Why take our word about our program? ISI ranked us as the #1 "high-impact" astrophysics institution, using the criterion of citations per paper.
You want to know what sorts of research we do here, what the graduate curriculum is, how our graduates do in the job market --- the answers to these and other questions are in the Prospective Grad FAQ. The FAQ webpage is fine, but is inferior to the document in its original form as PostScript or PDF. (View PDF files by downloading the Acrobat Reader.)
You may be interested in the Unofficial Orientation Guide written for new grad students. Again, it is superior as PostScript or PDF.
Nothing replaces a visit, but there are also lots of beautiful photos available on the web. The UCSC Photo Gallery has some pictures of our campus and a shot of the Lick Observatory. There are photos of the Lick Observatory by Ansel Adams, made during his late-1960s chronicle of the University of California. And, while not good for doing astronomical observations, the recent heavy snowfall at Lick was very photogenic.
Application materials are available online from the UCSC Graduate Division.
Each year we get between 70 and 100 applications. Of these we accept 10 to 15 applicants into our program and extend offers of financial support.
What counts in your application? The majority of successful applicants have an undergraduate degree in physics with a good GPA. Most applicants have GRE scores (for the three "standard" sections) in the 85th percentile or above. We give quite a bit of weight to the Physics GRE scores. A score above 80th percentile is very good; we generally look for scores above the 60th percentile.
A research background in A&A is very helpful, though research experience in related fields is also valuable. We look for strong letters of recommendation, and read the "statement of purpose" quite carefully. Our goal is to identify enthusiastic students who are well prepared to thrive in an exciting research environment, making use of the particular strengths and opportunities in the UCSC department.
If you are accepted into the program, you will also receive an offer of financial support. The University provides fellowship support for a limited number of first year students, who are selected on a variety of criteria; these fellowships have no service requirements. Most students will receive offers of teaching assistantships, which include some duties assisting one of the A&A faculty with teaching an undergraduate class. Typically, an offer might include a mix, with one or two quarters as a teaching assistant and the others on fellowship. The department considers teaching experience to be an integral part of the training of a professional astronomer; all graduate students are required to teach at least one quarter during their time at UCSC. In rare cases, a student might be offered support as a graduate research assistant, funded from one of the faculty's research grants. Usually, students move to research grant funding during their first summer term.
There are graduate program "fees" (~$1700/quarter) for all students and, for non-California residents, graduate "tuition" (~$3415/quarter). Part of the support offer will also be fee and tuition fellowships to completely cover these costs. In subsequent years the fees will be paid for as part of teaching assistant remission or paid for from the research grant from which the student's graduate research fellowship is paid.
We ask US citizens to become CA residents during their first year here; the tuition then goes away. Tuition for foreign students in the second and later years will be paid from research grants.
The department guarantees 100% support for our students. The current situation is that we have so much research support that we have a hard time filling available teaching assistant slots with astronomy graduate students.
We encourage prospective students to visit and can help to defray costs. For students accepted with support we reimburse travel expenses up to $200/student. During the visit, prospective students are (graciously) hosted by current graduate students which includes putting the visitors up (at no expense to visitors). If prospectives combine visits (and travel reimbursements) from other west-coast schools they can usually cover the full travel costs of their fact-finding mission.