Admission Requirements
PRE-ENROLLMENT
At the beginning of Sophomore year, interested students will pre-enroll in the program by setting up a meeting with the PSTAT Undergraduate Advisor. At this meeting, students will plan out their upper division studies, as this process is done a little differently from other undergraduates. Once the interested student has met with the undergraduate advisor, their name will be placed on a pre-enrollment list.
PRE-APPLICATION
Spring quarter of the junior year, students will apply for pre-admission to the BS/MS Actuarial program internally with the department by filling out a pre-application. Students should formally apply in the Spring quarter of their junior year and no later than March 31st. Students may petition to apply after this time, but no later than two quarters before the student intends to advance to graduate status.
PRE-ADMISSION & ADMISSION
Spring quarter of the junior year, the Actuarial Program Committee, jointly with the department's Chair of Graduate Admissions, determines pre-admission to the program. Students are preliminarily admitted contingent on continued academic excellence, and will not be officially admitted to the program and advanced to graduate status until they have formally applied with Graduate Division via the online Eapp system. Students will be prompted by the Graduate Division to fill out the Eapp once the advancement process progresses to this stage. At this time, they will be expected to adhere to regular graduate program application requirements including submitting the Statement of Purpose, Statement of Personal Achievements/Contributions, and Resume or CV. As of Fall 2017, students will no longer be required to take the GRE exam as part of the admission process.
More on Pre-Admission Procedures...
ADVANCEMENT
Fall quarter of their 5th year or earlier, the advancement process takes place; this process takes a full quarter to complete and must therefore be started a full quarter ahead of the time the student intends to begin their residency as a graduate student. This process commonly takes place during the Winter quarter of the student's 4th year or earlier. Students should advance to graduate status as soon as they complete near 180 units of coursework, and no later than the Fall quarter of their 5th year. Units taken as an undergraduate which will be counted as graduate coursework must be redacted from the total number of units required for advancement.
More on advancement procedures...
Departmental Pre-Admission Procedures
Pre-Application: Electronically submit a graduate departmental pre-application and a PDF copy of your unofficial UCSB transcript to the Graduate Program Assistant at gradadvisor@pstat.ucsb.edu during the Spring quarter of your Junior Year, no later than March 31st.
Letters of Recommendation: The pre-application requires that you submit the names of three PSTAT faculty members who were your instructors/mentors and are able to provide letters of recommendation at the request of the Actuarial Committee. We are particularly interested in receiving information from the core actuarial faculty (Profs. Duncan, Feldman, Fouque, Ichiba, Ludkovski) and/or instructors of PSTAT 160A-B, 170, 171, 172A-B, 173, and 174. Please note that we will not require the actual letters of recommendation unless you are admitted to the program on the departmental level.
Pre-Application Deadline: March 31st of your junior year. Students may petition to apply after this time, but no later than two quarters before the student intends to advance to grad status.