California has the largest number of colleges that are hard to enter. On the other hand, most of these colleges are racists, Jew hating, American hating and violent. Want a riot—these hard to get into school, like UCLA and Stanford are great places to hone your skills in urban rioting and hate.
Nation’s 2 Hardest Colleges To Get Into Are Both In CA, And #1 Is A Surprise: Niche
The hardest school has an acceptance rate of just one percent. See the 33 California schools that made this year’s list.
Michael Wittner, Patch, 4/15/25 https://patch.com/california/across-ca/top-2-colleges-hardest-get-america-are-both-ca-niche#google_vignette
CALIFORNIA — The top two hardest universities to get into in the entire country are both in California, according to a recent ranking that looks at admission rates and other factors to determine exclusivity.
Minerva University, a school established in 2012 that accepts just 19 students who spend each semester in a new country, is the hardest to get into, accepting just one percent of all applicants.
In second place is the California Institute of Technology, which accepts just three percent, a few spots ahead of MIT.
California has 33 colleges on the 2025 Hardest Colleges To Get Into list from Niche, whose rankings focus on education and the best places to live. That includes four colleges in the top 20 nationally.
The California schools, their acceptance rates and national rankings are listed below. Niche did not include rankings for colleges ranked outside the top 100 nationally.
- Minerva University: 1%, 1st
- California Institute of Technology: 3%, 2nd
- Stanford University: 4%, 4th
- Pomona College: 7%, 17th
- UCLA: 9%, 24th
- Claremont McKenna College: 10%, 29th
- Stanbridge University: 11%, 32nd
- UC Berkeley: 11%, 34th
- University of Southern California: 12%, 40th
- Harvey Mudd College: 13%, 46th
- Pitzer College: 18%, 62nd
- UC Irvine: 21%, 68th
- UC San Diego: 24%, 77th
- California Institute of the Arts: 25%, 82nd
- UC Santa Barbara: 26%, 85th
- Scripps College: 28%, 91st
- Cal Poly San Luis Obispo: 30%
- Hope International University: 32%
- UC Davis: 37%
- San Diego State University: 39%
- Occidental College: 39%
- Cal State Long Beach: 40%
- DeVry University – California: 40%
- Loyola Marymount University: 41%
- Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, Los Angeles – 42%
- UC Santa Cruz: 47%
- Pacific Union College: 48%
- Pepperdine University: 49%
- Trident University International: 49%
- Chamberlain University – Sacramento: Acceptance rate not listed
- Pacific College: 33%
- San Francisco Conservatory of Music: 43%
- New School of Architecture & Design: 45%
Niche said ACT and SAT scores have been removed in this year’s rankings “to reflect a general de-emphasis on test scores in the college admissions process.”
Nationally, the hardest schools to get into are:
- Minerva University, San Francisco (1 percent)
- California Institute of Technology, Pasadena (3 percent)
- Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts (3 percent)
- Stanford University, Stanford, California (4 percent)
- Columbia University, New York City (4 percent)
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge (4 percent)
- Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut (5 percent)
- Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island (5 percent)
- University of Chicago (5 percent)
- Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey (6 percent)
- Duke University, Durham, North Carolina (6 percent)
- Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire (6 percent)
- University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (7 percent)
- Vanderbilt University, Nashville (7 percent)
- Northeastern University, Boston (7 percent)
- Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania (7 percent)
- Pomona College, Claremont, California (7 percent)
- Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois (7 percent)
- Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore (7 percent)
- Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts (7 percent)
Three of those schools — Johns Hopkins University, Northwestern University and Vanderbilt University — are what Forbes calls “the New Ivies,” 20 public and private schools that offer good job prospects to graduates as employers turn away from the nation’s oldest and most venerable schools.
