Community College to UC Davis:Admit Rates and Major Thresholds

UC Davis has a relatively high overall admit rate for community college transfer students, but popular majors have clear course group GPA thresholds. According to official UC data, 17,400 students applied to transfer to UC Davis for fall 2026 and 10,138 were admitted, an admit rate of 58.3%. Of those admitted, 93.3% came from California Community Colleges. UC Davis participates in the Transfer Admission Guarantee (TAG), and most majors allow students to secure admission through TAG. In the assessment of EDUBUS advisors, UC Davis is a secure or primary target for most students, while students in computer science and business need to prepare carefully for the regular application.

Transfer Admission Data

This section shows how competitive UC Davis is overall. The table below presents preliminary official UC data for fall 2026 (as of June 2026).

Item	Fall 2026
Applicants	17,400
Admits	10,138
Admit rate	58.3%
Share of admits from California Community Colleges	93.3%

The UC Davis transfer brochure lists an admit rate of 56.9% for fall 2025 transfer applicants and a GPA range of 3.46 to 3.90 for admitted transfer students. UC Davis requires an admission GPA of at least 2.80, higher than the UC minimum of 2.4 for California residents. Except for occasional exceptions in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, UC Davis admits only junior-level transfer students.

Selective Majors and Prerequisites

This section describes the course group requirements for selective majors. UC Davis requires prerequisites for selective majors to be taken for a letter grade, with a grade of C or higher in each course, and completed by the end of the spring term before enrollment. Courses taken in the final summer before transfer do not count toward admission requirements.

Target major	College or school	Required course groups and GPA requirements	TAG eligibility
Computer Science	College of Engineering	GPA of at least 3.40 in each of the programming course group (ECS 020, 036A through 036C, 050) and the math course group (MAT 021A through 021C, 022A)	Not eligible
Mechanical Engineering	College of Engineering	Complete chemistry, engineering, math, and physics prerequisites; non-TAG applicants need an overall GPA of at least 3.10 and a major prerequisite GPA of at least 3.20	Eligible, GPA 3.50
Economics	College of Letters and Science	Two introductory economics courses and a calculus series, with a course group GPA of at least 2.50	Eligible, GPA 3.20
Business	Graduate School of Management	Overall GPA of at least 3.00; GPA of at least 3.20 in the economics, management, calculus, and statistics course group	Not eligible
Psychology	College of Letters and Science	Introductory psychology, statistics, and designated biology courses, with a course group GPA of at least 2.90	Eligible, GPA 3.20
Biological Sciences (all majors)	College of Biological Sciences	Biology, chemistry, and math series, with a GPA of at least 2.50 in each series	Eligible, GPA 3.20

The rules above come from the UC Davis selective major requirements page and the requirement pages of each college. Course numbers are UC Davis course numbers; students need to look up the equivalent courses at their own college on ASSIST, the official course articulation system for California public colleges and universities. Two course changes require attention. Beginning in fall 2027, Computer Science requires MAT 022A. The BIS 002 biology series will be discontinued, and fall 2027 applicants should select courses according to the ASSIST articulation agreements for 2025-26.

TAG

UC Davis participates in TAG. The main requirements for the fall 2027 admission cycle are listed below; for the complete rules, see Transfer Admission Guarantee (TAG).

• Submit the TAG application through the UC Transfer Admission Planner (UC TAP) by September 30, 2026, with 30 transferable semester units completed by the end of summer 2026.
• Meet the GPA threshold by the end of summer 2026: 3.20 for the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, the College of Biological Sciences, and the College of Letters and Science, and 3.50 for the College of Engineering, where the major prerequisite GPA must also reach 3.50.
• Complete one English composition course (UC-E) and one math course (UC-M) by the end of fall 2026.
• Selective majors must also meet their course group requirements, and no grade below C may be earned in any term of the current academic year.

The following students cannot apply for TAG at UC Davis: students who are still enrolled in high school at the time of submission, students who have already earned a bachelor’s degree or higher, and students who previously attended a UC campus and left in poor academic standing.

Excluded majors: UC Davis states that business, computer science, and data science are not eligible for TAG. The 2027-28 TAG matrix published by UC also lists undeclared and Landscape Architecture, for which TAG is offered only for the pre-major.

UC Davis pre-reviews the coursework in TAG applications and releases decisions in mid-November. This is earlier than the November 30 UC application deadline, so students can use the result to confirm the major they list on the UC application.

Application Timeline and Materials

This section lists the key dates for fall 2027 admission and the requirements specific to UC Davis.

• September 1 to 30, 2026Submit the TAG application through UC TAP.
• October 1 to November 30, 2026Submit the UC application and complete the personal insight questions (PIQ); the major must match the TAG major.
• Mid-November 2026UC Davis releases TAG decisions.
• January 31, 2027Priority deadline for the Transfer Academic Update (TAU). UC Davis states that a TAU submitted after this date may not be considered.
• Spring 2027Report dropped courses and D or F grades in the MyAdmissions account, and check admission decisions beginning in late March.
• June 1, 2027Admitted students submit the Statement of Intent to Register (SIR).

EDUBUS Advice