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In February 2025, San Diego State became the first California State University campus to earn the Carnegie Classification’s top research tier, “R1: Very High Research Spending and Doctorate Production.” Only 187 U.S. universities received that status in the 2025 classification. At the same time, more students than ever want to go there: SDSU received a record 95,444 first-year applications for fall 2025, up 41% since 2021.

What R1 means

R1 is a research classification, not an admissions ranking. To qualify, a university must spend more than $50 million a year on research and award at least 70 research doctorates. SDSU reported $158 million in research spending and 123 research doctorates in the data Carnegie used. For undergraduates, R1 status mostly matters through more research labs, faculty doing funded research, and more chances to join a project. It puts SDSU in the same research category as UCLA and UC Berkeley.

How hard is SDSU to get into now?

Fall	First-year applicants	Admit rate	California residents	Non-residents
2021	67,660	38%	32%	87%
2022	77,250	39%	35%	81%
2023	83,274	34%	29%	78%
2024	90,509	36%	31%	85%
2025	95,444	37%	31%	89%

Even with applications up 41%, the overall admit rate barely moved, from 38% in 2021 to 37% in 2025, because SDSU also grew: its fall 2025 first-year class of 6,911 was a record. For Californians the picture is tighter: 31% of California residents were admitted, compared with 89% of non-residents (out-of-state and international applicants).

The majors that got much harder

• Finance: applicants more than doubled from 1,626 to 3,638; the admit rate fell from 44% to 31%.
• Public Health: applicants rose from 868 to 1,983; the admit rate fell from 65% to 36%.
• Nursing: 8,620 applicants for fall 2025 and a 3.5% admit rate, one of the most selective programs in California.
• Computer Science went the other way: applicants fell from 5,614 in 2023 to 3,107 in 2025 and the admit rate rose from 29% to 71%.

Transfers: easier than before

Transfer admission moved in the opposite direction. Transfer applications fell from 25,677 in 2021 to 17,595 in 2025, and the transfer admit rate rose from 30% to 55%. About two-thirds of SDSU’s new transfers come from San Diego and Imperial County community colleges, which get local priority. See SDSU transfer admit rates by major.

Why the demand?

Beyond R1 status, SDSU has been posting its best graduation results: 62.2% of first-time students who started in fall 2021 graduated in four years, up from 49% for the fall 2015 group. Every SDSU major is impacted, and applicants from San Diego County south of Route 56 and Imperial County get local priority.

See every major on our SDSU admit rates page, and SDSU’s expected decision dates on the UC & CSU decision calendar.

Sources: California State University, Applications and Admissions Dashboard by Discipline; SDSU News, R1 announcement (February 13, 2025); SDSU fall 2025 census. Admit rates are first-time freshmen for fall terms; CSU counts every application submitted, including ones later withdrawn or incomplete. ScoreCalc is independent and not affiliated with the University of California or the California State University. Admit rates describe past applicants, not any individual student’s chances.