Applying to the Linguistics Graduate Program at UC Santa Cruz

We’ve compiled some guidelines to help you understand the process by which we assemble a new incoming class of graduate students. Although we’ve tailored our information to the UCSC program, much of it will be applicable to all graduate admissions (at least to comparable programs). Graduate student application forums are great support resources, but we’ve found that they can sometimes inadvertently propagate misleading information or irrelevant scuttlebutt about applying to graduate school in Linguistics.

Here we’ve tried to be as open and as frank as possible about what happens in our admissions and funding process. We want you to have enough information to decide whether or not to apply; and to put your best foot forward in the process. In particular, you should read the section What do the most complete and persuasive applications contain?.

What is the UCSC Linguistics Program looking for?

Our goal is to create a community of scholars and, each year, we seek to add around 5 new members to that community. We are looking for students whose research interests fit well with our research strengths and aspirations; who are interested in the program and have taken some time to learn about it; and who have demonstrated ability to do original research.

Research in Linguistics is focused, collaborative, and theoretically ecumenical. We have particular strengths in phonology, phonetics, semantics, syntax and psycholinguistics as core areas of inquiry. The department has a long-standing commitment to empirically-rich investigation that balances theoretical rigor with whole-language investigation. Students and faculty deploy a diverse range of methodologies for investigating language, including experimental, computational, and fieldwork methods.

Researchers in our program construct and analyze formal theories, do fieldwork, conduct experiments, and build computational tools. The department has a long tradition and continuing commitment to research on particular languages, especially understudied ones.

Because of the broad array of research interests represented in the department, the best way for prospective applicants to get a sense of the department is to look at its recent research, which can be found:

• On the web sites of faculty and graduate students
• On the schedules of our labs and reading groups
• And in our weekly department newsletter: What’s Happening at Santa Cruz (WHASC)

Are GRE scores required as part of the application?

No, GRE scores are not required and will not be considered in the admissions process.

Do you admit students to work with individual faculty members?

Faculty members do not separately admit individual students to work with them nor are they allocated control over a certain number of ‘slots’ in the admission process. The recommended admittees are selected both on the promise and achievements of individual applicants, and also on the faculty’s judgment of what would constitute a cohesive incoming cohort.

The faculty officially make a joint recommendation to the Graduate Division about who to admit. Barring some highly unusual circumstances, the Graduate Division accepts the faculty’s recommendation.

That being said, an important component of fit is envisioning which faculty members could effectively and productively advise which students.

Ultimately it is a balancing act: we don’t wish to admit strong students whose scope of interests are not conceivably well served by the scope and structure of our program and our advising. But we also want to admit those students with potential to grow (both themselves, and us).

Do you admit international students?

Yes. International students are treated on par with domestic students in the admissions process. They are funded on par with domestic students for the first three years of the program. In subsequent years, non-resident tuition is waived for all students once they have passed their qualifying exam. The department works closely with all students to ensure on-time completion of the qualifying exam is possible in that time frame.

What do the most complete and persuasive applications contain?

It is important that your research file contain both a Statement of Purpose and Personal History Statement. The Statement of Purpose should describe your plans for research in graduate school and how these fit into your future profession and should include any information that may aid the selection committee in evaluating your preparation and qualifications for graduate study. It should be forward-looking and indicate the sort of research pathways you envision. But it should also provide evidence to demonstrate your ability to reach and set goals, i.e., what sort of research activities you’ve already completed. The Personal History Statement should discuss how your personal background has informed your decision to pursue a graduate degree. Include any educational, familial, cultural, economic, or social experiences, challenges, or opportunities relevant to your academic journey; how you might contribute to social or cultural diversity within your chosen field; and/or, how you might serve educationally underrepresented segments of society with your degree.

These two documents are read holistically as we consider evidence along three dimensions:

• Ability:        

• Does this applicant have the ability to do independent research?
• Have they taken appropriate advantage of past opportunities to engage in research, either in coursework, in labs, or independently?
• Is there evidence of both depth and breadth in Linguistics? A sense of focus against a background of broader interests (including in Psychology, Philosophy, and Cognitive Science more generally)?
• Does the applicant have strong writing skills?

• Fit:

• Would the applicant make sense in our program? Because our program is small, focused and collaborative we think about how each applicant could be successfully and enthusiastically advised; and we also think about whether sets of applicants as a whole cohere, challenge and reinforce one another.

• Interest:

• What interests this applicant about UCSC? Is there evidence that they have familiarity to some degree with our program? In the event we offer them admission, would they have good cause to come?

You should include a writing sample. The best samples are written in connected prose, as in the style of an essay, research report or article; not a problem set, and in your area of proposed specialization. If you have a thesis, submit that even if it is only partially complete. Although problem sets can provide valuable information about your ability, we cannot use them to effectively compete for University-sponsored fellowship.

In order for us to effectively nominate your application to compete for certain University-internal fellowships, it is important to fill out every part of the application. In particular, do not neglect to fill out the Societal Obstacles and Benefits to Society sections. If you leave these sections blank, it will not materially jeopardize the admissions decision, but it does close certain funding pathways to us. Be sure to reflect on this part of the application. While you should not oversell your answers here, you should also not undersell yourself. Evidence in either category can come in the form of aspects of your personal history, activities you’ve done that indicate your intentions (such as volunteer work), or in the nature of the research interests and questions you’ve written about – roughly in that order, descending.

What is the admissions timeline?

The Linguistics Program deadline is typically in the first part of December. Here’s the step-by-step of what usually happens next.

1. Late December to early January: Application Triage. Faculty begin their review of complete applications in late December and early January. Each application is first read by at least two faculty members, from a group of readers put together that includes faculty representatives from each of the various traditions and subdisciplines of our department. Applications are triaged into several categories and the readers put together a report that is circulated and presented to the faculty.
2. Early to mid January: Initial Faculty Review. With the triage report in hand, faculty meet to discuss the general tenor of the applicant pool and contribute any insight or perspective they may have on particular applications. At this stage, one or two callers are assigned to each applicant who initially seem to merit consideration or warrant further investigation. All faculty participate in this process. In Winter 2024, we spoke with 25 applicants directly.
3. Mid to late January: Initial Faculty Contact. Faculty members contact designated applicants. We use a common set of written guidelines and questions to structure these calls and a uniform report form to document them. To the best of our ability, we want to make them fair and equal opportunities for the applicant. 
4. Late January - Early February. Faculty meet to discuss their calls and decide on who they wish to recommend for admission (‘recommendees’). Around this time, the University-internal funding processes begin, and we submit some of the recommendees to competitive fellowships.
5. Early February. The Graduate Director contacts the recommendees and invites them to an Open House which takes place in early March. The Department covers travel, accommodation and some meals.
6. Mid-to-Late February. We learn the results of some competitive fellowships (and notify the students affected). At this point, we do not have the full funding packages ready for anyone. This is a good point for students who are invited to the Open House to be in contact with any faculty or graduate students whose research you are interested in, or whose perspective you would like to learn (for example, you went to the same institution).
7. Early-Mid March. We hold our two-day open house. During the open house, recommendees can attend classes, meet with individual faculty members, go to lab meetings or reading groups, tour the campus, and participate in other events that help introduce the intellectual and cultural atmosphere of our department and campus. In addition, we hold an event called Linguistics at Santa Cruz (LASC). This is an old tradition at Santa Cruz, at which graduate students present ongoing research. LASC is always capped off by a Distinguished Alumni address from a past PhD graduate of the program. Lastly, the open house includes a party for prospective students, faculty and current graduate students. Past schedules can be found here.
8. Mid March. Shortly after the Open House, we finalize financial offers and submit our slate to the Graduate Division, who then extend official offers.
9. Mid April. The deadline for accepting our offer is on or around April 15 (this is true across most US programs).

How is funding determined?

We commit to fully funding all Ph.D. students for five years. We meet that commitment through a combination of fellowships, Graduate Student Research-ships (GSRs; =RA-ships) and TAships.

Below we explain how we meet our funding commitment. But there are two important things to keep in mind:

(i) we’ve tried to give recent figures where we can, so you have some historical data; but these amounts should not be construed as guarantees.

(ii) the funding process, like some aspects of linguistic competence, is a system of ranked, defeasible constraints :) It is hard to predict any individual student’s assignments because we are trying to optimize the allocation over the entire program. The blend of resources changes from year to year, which is part of the reality of how a public university’s funding streams are managed.

In Year 1, most students are funded via a fellowship for the entire year^[1]. We attempt to fund all students to approximately the same level, although there is some slight variation. In the 2023-24 cycle, we extended 9 offers of admission. The fellowship/salary in Year 1 was $39,000.

In Years 2-5, we use a combination of resources to fund each student. The following principles apply:

• The default funding instrument is for the department to assign each Ph.D. student 3 TA-ships per year (or, 1 class per academic quarter).
• Based on background and match to research interests, students could also be assigned GSR-ships by individual faculty members to assist them with a research project. If a faculty member decides to offer a GSR-ship to an individual student, then they are not assigned a TA-ship for that quarter (because it is not allowed to hold both).
• TA-ships and GSR-ships pay a salary determined by the University; they also cover fees for the quarter.

• Salary scales are published here.
• Academic Student Employees are represented by UAW Local 2865.

• All students will TA during their time in the Ph.D. program, most for a substantial number of classes, coordinated across the curriculum’s breadth and depth. This is a design feature of our program, which increases the job market competitiveness of our graduates. Students participate in a TA development course in years 1 & 2 (“TA Training”, affectionately known as TATr /tej.tɹ̩/).
• We attempt to provide summer funding opportunities for all students. Some students are funded in the summer via researchers’ extramural funding; some obtain their own funding via competitive applications; a few are funded by summer TA-ships; and some receive fellowships directly from the department.

• In Summer 2024, all Ph.D. students (years 1-5) received a minimum of $3,500 support from these sources.
• As a modal example: a student who held 3 TA-ships in 2023-24 and received the minimum summer support received $32,625 in stipend/salary over the course of the year (that is, in addition to fees and tuition).

• Other sources of funding:

• multi-year fellowships. The most common multi-year is a fellowship in Year 1 + 4; or a fellowship in Years 1, 2 & 5. These fellowships are competitive and are awarded by the University or by the Division of Humanities.
• dissertation completion fellowships (or dissertation writing quarters). These fellowships are competitive and are awarded by the University, the Division of Humanities or The Humanities Institute. Students receive them in Year 5 or sometimes Year 4.
• teaching fellowships, for students in Year 5, in which they are the instructor of record for a class.
• Finally, some students either enter the University with externally-funded fellowships or garner one while they are a student.

• Students are actively mentored in applying for the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (or its equivalent from other governments and other external funding.
• Even students who hold multi-year fellowships, like the NSF GRF, are strongly encouraged to TA and we work to provide those students the appropriate professional development in teaching.