Garcia would redshirt her first season due to a knee injury she suffered in high school. As a redshirt freshmen, she earned NFCA National Freshman of the Year along with all-conference honors and a Second-Team All-American selection. Garcia led all Pac-12 pitchers in strikeouts and was tied for first in saves, third in wins, fourth in innings, fifth in opposing batting average and sixth in ERA, while she had 14 complete games and was a part of 23 shutouts, including five solo blankings. In addition to pitching, she was one of the team's best hitters as tallied a.325 batting average, eight homers and 29 RBI and had 15 multiple-hit games and eight multi-RBI contests. Garcia led the Bruins to a No. 5 seed at the World Series with her 23–9 win-loss record. In her debut at the Women's College World Series, Garcia pitched all of UCLA's games and left with a 1–1 record, falling in the second round. In her second game against Washington Huskies she struck out seven batters in a 1–0 loss.
Sophomore Year
For her sophomore year, Rachel Garcia was named the USA Softball Collegiate Player of The Year and the Honda Sports Award for softball. She earned Pac-10 "Pitcher of the Week" honors four times, for the weeks of April 16 – April 22, April 24 – April 30, May 7 – March 13, and May 14 – May 20. Gracia also repeated all-season honors including Pac-12 "Conference Player of The Year". Garcia also led all Pac-12 hurlers in wins, strikeouts and opposing batting average, was third in innings pitched and fifth in ERA and achieved a career best in hits and batting average. She struck out 42 batters in 23 innings in four games at the Women's College World Series, and was named to the All-WCWS Team.
Junior Year
Garcia set a record for the most awarded year for any individual softball player in history when she received her second USA Softball Collegiate Player of The Year, repeated honors from the Pac-12 Conference as Player and a new Pitcher of the Year honor and First Team All-Conference, NFCA Division I Softball Player of The Year, ESPNW Softball Player of The Year, Honda Female Athlete of the Year and Honda Softball Player of the Year. She was also named a First-Team All-American and in leading the Bruins to the 2019 Women's College World Series championship, she was named the World Series Most Outstanding Player and All-Tournament honoree. Remarkably, she was also recapturing 8 of those honors from her sophomore year. This broke the record for awards set by Kelly Barnhill in 2017. Garcia led the Bruins to the NCAA title completing 4 of 5 victories pitched, throwing a shutout, a 10-inning win, batting.333 and leading with 8 RBIs, including defeating the No. 1 Oklahoma Sooners back-to-back in the finale series. For this she earned the MVP award.
Team USA
Garcia saw limited playing time on the Team USA "Stand Beside Her" tour that was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic in March, 2020. She will return to UCLA for her final collegiate year before joining Team USA, prior to the rescheduled Olympics in July, 2021.
