If you pursue a bachelor's degree in chemistry, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #36 most popular program in the country. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 38 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Chemistry Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 2,174 bachelor's degrees in chemistry to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Chemistry School for Your Bachelor's Degree
The chemistry bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
The overall quality of a bachelor's degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we include a school's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a combination of various factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Early-Career Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of bachelor's graduates during the early years of their career. That is, everyone wants their bachelor's degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.
Other Factors We Consider
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to chemistry students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of chemistry students who choose to seek a bachelor's degree at the school.
Educational Resources - How many resources are allocated to students. These resources may include educational expenditures per student, number of students per instructor, and graduation rate among other things.
Student Debt - How much debt chemistry students go into to obtain their bachelor's degree and how well they are able to pay back that debt.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized chemistry related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for chemistry students working on their bachelor's degree.
When choosing the right school for you, it's important to arm yourself with all the facts you can. To that end, we've created a number of major-specific rankings, including this Best Chemistry Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region list to help you make the college decision.
In addition to our rankings, you can take two colleges and compare them based on the criteria that matters most to you in our unique tool, College Combat.
Test it out when you get a chance! You may also want to bookmark the link and share it with others who are trying to make the college decision.
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Every student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in chemistry needs to look into University of California - Santa Barbara. UCSB is a very large public university located in the medium-sized suburb of Santa Barbara.
Those chemistry students who get their bachelor's degree from University of California - Santa Barbara earn $4,199 more than the standard chemistry student.
Any student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in chemistry needs to take a look at University of California - San Diego. Located in the city of La Jolla, UCSD is a public university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the chemistry degree program at University of California - San Diego earn $2,312 more than the typical graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Any student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in chemistry has to look into University of California - Davis. UC Davis is a very large public university located in the suburb of Davis.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the chemistry program state that they receive average early career earnings of $42,204.
University of California - Irvine is one of the best schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in chemistry. Located in the large city of Irvine, UC Irvine is a public university with a very large student population.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the chemistry program report average early career income of $43,766.
Located in the medium-sized city of Berkeley, UC Berkeley is a public university with a very large student population.
Chemistry bachelor's degree recipients from University of California - Berkeley earn a boost of approximately $16,578 above the average earnings of chemistry graduates.
UW Seattle is a very large public university located in the city of Seattle.
Chemistry bachelor's degree recipients from University of Washington - Seattle Campus get an earnings boost of around $3,371 over the average income of chemistry graduates.
The bars on the spread charts above show the distribution of the schools on this list +/- one standard deviation from the mean.
The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of the rest of our data about colleges.
The chemistry bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
