Admissions FAQs

UCSD is a very interdisciplinary campus. Faculty in the Cognitive Science department all maintain active relationships with other parts of campus, and often teach students from other departments. UCSD offers two distinct Ph.D. programs related to cognitive science, each with different admissions and graduation requirements.

First, the Department of Cognitive Science offers a Ph.D. in Cognitive Science. Students are admitted directly into the department, take many of their classes from and are advised by CogSci faculty, and fulfill degree requirements of the department. This program provides broad training in the various areas of cognitive science, and a faculty member from the Cognitive Science department typically acts as advisor for the dissertation.

Second, the Interdisciplinary Program in Cognitive Science (IDP) offers a joint Ph.D. program between Cognitive Science and some other "home" department. UCSD academic departments offering this opportunity are:

• Anthropology
• Communication
• Computer Science & Engineering
• Linguistics
• Neuroscience
• Philosophy
• Psychology
• Sociology

Students gain admittance to the IDP through the home department and must fulfill requirements of the home department. (For admissions information on each of the eight home departments, please see the Graduate Admissions website. Admission to the IDP may be sought at any time after admission to the student's home department, usually in the second or third year. These students also work with CogSci faculty, who may serve as advisor or co-advisor of the dissertation. The primary advisor must have an appointment in the student's home department.

[Note: Most of these answers apply to the Cognitive Science Ph.D. (not necessarily the Interdiciplinary Ph.D.). Check out our IDP Page for more information.

We accept students from all fields, but applicants must have completed a bachelor's degree; many have also completed a Masters degree. All degrees must be from accredited institutions of higher education. The range of prior disciplines of our students is very broad (even broader than the set of IDP cognate departments listed above!).

Our department specializes in a variety of research including language and cognitive development, visual processing, human computer interaction, neural networks, and the development of robots. To get a better idea of what we do, you can peruse our faculty's profiles.

Students may apply to the program and are sometimes accepted. However, please be aware that only a handful of our own students have been admitted since 1988. You are encouraged to apply to other institutions to broaden your education. 

San Diego can be expensive, however, sharing a place with others often makes the cost affordable. Additional information on university and off-campus housing resources is available.

The focus of our graduate program is the Ph.D. degree. Students in good standing who leave before completing a Ph.D. can ask to receive a Masters, if they've completed the necessary course work. However, note that duplication of advanced degrees is not permitted at UCSD.

Every year varies, but here are some statistics from the Fall 15 entering class:

• 12 students admitted from 151 applications
• 3.6 GPA average
• 680/760/5.25 GRE Average for Verbal/Quant/Analytical respectively
• Majors included such varied fields as: Chemistry, Computer Science, Cognitive Science, Electrical Engineering and Linguistics

Statistics on current graduate students:

• 44 current grad students
• 38% Women
• 16% International students
• 11% Underrepresented minorities

Graduates of our program have gone off to both academic and industrial careers. It is also not unusual for our students to go into a post-doctoral program. Our Alumni of the Month pages may give a better idea as to what kinds of futures to expect.

Students who want to take courses for personal enrichment or to prepare for applying to a Cogs graduate program can enroll in graduate classes (with permission of the instuctor) through the UCSD Extension Concurrent Enrollment Program.