Foreign students from non-English-speaking countries are required to demonstrate proficiency in English via the TOEFL, IELTS, or Duolingo English Test (DET). 

International Students whose native language is not English will be required to demonstrate English language proficiency before they may serve as teaching assistants.

The General GRE will not be used in our admission decisions. The Physics Subject GRE is recommended for all applicants to the Physics PhD program.

We strongly recommend that applicants submit a physics GRE score with their applications, if circumstances allow. This will provide an opportunity for students who have taken the physics GRE to demonstrate abilities that might not be apparent elsewhere in their application. 

Please self-report your score in your application and submit the official score through ETS. All applications are evaluated holistically to assess an applicant’s preparation and potential for graduate coursework and independent research.

The Graduate Division has created a new section in the application this year that allows applicants to describe how COVID-19 has affected their educational experience, including their academic performance, grading scale, or research experience. For example: "For the spring semester, my university let us take two classes P/NP, and I chose this because..." or "For the spring quarter, my college graded all classes as P/NP and we didn't have an option for a letter grade" or "For spring term, my lab was unavailable due to campus closure so I was unable to do experiments. Instead, I worked remotely on modeling related to my research project."

This section is optional, but applicants should complete this section so we can better understand their experiences.

Some topics to consider:

1. How did you pursue your goals for research and advanced study in Physics during the COVID-19 pandemic?
2. What grading system did your university adopt during the pandemic, and how did this affect you?
3. Were there any classes you planned to take, or research activities you planned to pursue, but were unable to due to campus restrictions? What did you do in lieu of these?

Entering students must take an entrance diagnostic exam on Undergraduate Physics the summer before they start in the program. The exam will cover mechanics, electricity & magnetism, quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, & math methods. Students who are found to have serious weaknesses in preparation will be directed to enroll in appropriate undergraduate upper division courses.

There are a couple of fee waiver programs offered by the Division of Graduate Education and Postdoctoral Affairs (GEPA) and the Department of Physics.

Please visit the GEPA website (https://grad.ucsd.edu/admissions/requirements/application-fee-and-fee-waiver/index.html) to see if you are eligible for a fee waiver with them. Follow their steps to request for one of their fee waivers.

If you are not eligible for an application fee waiver through GEPA, then please follow the steps below to be considered for one of our limited number of fee waivers by our department.

• Please fill out the application as much as you can (https://connect.grad.ucsd.edu/apply/)
• Do not submit the application or enter any payment information
• Take note of your application's reference number (you'll need that for the next step)
• Fill out our Fee Waiver Request Form
• The deadline to be considered for one of the department's application fee waivers is December 1, 2026.
• If selected for an application fee waiver, we will contact you with further instructions by December 4, 2026.