Admissions
University Graduate Studies Application
UC Davis will be adopting an all new electronic application. The electronic application is available to applicants at gradstudies.ucdavis.edu. Required Application Materials:
- Graduate application including Statement of Purpose and Personal History
- Application Fee: $80 Domestic, $100 International
- GRE Scores
- Certified transcripts from all post-secondary institutions attended (whether or not a degree was granted)
- Three Letters of Recommendation (must be submitted online by recommender)
- TOEFL - Graduate Studies requires the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) if your native language is not English or your instruction has not been in English.
Application Guidelines
- Applicants MUST apply online. Please submit Graduate Studies online application by January 15 deadline.
- The application fee is $80 for the domestic application and $100 for the international. The fee may be paid by credit card or e-check. The fee must be paid before the application will be considered as complete, and the fee must be paid for each application submitted.
- Please send transcripts directly to the Department of Agricultural and
Resource Economics at the following address:
Graduate Program Coordinator
Agricultural and Resource Economics
University of California, Davis
One Shields Avenue
Davis, CA 95616 - An official transcript from each institution you attended is required. Official records are defined as original documents issued by the institution which bear the actual signature of the registrar and the seal of the issuing institution. If your official records are not issued in English, you must submit those records in their original language with the authorized complete and exact English translations.
- GRE scores should be sent electronically to Institution code 4834 and Department code 0101.
- TOEFL scores should be sent electronically to Institution code 4834 and Department code 67. TOEFL scores expire after two years. Minimum score is 80. TOEFL is waived if you have been attending an English instructed institution for 2 years or attended a University of California for 1 year. As an alternative, you may submit scores from the Academic Modules of the international English Language Testing System (IELTS).
- Letters of Recommendation must be submitted electronically through the online application. Please do not have recommenders send letters in hard copy, but rather to submit all recommendations online once the online service is available.
Please refer questions to our Graduate Coordinator, by e-mail (GradAsst@primal.ucdavis.edu) or telephone 530-752-6185.
Deadlines
- Priority application deadline to guarantee consideration is January 15.
- Fellowship application deadline is January 15.
- No applications accepted after March 1.
Admission Criteria
Acceptance into the M.S. and Ph.D. programs is based on a review of the applicant's past academic performance. To be considered for admission to the M.S. program, a student must have had a GPA of 3.0 (on a 4.00 scale) or higher in either all upper-division course work or in cumulative study at an accredited institution. For admission to the Ph.D. program, a higher level of performance (at least a 3.3 GPA) improves chances, as does the difficulty of an undergraduate program or an M.S. degree itself. Although Graduate Record Exam (GRE) scores for the General Test are required for all students, there is no minimum performance required. (The score on the quantitative section is the most important.) That is, the entire set of qualifications is considered.
Before enrolling in graduate courses at Davis (courses numbered 200 and higher), a student should have completed a program of study equivalent to that leading to a Bachelor of Science degree in Agricultural and Resource Economics at Davis. Key areas are:
- courses in intermediate microeconomic theory
- intermediate statistics (including regression analysis)
- calculus
Additional course work in macroeconomics, statistics, and mathematics is highly desirable and recommended.
We allow Ph.D. students lacking a strong economics background, but otherwise eligible for admission, to spread the core Ph.D. required courses over two years. A typical pattern is to take our M.S. sequence in microeconomic theory along with Ph.D. econometrics in the first year and the rest of the Ph.D. core in the second year. By “splitting the core” in this way students gain a deeper understanding of core economic principles, which better prepares them for dissertation research. Thus, we can use our M.S. program to allow less rigid enforcement of background requirements for admission to the Ph.D. program.
For more information on graduate studies, please visit the Office of Graduate Studies site.
If you have any questions, please send e-mail to GradAsst@primal.ucdavis.edu. Thank you.