The University of Costa Rica, and the admission score each programme took in 2026.

Special requirements. These programmes have special entry requirements — an audition, an aptitude or quantitative-skills test, a physical test or similar — that must be passed before applying. Everyone ranked for a place had already passed, so a score above the cut-off says nothing without the test. We show the gap as a number and do not sort these into safe, likely or aspirational.

Places left unfilled. These programmes admitted fewer students in 2026 than the places UCR set for its ordinary round, and nobody through the deferred round. Places were left unfilled, so the cut-off is simply the lowest score among those admitted, not a contested line — but that is a fact about 2026, not a promise about next year, and it is never shown as safe.

Deferred round. The deferred round (admisión diferida) is a second allocation, with its own places, for applicants who were not admitted in the ordinary round and come from a secondary school (or Madurez, EDAD or abroad) where 15% or less of those who sat the PAA were admitted. Its cut-off is on the same admission score but among that group only, so it is shown for reference and never compared with your score.

How much cut-offs move. Cut-offs move from year to year — the scale itself is re-standardised each year. Across 637 pairs of consecutive years for the same programme and campus (2020–2026), the ordinary-round cut-off moved by a median of 15.0 points; three quarters moved by 32.3 or less, and one in ten by more than 67.9. So we call a score within 30 points of the 2026 cut-off, either way, “likely”, 30 or more above it “safe”, and more than 30 below it “aspirational”. Those bands are CollegeMatcher's, not UCR's.