University of California, Berkeley

How it scores

Research and Alumni outcomes are percentiles among 2,287 universities; alumni outcomes are counted per student. Admissions & earnings is the position among universities in the same country (United States).

Admissions, outcomes and alumni

Admit rate

11.0% src

Yield (admits who enrol)

45% src

Median earnings 10 years after entry

$92,446 src

40-year return on investment (Georgetown CEW)

$3.10M src

Average net price per year

$13,481 src

Graduation rate (6 years)

93% src

Rhodes Scholars, 2021–26

1 src

Alumni founders of VC-backed companies (PitchBook)

2,380 src

Billionaire alumni

15 src

Alumni worth $30M+ (Altrata estimate)

4,000 src

Internationally notable alumni (Wikidata)

262 src

Heads of state or government (Wikidata)

11 src

Students (undergraduate headcount / total FTE, IPEDS)

33,068 / 42,948 src

Each figure links to its source. Admissions and earnings figures are comparable only within a country.

Research Index

Percentiles among 1,305 ranked universities. Rank on quality alone: =6. On strength alone: 60. The Research Index scores research only; admissions, earnings and alumni outcomes are scored in the overall ranking where data exists.

The numbers behind it (2020–2023)

Papers in the top 10% of their field

19.3% (18.7%–19.8%)

Papers in the top 1% of their field

2.6% (2.4%–2.8%)

Top-10% papers (fractional count)

1,989

All papers (fractional count)

10,329

International co-authored

49.6%

Open access

74.8%

Papers from 2020–23 since retracted

20 (0.56 per 1,000)

Core publications, fractional counting, field-normalised citation shares. Brackets show Leiden’s stability interval. Collaboration and open-access shares use full counting and aren’t field-normalised. Retraction counts come from the Retraction Watch database and include publishers’ mass retractions as well as honest-error retractions; a retraction is not by itself evidence of misconduct, and the count is never scored.

By field

Position over time

The same method applied to each 4-year publication window. The number of ranked universities grows from period to period, so position is shown as a share of the field.