JSerra Catholic High School UC Admissions:
Twelve Years of Data

This page addresses one question: how JSerra Catholic High School students fare when they apply to the University of California (UC). All data come from UC Infocenter, published by the University of California Office of the President. They are reported by source high school, with the school type set to California private high schools, and cover twelve years of fall admission from 2014 to 2025 across nine undergraduate campuses. The college destination list published by the school itself appears on the overview page; for all UC figures, the official data on this page are authoritative.

Twelve-Year Trend: More Applicants, Higher Admitted GPAs

The chart below plots, year by year, the average GPA of JSerra Catholic High School students admitted to each campus. It shows the GPAs that admitted students actually earned; it is not an admission cutoff.

Over the twelve years, both the number of students applying to UC and the number admitted increased. In fall 2014, 99 students applied to UC and 48 were admitted; in fall 2025, 132 applied and 77 were admitted. The average GPA of admitted students rose from 3.72 to 3.98 over the same period. Enrollment increased from 12 students in 2014 to 25 in 2025, with a peak of 40 in 2024.

The largest changes occurred at UC Irvine and UCLA. Combining three years at a time, JSerra Catholic High School students had an admission rate of 47% at UC Irvine from 2016 to 2018 (187 applications and 87 admissions, including 54 admissions in 2017 alone), which fell to 37% from 2023 to 2025 (183 applications and 67 admissions). At UCLA, the rate fell from 17% to 13% over the same periods (198 applications and 34 admissions, compared with 283 applications and 38 admissions). Admission rates at other popular campuses held steady or rose: UC Berkeley from 11% to 14%, UC San Diego from 23% to 24%, and UC Santa Barbara from 21% to 23%. The systemwide admission rate was essentially unchanged, from 61% to 60%. The additional admissions went to popular campuses: on a three-year basis, admissions at UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego and UC Berkeley rose from 38, 43 and 15 to 63, 64 and 26, respectively; UC Irvine fell from 87 to 67, and UC Riverside held steady at 58.

Year-by-Year Data by Campus

Parents focus most on six campuses: Berkeley, Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Irvine and Davis. The table below lists, by year, the number of JSerra Catholic High School students who applied to, were admitted by and enrolled at each campus, along with GPA. Use the buttons to switch metrics.

Five-Year Totals: Admission Rate, Yield and GPA Gap

In a single year, differences between campuses are easily magnified by chance. The table below combines the counts for the five years from 2021 to 2025 and then calculates admission and enrollment rates. The last column shows how much higher the average GPA of admitted students was than that of applicants, which indicates the part of the JSerra Catholic High School applicant pool each campus selects from.

Data: official University of California UC Infocenter data by high school of origin. Admit rate = admits ÷ applicants; yield rate = enrollees ÷ admits. The GPA difference is the average across years of “average admit GPA − average applicant GPA”; the number in parentheses is the number of years with data. Cells marked * include years that UC left blank because the counts were too small, so the totals are understated. The systemwide row counts students, not applications: a student who applies to multiple campuses is counted once.

Three points stand out in this table. First, the five-year admission rate at both UC Berkeley and UCLA was 12% (309 applications and 36 admissions; 486 applications and 60 admissions), making them the two most selective campuses for this school; UC Santa Barbara was 20%. Second, UCLA is the UC campus where the most JSerra Catholic High School students enrolled, with 39 over five years, and 65% of its 60 admissions resulted in enrollment; next were UC San Diego with 32 and UC Irvine with 31, although UC Irvine enrollment for 2025 was not published. Third, UC Davis recorded 96 admissions over five years, but UC published only 3 enrollments, and the other four years were left blank because the counts were fewer than 3: most students admitted to UC Davis enrolled elsewhere.

Applications and Admissions by Campus, Most Recent Year

Campuses are listed in order of the U.S. News national university rankings. UC leaves a category blank when it has fewer than five applicants or fewer than three admits or enrollees.

Comparison with Other Orange County High Schools

How do JSerra Catholic High School students compare with students from other high schools covered on this site at the same UC campus? The chart below places the 12 Orange County private high schools covered on this site alongside 10 leading public high schools in Irvine and Orange County, showing three-year combined admission rates for 2023 to 2025. Private high schools are listed first, and schools are arranged by name. Use the buttons to switch campuses.

This chart requires careful interpretation. Admission rates reflect the composition of the applicant pool, including the number of applicants, the grade distribution and campus choices; they are not a comparison of teaching quality. In 2025, the 12 private high schools covered on this site had between 16 and 261 UC applicants; JSerra Catholic High School had 132. A lower systemwide admission rate does not mean that popular campuses are harder to enter: on a three-year basis, this school’s admission rates at UCLA and UC San Diego were 13% and 24%, both above the medians of 9% and 18% for the leading public high schools covered on this site. Switching between campuses is more informative than looking only at the systemwide column.

Private High School Students Should First Account for Magnet Program Courses

JSerra Catholic High School offers four four-year Magnet Programs in Business, Engineering, Law and Medicine. The School Profile reports that 30% of students are enrolled, and the school grades all program courses as honors. UC applies different rules: it adds weight only to courses designated as honors on the A-G list, counts only courses taken from the summer after grade 9 through the summer after grade 11, and allows at most 4 points in grade 10 and at most 8 points over the two years. Under these two sets of rules, a program student’s school GPA and UC GPA can differ considerably.

Which Program Courses Count in the UC GPA

A course-by-course check against the UC A-G list for the 2026-27 school year shows that the following program courses taken in grades 10 and 11 are UC-approved honors courses and add weight to the UC GPA:

• Business: Business Communications Honors (grade 10), Accounting (grade 11), Sales & Marketing Honors (grade 11)
• Law: California Real Estate Principles (grade 10), California Real Estate Practice (the summer between grades 10 and 11), California Legal Aspects of Real Estate (grade 11), Criminal Law (grade 11)
• Engineering: Honors PLTW Principles of Engineering (grade 10), as well as Honors PLTW Aerospace Engineering and Honors PLTW Digital Electronics in grades 11 to 12
• Medical: Anatomy and Physiology Honors MM (grade 11)

The following program courses are graded as honors at the school but add no weight to the UC GPA: Intro to Law Honors (grade 9) and Legal Research and Writing Honors (grade 10) are not on the UC list; the Medical program courses Introduction to Health Sciences Honors, Medical Ethics Honors, Concepts of Genetics Honors and Introduction to Neuroscience Honors are listed in the school catalog as under UC review and are not on the 2026-27 list. Algebra 2/Trigonometry Honors, required in grade 10 for Engineering and Medical program students, and Biology Honors, required in grade 9 for Medical program students, are also school honors courses that UC does not weight.

What to Watch for When Comparing with This Page

There are three points. First, program courses taken in grades 9 and 12 do not enter the UC GPA, whether or not they are on the UC list. Second, UC-approved program courses in grade 10 share the 4-point limit with AP and UC-certified honors courses, so program students need to account for all of them together when scheduling grade 10; additional honors courses do not raise the capped GPA used on this page. Third, a program student’s weighted school GPA includes many courses that UC does not weight, so it cannot be compared directly with the admitted-student GPAs on this page; it must first be recalculated course by course under UC rules.

For applications and admissions by campus, this page is authoritative; for the school’s admissions, tuition and Magnet Programs, see the overview, and for honors and AP course planning, see Courses and Course Selection and AP Courses.

Data verified on 2026-09-24. Course catalogs are updated each spring; prerequisites follow the school's current Course of Study.