UCSC

[jhameia]

Did you know that there is such a thing as a Non-Resident Supplemental Tuition Fee? It's UC@SantaCruz's version of the international student differential fee and holy yipes that's a lotta money it's like they don't like anybody who's not Californian.

Also, can a US American explain to me why the GREs are necessary even at post-grad level?

BUT! UC@SantaCruz has a HISTORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS department! .... DONNA HARAWAY AND ANGELA DAVIS ARE FACULTY. I can't even. I don't even know why I think I'd qualify. BUT GUIZ HARAWAY AND DAVIS IN THE SAME PLACE OMG. HOW DOES THE PLACE NOT EXPLODE WITH AWESOME?

Comments

[troisroyaumes]

That's true for all the UCs; it's because California residents' state taxes go to funding the UC system while non-residents haven't paid their dues so to speak. You can declare residency after your first year in grad school though; it's a pretty easy process. (I was out-of-state so I speak from personal experience.)

Not sure what exactly you're asking about GREs being necessary. That the level of testing is too easy or that standardized testing is required at all for grad school admissions? Are you talking about general or subject tests? There are a lot of U.S. programs where GREs aren't required if you're really opposed to taking them.

[starlady]

Though the Daily Cal's interview with the UC Chancellor indicates that the state is actually only paying for about half of the CA students…

[troisroyaumes]

Heh, I'm not surprised. Still, the non-resident tuition fee isn't something that's unique to the UC system; other state universities have them too (SUNY, for one). I think it makes sense for a state university that is supported even fractionally by public funds to prioritize in-state students.

[starlady]

I think it makes sense for a state university that is supported even fractionally by public funds to prioritize in-state students.

Oh, certainly.

[yeloson]

If you come out to California, and ever make your way up to the Bay, we should geek hard and eat delicious foods.

[starlady]

Santa Cruz is pretty awesome, IJS.

As for the GRE, it's not necessary. It's just not. But most grad programs require the scores anyway.

Non-resident tuition is for everyone who doesn't have CA residency according to the UC system's standards, which are stricter than the state's residency standards. Having just achieved residency for UC purposes myself, it is in fact a fairly easy, if tediously paperwork filled, process.

[troisroyaumes]

In the life sciences at least, admissions committees use the GRE scores as a first-pass screening so they can throw out applications that aren't anywhere near the score range that they're expecting. It's probably less of an issue in the humanities, but at least in our department, there are several hundreds of applications each year, so such screening mechanisms are pretty useful. (GPAs, who writes your recommendation letters, etc. also work as screening devices to cut down on the number of applications that actually get considered seriously.)

[starlady]

I think some of that (using the GREs as a rough winnower) happens in the humanities too, and ditto for GPA, but it varies wildly by department (though I do think my department here at Berkeley gets at least a few hundred applications per year, since it's such a big department, and ditto for other large departments)--Princeton has no space on the application form to report GRE scores, for example, and Berkeley made me recalculate my GPA by hand to get two entirely different numbers that they used instead of the standard GPA.

I suppose my attitude that the GREs are unnecessary speaks to the fact that I knew I had a reasonable expectation of getting into elite programs.

[troisroyaumes]

Nod, there was at least one program I applied to that didn't require general GREs, and Berkeley at least didn't ask for subject GREs, which I would agree is utterly pointless. (While studying for the biochemistry one, my score would change by 90 points just for getting one more question correct. Also, the test pretty much required you to memorize all the Krebs cycle reactions. Ugh.)

[epershand]

Other folks have covered the in-state vs. out-of-state tuition issue, but the GREs aren't required "even" at the post-grad level (assuming you're using the UK English definition of post-grad, which is the US "graduate student". They're required *only* at the post-grad stage and as other people mentioned, the requirement varies widely by program. A system as big as the University of California, which functions for the most part as a single body administratively, definitely depends on them as a filter.

[lovepeaceohana]

It's the banana slugs. They keep Santa Cruz weird. :3