Is UC Davis or Carnegie Mellon harder to get into?

Carnegie Mellon is harder to get into overall. It is one of the more selective private universities in the country, and admissions there tend to be especially tough in high-demand areas like computer science, engineering, design, and business. UC Davis is certainly selective, but at the university-wide level it is not usually viewed in the same tier of difficulty as Carnegie Mellon.

One big reason is how CMU admits. Carnegie Mellon pays close attention to the specific school or college you apply to, so applicants are often competing within very demanding academic divisions rather than just across the university as a whole. That can make the process feel much tighter, especially for majors tied to its strongest programs.

UC Davis also has selective majors, particularly in STEM, but its applicant pool is broader and its admissions process is less defined by a handful of ultra-competitive specialized schools. As a large public research university in the UC system, it enrolls far more students and tends to offer more room overall than CMU does.

For building a college list, it makes sense to treat Carnegie Mellon as the tougher admit in most cases. UC Davis is still a serious reach or target depending on your profile and major, but CMU should usually be placed a level more selective.