What were the easiest majors to get into at Cal Poly in 2026? See the top 10

Cal Poly’s admissions are notoriously competitive — some more so than others.

Recent data shows that wine and viticulture, plant science and dairy science were among the least competitive majors for freshman applicants at Cal Poly during the 2025-26 admissions cycle, meaning they had a higher percentage of available seats vs. the number of applicants compared to other majors.

The differences can be stark, with space for one in three applicants in the least in-demand majors to one in 30 applicants in the highest-demand programs.

The most competitive majors — like psychology and biological sciences — each had space for less than 3% of those who applied to the programs.

Overall, Cal Poly received 79,400 applications this year and sent acceptance letters to about 24,267 students.

According to data from Cal Poly’s Office of Institutional Research, the university aimed to enroll around 6,522 students between the fall and summer 2026 semesters, including 5,526 first-time freshmen and 996 new transfer students.

The Tribune analyzed the latest admissions data, comparing target enrollment numbers and applications received to determine the least competitive majors at the university this year.

The easiest majors to get into were similar to previous years — but the odds differed depending on whether applicants were incoming first-year or new transfer students.

Cal Poly’s least competitive majors for first-year applicants in 2026

The Tribune analyzed the application data compared to the enrollment targets for each available major to determine the most and least competitive majors for Mustang hopefuls in 2026.

The data obtained by The Tribune did not include the number of students accepted broken down by major and was specific to the San Luis Obispo campus.

For first-time freshmen, the wine and viticulture program was the easiest to get into, with room for 69 of its 215 applicants, or just over 32%. Wine and viticulture moved into the least competitive spot from second-least competitive in 2025.

Bioresource and agricultural engineering, which was the least competitive last year, came in second this year. It received 203 applications and had room for about 29.5% of those, or 60 students.

Dairy science was the third-least-competitive major, with room for 15 out of its 53 freshman applicants, representing a projected 28.3% enrollment rate compared to applications received. Dairy science jumped into one of the top three easiest majors from being the 10th-least-competitive in 2025.

The top-10 easiest majors to get into for freshmen in 2026 were:

1. Wine and viticulture: 215 applicants, 69 seats available — 32.0%
2. Bioresource and agricultural engineering: 203 applicants, 60 seats available — 29.56%
3. Dairy science: 53 applicants, 15 seats available — 28.3%
4. Plant sciences: 250 applicants, 63 seats available — 25.2%
5. Industrial technology and packaging: 255 seats available, 60 seats available — 23.5%
6. Graphic communications: 337 applicants, 76 seats available — 22.5%
7. Landscape architecture: 203 applicants, 45 seats available — 22.1%
8. Agricultural systems management: 137 applicants, 30 seats available — 21.%
9. Manufacturing engineering: 131 applicants, 28 seats available — 21.3%
10. Agricultural business: 775 applicants, 160 seats available — 20.6%

Easiest majors to get into for transfers in 2026

The easiest majors were different for new transfer students, however, with interdisciplinary studies leading the pack for ease of access. That program had room for about 38.8% of transfer applicants, with seats for 14 of the 36 students who applied.

Manufacturing engineering was the second least competitive, with space for 3 — or 30% — of its 10 transfer applicants.

Meanwhile, plant sciences sat in the third spot. It received 59 transfer applications and had seats for about 17, or 28.8%, of students.

In 2025, the top-three least-competitive majors for transfer students were agricultural systems management, industrial technology and packaging, and plant sciences, the data showed.

The top-10 easiest majors to get into for new transfer students in 2026 were:

1. Interdisciplinary studies: 36 applicants, 14 seats available — 38.8%
2. Manufacturing engineering: 10 applicants, 3 seats available — 30%
3. Plant sciences: 59 applicants, 17 seats available — 28.8%
4. Comparative ethnic studies: 4 applicants, 1 seat available — 25%
5. Landscape architecture: 44 applicants, 11 seats available — 25%
6. Agricultural communications: 25 applicants, 6 seats available — 24%
7. Music: 21 applicants, 5 seats available — 23.8%
8. Agricultural science: 34 applicants, 8 seats available — 23.5%
9. Industrial engineering: 30 applicants, 7 seats available — 23.3%
10. Spanish: 9 applicants, 2 seats available — 22.2%

Search the database for available majors

Using data provided by the university, The Tribune created a database showing the numbers for all available majors, both for freshman and transfer applicants.

You can search the data for each major using the charts below.

Sadie Dittenber

The Tribune

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Sadie Dittenber writes about education for The Tribune and is a California Local News Fellow through the UC Berkeley School of Journalism. Dittenber graduated from The College of Idaho with a degree in international political economy.