality check: The single application makes it easy to apply to multiple UCs, but the different campuses absolutely do not make decisions in consultation with one another.

Myth: It's impossible to get in.
Reality check: 65 percent of California first-year UC applicants are admitted to at least one UC campus.

Myth: It's easy to get in.
Reality check: The applicant pool is competitive, especially for highly selective majors. Understand that admission rates for selective disciplines can look very different from overall campus admission rates.