Required Application Materials/Data for Graduate Study

1. Online Application (http://www.grad.berkeley.edu/admissions/grad_app.shtml)
2. Three (3) Letters of Recommendation
3. A Completed Recommendation Waiver Form (to be completed online after you apply--it should arrive via email about a week after you apply)
4. Official Transcripts
5. Graduate Record Exam (GRE)
6. The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) or The International English Language Testing System (IELTS) (for international students)
7. Application Fee

APPLICATIONS THAT ARE INCOMPLETE BY THE TIME OF REVIEW WILL NOT BE COMPETITIVE FOR ADMISSION.

The application process is ENTIRELY ONLINE except for original transcripts. Please DO NOT mail copies of the Statement of Purpose, GRE AND TOEFL scores, publications, resumes or recommendation letters. Directions for submitting the recommendation letters online are included below. The only hardcopy documents to be submitted is an original transcript from from each college or university you have attended. Any supplemental data, such as publications, resumes, and homepages, should be submitted by including the URLs in the confirmation e-mail you will receive about a week after submitting your online application. All applications must be submitted through the Berkeley campus' online application site for graduate admissions. Please take care to ensure all email addresses, as well as your own email address, are entered correctly.

The Online Application

The Online Application has several sections, including two essays, the Statement of Purpose and the Personal History Statement. Please note that these essays are very important to the application process and should be taken seriously. They should also be two separate essays-please do not cut and paste one into the other.

The Statement of Purpose asks:

Please describe your aptitude and motivation for graduate study in your area of specialization, including your preparation for this field of study, your academic plans or research interests in your chosen area of study, and your future career goals. Please be specific about why UC Berkeley would be a good intellectual fit for you.

The Personal History Statement:

In an essay, discuss how your personal background informs your decision to pursue a graduate degree. Please 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.

Faculty Contact

We do not require you complete sections Faculty Contact or Faculty Interest under ACADEMIC INTERESTS, although if you wish to work with specific professors, feel free to list them.

Area of Emphasis (Required!)

Regarding the Area of Emphasis section (under PROPOSED DEGREE PROGRAM), many research options are available. Please review your options at http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Research/Areas/ before making any choices. Picking an area is required regardless of your major goal.

Some EE and CS programs overlap, with research projects involving faculty and students from both programs. The area you choose determines whether you will be considered for EE or CS. For example, if your interest is Wireless and Sensor Networks, you would choose the area COMNET, which would make you an EE applicant. If your interest is in Learning and Probabilistic Inference, you would choose AI, which would make you a CS applicant.

GPA Calculation

If you attended an international university, please do not try and convert your grades to our system--just leave that section blank.

Three (3) Recommendation Letters

Do not send hardcopies or have them sent. Please follow the online recommendation procedure below.

The online recommendation process begins once the online application has been submitted. Beginning in early November, applicants will be sent an email requesting the names and e-mail addresses of their recommenders. At this time applicants will check the information they provided on the online application, including waiver options. The Electronic Departmental Form is required and decisions cannot be changed after submission. Please note that recommenders will not be contacted at all until you fill out this information, even though you provided it when you applied online. After November 1st, this form will be sent to you within 5 business days of submission of the online application.

Upon receipt of their names and electronic addresses, recommenders will receive an e-mail informing them to submit their letters to a URL address. The URL will accept text and pdf documents. Because our letter process accepts text and pdf documents, your recommenders can write their letters in advance of your application and load them when our e-mail arrives. Applicants will receive an e-mail acknowledgement for every letter submitted electronically. Recommendation letters should arrive no later than January 9th.

Required Departmental Form

The email you will receive after you apply (about a week after) will ask you for:

• Recommender Contact Information (please be sure to double check all email addressess...if the email address is incorrect, there is no way our system will be able to contact your recommender)
• Your waiver decisions. (Please keep in mind that letters you have waived access to are generally thought to be more reliable than those for which you have not waived access. A few recommenders also refuse to write letters if access to them has not been waived. Given this, this may be something you should discuss with your recommenders before hand.)
• A Resume, publications, home page URLs, etc. that you would like to submit as part of your application. If you mention any publications or papers in your application you will need to upload them, or include links for them, at this time.

Once you have submitted the waiver information, you will not be able to change it.

If it is necessary for you submit letters in another format, please contact us directly at .

Recommendation Letter Tips:

• Having more than 3 letters, though we allow it, is not recommended. Due to the volume of applications we receive every year, there is no guarantee that more than 3 letters will be read.
• Having more letters is not necessarily better. Three strong letters is much better than 3 strong letters and one mediocre or bad letter.
• It can be a good idea to ask your recommenders if they can write you a good, detailed letter. You would be suprised at the number of mediocre or nondescriptive letters we receive every year. A one-two sentence letter is probably not going to help your cause. The best letters guage your ability and potential for research and graduate study, often citing examples from the recommenders own experiences with you.

Official Transcripts

We require one (1) official transcript from each college or university you have attended. Please send sealed original and current transcripts of all University work. Transcripts not in English should include translations from the school that issued the original transcripts. Transcripts should arrive no later than January 9th. (Please note that even if you have not yet finished your coursework when you apply, we still require a current transcript from you. If you are admitted, at that time, we will ask you submit a final official transcript to complete our records.)

Send to:

EECS Graduate Admissions
205 Cory Hall, MC #1770
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720-1770

For more information about transcripts, please see: http://www.grad.berkeley.edu/admissions/admis_require.shtml or email gradadmissions at eecs dot berkeley dot edu.

Graduate Record Examination (GRE)

Oldest acceptable exam date: June 2004

The Graduate Record Examination (GRE) is required for all applicants. It is composed of three sections:

Analytical Writing
Verbal Reasoning
Quantitative Reasoning

For more information about the test, as well as locations, test dates, and the time it will take for score reports to reach Berkeley, please consult the Educational Testing Service (ETS). They can be reached at (609) 771-7670. Inquiries can also be made to and http://www.gre.org/.

The institution code for Berkeley is 4833 and the Department codes are 1203 for Electrical Engineering and 0402 for Computer Science. We encourage you to take the November administration to ensure that your scores arrive by the deadline, but we will also accept scores from the early December administration. GRE Scores should arrive no later than January 9th.

Please note that if you send the tests with the wrong code, we will still receive the scores electronically from ETS. Even with the wrong code, if all of the other information is correct, we will be able to match up your scores to your application.

Computer Science applicants are advised to take the GRE Subject test in Computer Science, Math, or Physics, although it is not required. The subject tests are offered only 3 times a year.

Though there are no minimum score requirements, many of our successful applicants score on the 90th percentile or higher. The average Verbal Reasoning score for students who were admitted and came last year was about 595.

Also, please keep in mind that ETS sends us test scores (GRE and TOEFL) twice a month electronically, so even if you've received them, it does not mean that we have. Because this is the case, it's a good idea to take the tests as early as possible in advance.

The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) or The International English Language Testing System (IELTS)

Oldest acceptable exam date: June 2007

All applicants from countries in which the official language is not English are required to submit official evidence of English language proficiency. This requirement applies to applicants from Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Latin America, the Middle East, Israel, the People's Republic of China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, most European countries, and non-English-speaking countries in Africa.

If you have completed at least one year of full-time academic course work with grades of B or better in residence at a U.S. university, you do not need to take a standardized test. Instead, you must submit an official transcript from the U.S. university.

Applicants must receive a score of at least 570 on the written test. The computer-based TOEFL must have a minimum score of 230. The minimum score for Next Generation TOEFL (iBT) is 68. Graduate Division will not accept tests taken before June 2007. Take the TOEFL at least 60 days prior to the deadline. Inquiries about the TOEFL can be made at http://www.toefl.org/ or at . The institution code for Berkeley is 4833. There is no Department code for the TOEFL.

Please note that if you send the tests with the wrong code, we will still receive the scores electronically from ETS. Even with the wrong code, if all of the other information is correct, we will be able to match up your scores to your application.

The International English Language Testing System (IELTS) is also acceptable. The minimum acceptable score is 7 on your most recent exam. The oldest acceptable score is June 2007. More information about IELTS can be found at http://www.ielts.org/

Also, please keep in mind that ETS sends us test scores (GRE and TOEFL) twice a month electronically, so even if you've received them, it does not mean that we have. Because this is the case, it's a good idea to take the tests as early as possible in advance.

Application Fee

You must submit an application fee when you apply. The application fee is not refundable. If you are a U.S. citizen or current permanent resident, the application fee is $60; for all others, the fee is $80. Fees are subject to change.

For more information, please see: http://www.grad.berkeley.edu/admissions/before_begin.shtml#6.

 

Questions? Please contact EECS Graduate Admissions.