B1.8 Special Categories of Students
Updated: August 24th, 2011
Graduate programs at Berkeley are structured for full-time students working toward higher degrees. Other students may be admitted only under special circumstances.
Course work only. Course-work-only status permits students who are not working toward a higher degree to enroll in a maximum of two semesters of graduate work. These students must meet the same requirements for admission as those set for other entering graduate students. Course-work-only applicants, therefore, must be evaluated and ranked with all other applicants.
Course-work-only status is appropriate only for students who want to enroll in courses that are not available elsewhere or who want to complete a limited amount of course work for professional advancement. They will not be permitted to enter a degree program at a later date, unless they are current UC employees. Course-work-only status should not be used as a probationary status preliminary to being admitted to a degree program. After two semesters, the registration of course-work-only students will be blocked.
All regular course-work-only students, except UC employees and students in the Education Abroad Program (EAP), count in the departmental admission allotment (see EAP section). Course-work-only students are not eligible for the fellowship competition and may not be appointed as Academic Student Employees or Graduate Student Researchers unless the department first requests an exception that is approved by the cognizant Associate Dean; these exceptions are very rare.
Students working for graduate degrees at another institution. Applicants who want to study at Berkeley before they have completed work toward a graduate degree at another institution may apply for admission to
- course-work-only status. If admitted they must register in the usual manner and pay required fees. Such individuals count in the admission allotment, may not later transfer to a Berkeley degree program and are regarded as students.
- visiting student researchers. Individuals may qualify as visiting researchers if a) their proposed visit is to conduct research for the purpose of meeting doctoral degree requirements at another university; and b) proposed research is of mutual interest to and endorsed by an academic department, ORU, or other Berkeley campus unit; and c) the appointment term is at least one month and not more than one year in duration. See the Visting Scholars and Postdoctoral Affairs website (https://vspa.berkeley.edu) or contact its director at 643-9681; vspa@berkeley.edu, for more information.
Limited status. The limited status undergraduate program allows a student, who has received a recognized undergraduate degree with a record of good scholarship (an overall grade-point average of at least 3.3) the opportunity to pursue course work in a field unrelated to any prior degrees for a specific and clearly defined purpose (usually preparation for graduate school). The program is for undergraduate course work only, for two regular terms, and requires full-time attendance. Only the Colleges of Chemistry, Natural Resources, and Engineering consider admitting students in limited status. Use of limited status as a means of raising a student’s scholarship average is not permitted.
Information about this program, application procedures, and deadlines, is available in the Office of Undergraduate Admission and Relations with Schools (110 Sproul Hall, 642-3175).
Students not eligible for the limited status program may consider concurrent enrollment through University Extension (642-4111) as an alternative.
Restrictions of limited status. Students on limited status are not allowed to take graduate courses (200 series). Any courses they complete while on limited status do not satisfy subject or residence requirements for an advanced degree or credential.
Students who complete a program in limited status are not automatically transferred to graduate standing. They must submit an application for admission and meet the deadline for fall or spring admission. They are evaluated for graduate admission on the same basis as other applicants.
Part-time graduate students. Part-time graduate students can be admitted only to those degree programs (e.g., the Evening/Weekend MBA) specifically approved for part-time students.
Ad hoc interdisciplinary doctoral programs. The Graduate Council has established a procedure by which students may elect to pursue an interdisciplinary major of their own design. Only students who have completed at least two semesters of a doctoral program at Berkeley with a superior academic record may be considered for an individual interdisciplinary major. For further information, students should contact the Graduate Degrees Office (642-7330, degrees@berkeley.edu).
Duplication of degrees. Departments may consider students for an additional academic master’s or professional master’s degree if the second degree is in a distinctly different field.
Applicants admitted to a doctoral program that requires a master’s degree to be earned at Berkeley as a prerequisite (even though the applicant already has a master’s degree from another institution in the same or a closely allied field of study) will be permitted to study for a second master’s degree.
The Graduate Division will admit students for a second doctoral degree only if they meet the following guidelines:
- Applicants with doctoral degrees may be admitted for an additional doctoral degree only if that degree program is in a general area of knowledge distinctly different from the field in which they earned their original degree. For example, a physics Ph.D. could be admitted to a doctoral degree program in music or history; however, a student with a doctoral degree in mathematics would not be permitted to add a Ph.D. in statistics. The Graduate Council views academic degrees as evidence of broad research training, not as vocational training certificates; therefore, applicants with academic graduate degrees should be able to take up new subject matter on a serious level without undertaking a graduate program unless the fields are completely dissimilar.
- Applicants who hold the Ph.D. degree may be admitted to a professional doctorate or professional master’s degree program if there is no duplication of training involved.
- If a department wants to recommend admissions to a second Ph.D. or to a lesser degree, the head Graduate Advisor may request an exception to this policy in a written form.
Education Abroad Program Reciprocity. In 1980, the Education Abroad Program (EAP) inaugurated a series of non-degree/no-fee direct exchange programs with a number of universities abroad. Prospective participants apply initially to the University of California Study Center located at their home institution abroad. The individual study centers select the successful participants and submit applications for those students to the Systemwide EAP office located in Santa Barbara. The Systemwide EAP office will send the application materials directly to the individual departments. Students seeking admission in this category can be identified by a red stamp “University of California, Education Abroad Program Reciprocity Application” on the Graduate Admissions application. If your department requires a departmental application, please send one directly to the applicant.
EAP Reciprocity applicants are not required to pay the application fee and will be seeking admission to course-work-only status (although they will not count, unlike other course-work-only students, against the department’s admissions allotment). Applicants must meet all normal University requirements for admission, including an appropriate basic degree, an acceptable GPA, and English language proficiency. If a department has a GRE requirement, it should notify the EAP applicants at once. Because EAP applicants are not being considered for admission to degree programs, the Graduate Admissions Office does not require that they submit official copies of their academic records from abroad since records certified by the Systemwide EAP Coordinator are acceptable. However, applicants will be required to submit official transcripts from U.S. colleges or universities in sealed envelopes.
The applications of EAP applicants should be reviewed, and they should be recommended for admission or denial following procedures used for all other international applicants. The Office of the President will not include them in the campus FTE enrollments, and applicants recommended for admission will not count in the department’s allotment, as stated above. However, departments must report the rank for all EAP applicants recommended for admission. Given this, they may wish to compare the applicants to each other as a group and rank those admitted numerically, i.e., EAP-1, EAP-2, and so on. Final decisions should be made no later than June 1, particularly for those denied admission, to enable the Systemwide EAP Coordinator to place them at another UC campus. EAP applicants may not be deferred because their initial selection is governed by their home institution abroad.
Students enrolled in this category do not pay nonresident tuition or educational fees. Although the campuses do not receive instructional support resources from the state or the Office of the President for these students, the Education Abroad Program transfers an amount equivalent to the registration fee to the receiving campus.
Students who enroll in this category are not eligible to enter a degree program upon completion of their course work, and their registration is limited to a maximum of one year. Upon completion of two semesters, their registration will automatically be blocked. Very rarely is an exception to the rule ever granted. Please contact the Director of Graduate Services for more information (642-4971).
See All Topics in the Category: B. Admission, Guide to Graduate Policy
