What You'll Actually Pay
Price after grants
$5,579 to $29,682 a year for in-state students, depending on income.
College Scorecard 2024 estimate · in-state rates
See the price at your income ↑Sticker price
Full cost before aid: $38,614 a year in-state. Average need-based aid package: $33,777.Aid and debt
44.4%
receive need-based grants
$21,116
average debt at graduation
1,930
students got merit aid
about 6% of undergraduates
$7,401
average merit award
Getting In
A note for out-of-state applicants
University of California, Los Angeles is bound by a California rule capping how much of its undergraduate class can come from outside the state. If you're applying from outside California, you're competing for a limited, separately-capped share of seats — a different picture than the admit rate above shows.
Key dates
Test scores
SAT composite range not reported by this school.
ACT composite range not reported by this school.
What they value
- Very important
- Course rigor (AP/IB)
- GPA
- Personal essay
- Important
- Extracurriculars
- Special talent
- Character
- Volunteer work
- Work experience
- Considered
- First-gen status
- Where you're from
- In-state residency
- Not considered
- Class rank
- SAT/ACT scores
- Recommendations
- Legacy status
- Demonstrated interest
What this means for you
UCLA rates course rigor and your essay as Very Important, and your activities as Important.
MoreLess
Rigor means AP, IB, and dual enrollment carry real weight — make sure your mix of AP or IB courses is strong. The essay is weighted like your GPA. And depth and leadership in a few activities matter more than a long list.
UCLA doesn't consider demonstrated interest in admissions at all — visits and follow-up emails won't move the needle here.
Source: Common Data Set 2025–26, Section C7 (admissions factors)
UCLA just showed you what it values in an application. Use that to write a Why-UCLA essay that's actually about you — not a template.
Get sourced starting points for your essayStudent Life
46.2% of UCLA classes have fewer than 20 students.
46.2%
under 20 students
29.3%
20 to 49
24.5%
50 or more
Every class section counts, labs and seminars included; first-year courses tend to be larger. UCLA CDS 2025–26, I-3.
20:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus life
41.8%
live on campus
Who attends
- Asian29.9%
- Hispanic24.7%
- White22.7%
- Multiracial8%
- Unknown / other3.4%
- Black3.2%
Enrolled undergraduates; international students are counted separately and not included. UCLA CDS 2025–26, B2.
Popular majors
Will They Graduate?
86.1% of UCLA students graduate in 4 years.
86.1%
finish in 4 years
Entered fall 2019
92.8%
finish in 6 years
Entered fall 2019
97%
return after first year
Finishing late means paying for extra semesters, so the 4-year rate is the one that shows the cost.
Students with Pell Grants
89.8% finish in 6 years, against 92.8% of all students.
A 3-point gap: Pell Grant students finish less often than students overall.
City & Culture
Beyond the data — what it's actually like to spend four years in Los Angeles.
Westwood is a compact, walkable pocket of Los Angeles wrapped around the campus, with Beverly Hills on one side and Santa Monica and the ocean about fifteen minutes west.
MoreLess
The campus itself is dense and self-contained — 419 acres for 33,534 undergraduates, the smallest campus in the UC system — so it feels more like a city block than a landscape. Everything beyond Westwood needs a plan: LA is spread out, traffic is the local currency, and the Metro D Line extension now reaching the campus is the first real alternative to driving. Rent in this part of the city is among the highest in the country.
The City
Major city
Los Angeles, CA
Best For
Notable alumni
Notable Alumni
Ralph Bunche
Won the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize for mediating the 1949 Armistice Agreements, the first Black American to receive it. He graduated here in 1927 in political science, summa cum laude and valedictorian of his class.
Class of 1927
Jackie Robinson
Broke Major League Baseball's colour line in 1947. He was UCLA's first athlete to letter in four sports — baseball, basketball, football and track — and left in spring 1941 just short of the degree to take a job with the National Youth Administration.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
The NBA's scoring leader for nearly four decades and a six-time champion. He played here from 1966 to 1969, winning three consecutive national titles, and took a history degree.
Class of 1969
Francis Ford Coppola
Directed The Godfather and Apocalypse Now. He took an MFA in film here, at a school that has since become one of the main pipelines into the industry sitting a few miles away.
Class of 1967
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
Traditions
Traditions
The Victory Bell
The rivalry game against USC has been played since 1929, and the winner keeps a 295-pound locomotive bell that was stolen, hidden and fought over for years before the two student bodies agreed to make it the trophy in 1942.
Beat 'SC Week and the bonfire
The week before the USC game turns into a run of campus events, with Bruin Bear wrapped for protection and a rally that has been part of the calendar for generations.
Pauley Pavilion
The basketball arena where John Wooden's teams won ten national championships in twelve years, still the standard against which college basketball dynasties are measured.
Undie Run
A student-run midnight run through campus on the Wednesday of finals week, now organised with charity clothing donations attached.
Weekend escapes from Los Angeles
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from Los Angeles
Santa Monica and the beaches
About 15 minutesThe nearest genuine escape from campus, reachable by bus, and the reason a surfboard is a plausible dorm-room object here.
Santa Monica Mountains and Malibu
About 30 minutesTrails, canyon roads and coastline directly north-west of the campus for a day out of the city.
Joshua Tree National Park
About 2.5 hoursDesert hiking and climbing, and the standard long-weekend trip for students with a car.
San Diego
About 2.5 hoursBeaches and a different city, close enough for a weekend without flying.
Getting there and game days
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
Los Angeles International (LAX)
About 30 minutes from campus
Flies international — you can start a trip abroad from here.
Pro sports nearby
- Los Angeles Dodgers MLB
- Los Angeles Lakers NBA
- Los Angeles Rams NFL
- Los Angeles Kings NHL
Internships and jobs nearby
Career Proximity
UCLA sits inside the second-largest metropolitan economy in the United States, with entertainment, health care and aerospace employers within a short drive and a teaching hospital on the campus itself.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- UCLA Health
- The Walt Disney Company
- Warner Bros. Discovery
- Northrop Grumman
- Amgen
Los Angeles — the campus is inside the metro, with Century City about 10 minutes away
Who thrives here
Who Thrives Here
UCLA turns away more than nine applicants in ten and does not look at test scores while doing it, so the transcript carries the whole case: 58.8% of enrolled first-years arrived with a straight-A record and the average was 3.94. What that buys is unusually good for a public — 97% come back for a second year, 86.1% graduate in four years and 92.8% within six — at $16,383 in state, or $55,653 from out of it. Aid covers 90.6% of need, which is close but not all of it, and 44.4% of undergraduates receive need-based aid. The scale is the thing to be honest about. This is a 33,534-undergraduate campus on 419 acres, the smallest in the University of California; 41.8% live in university housing and the rest take on Westwood and LA traffic. Classes reflect that size, with 46.2% of sections under 20 students and 20 students per faculty member. The waitlist is worth reading before you count on it: 13,612 students accepted a place on it for Fall 2025 and 1,514 were admitted.