At a Glance
UC Davis admits 44.3% of applicants.
What You'll Actually Pay
See what families at different income levels actually pay after aid.
What families actually pay, by income level
After grants and scholarships. Before loans. Public school prices shown at in-state rates.
Source: College Scorecard / IPEDS, 2024-25
Where the Sticker Price Goes
Based on average need-based grant. Actual cost varies by family income — see chart above.
Shown at in-state rates.
Debt at Graduation
51.2%
receive need-based grant aid
$17,466
average debt at graduation
UC Davis graduates carry an average of $17,466 in debt.
Merit Aid
1,453
students received merit aid
$7,889
average merit award
Getting In
UC Davis admits 44.3% of applicants.
This school reports SAT section scores but leaves the composite range blank, so there is no mid-50% band to chart.
ACT composite range not reported by this school.
What They Value
Academic
Nonacademic
University of California, Davis considers your essay Important — a strong essay can differentiate an otherwise average application. Demonstrated interest is Not Considered here — campus visits and emails to admissions won't affect your odds.
Student Life
28.7% of UC Davis classes have fewer than 20 students.
Share of undergraduate class sections at each size, from CDS Section I-3. More red = more large lectures.
At UC Davis, 28.7% of your classes will have fewer than 20 students.
Class size data reflects all undergraduate sections including labs, seminars, and lectures. Large research universities often have smaller upper-division and graduate-level sections that improve the overall distribution. First and second-year students typically experience larger classes than these averages suggest.
Source: Common Data Set 2025–26, Section I-3 (class sizes)
22:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus Life
From out of state (freshman class)
6.1%
Live on campus
34.5%
Who Attends
Racial and ethnic breakdown of enrolled undergraduates, as reported in each school's Common Data Set. "Unknown / Other" includes students who did not report or selected "other."
UC Davis's student body is 19.5% white.
Popular Majors
Will They Graduate?
UC Davis graduates 69.8% of students in 4 years.
Graduating late means paying for extra semesters. The 6-year rate tells you who eventually finishes — the 4-year rate tells you what it actually costs.
UC Davis graduates 69.8% of students in 4 years.
What finishing late actually costs
Based on each school's published cost of attendance. Public school costs shown at in-state rates.
UC Davis
69.8%
4-yr grad rate
Extra year cost: $41,238*
* In-state cost of attendance. Out-of-state students pay significantly more.
Graduation rate data from Common Data Set 2025–26, Fall 2018 cohort (most recent available). 4-year rate = students completing in 4 years or less. 6-year rate = students completing within 6 years.
86%
Overall 6-yr rate
82.6%
Pell recipient rate
There's a 3.4 point gap between overall and Pell Grant graduation rates. Worth asking the school about support resources.
Freshman Retention
92.9%
92.9% of first-year students return for sophomore year.
City & Culture
Beyond the data — what it's actually like to spend four years in Davis.
Davis is a small, flat, bicycle-obsessed college town in the Sacramento Valley, and the university is the reason it exists at its current size. The city has more bicycles than residents and was the first in the country to paint bike lanes on its streets, so the practical difference from most public campuses is that a car is genuinely optional. It is quiet — a farming valley on three sides — and that cuts both ways: Sacramento is twenty minutes east for a city evening, San Francisco about ninety minutes south-west, and Lake Tahoe two hours the other way. Rent is cheaper than the coastal UC towns but not cheap.
Notable Alumni
Ann Veneman
Served as US Secretary of Agriculture from 2001 to 2005, the first woman to hold the office, and afterwards led UNICEF. She earned her bachelor's degree in political science here.
Martin Yan
Host of Yan Can Cook, which ran for decades on public television and made him one of the best-known chefs on American TV. He received a Master of Science in food science here in 1975.
Class of 1975
Ken O'Brien
NFL quarterback taken in the first round of the 1983 draft — the class of Elway and Marino — and a decade-long starter for the New York Jets. He played his college football here after transferring from Sacramento State.
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
The City
College town
Davis, CA
Best For
Traditions
Picnic Day
A student-run open house held every April since 1909, with a parade, the Doxie Derby dachshund races and the veterinary school opening its doors — one of the largest student-run events in the country.
The Egghead sculptures
Five bronze heads by Robert Arneson installed around campus since the 1990s, including one buried face-down outside the law school, and the campus's most photographed landmark.
Bike circles
The campus's traffic circles are built for bicycles rather than cars, and learning to merge into one is a genuine rite of passage in the first week.
The Whole Earth Festival
A student-run arts and sustainability festival held on the Quad every Mother's Day weekend since 1969.
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from Davis
Sacramento
About 20 minutesThe state capital, with concerts, professional basketball and an airport, close enough to be an ordinary evening out.
San Francisco and the Bay Area
About 1.5 hours, or direct on AmtrakThe nearest major city, reachable by train from a station in downtown Davis.
Lake Tahoe
About 2 hoursSkiing in winter and alpine lakes in summer, the standard weekend trip east on I-80.
Napa Valley
About 1 hourWine country, and a short drive for a campus with one of the country's leading viticulture programmes.
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
Sacramento International (SMF)
About 25 minutes from campus
For international flights: San Francisco International (SFO) — about 1.5 hours.
Pro sports nearby
- Sacramento Kings NBA
- Sacramento River Cats MiLB
- Sacramento Republic FC USL
Career Proximity
Davis is a research town rather than a job market, and the pairing that matters is proximity: state government and health care in Sacramento twenty minutes east, and the Bay Area's biotech and technology employers about ninety minutes south-west.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- UC Davis Health
- California state agencies
- Mars Wrigley Science and Technology
- Bayer Crop Science
- Nugget Markets
Sacramento — about 20 minutes by car, with Amtrak service from downtown Davis
Who Thrives Here
Davis admits 44.3% — a genuinely different proposition from the UC campuses that turn away nine applicants in ten — and like every UC campus it does not read SAT or ACT scores. The academic shape follows the land-grant history: biological sciences are 16.69% of degrees conferred, psychology 13.54% and social sciences 12.78%, with engineering at 8.64%. What a family should weigh is the finishing rate — 69.8% graduate in four years, well below the 86% who finish within six, so the realistic plan here is often five years rather than four, and 92.9% return for a second year. Aid covers 81.7% of need and graduates who borrow leave owing $17,466. Classes are big: 28.7% of sections have under 20 students and there are 22 students per faculty member, the sort of scale where office hours have to be sought out rather than stumbled into. Campus life is unusually self-contained for a public this size — 34.5% of undergraduates live in university housing, the town is built around bicycles rather than cars, and Sacramento sits twenty minutes east when Davis is too small.