University of California, Santa Cruz

The University of California, Santa Cruz, is a public campus of the University of California, opened in 1965 on a former ranch in the redwoods above Santa Cruz and Monterey Bay. It is organized around a residential college system of ten colleges, each with housing and advising, inside a campus of about 2,000 acres.

Five divisions—Arts, Humanities, Physical and Biological Sciences, Social Sciences, and the Baskin School of Engineering—offer graduate degrees. The campus is identified with astronomy and astrophysics, including work tied to Lick Observatory; marine science at the Coastal Science Campus and Long Marine Laboratory; genomics and bioinformatics, including the UCSC Genome Browser; ecology and environmental studies; and computer science.

About 19,000 students attend, of whom roughly 1,900 are graduate students. International students are a smaller share than at several other University of California campuses. Faculty include members of the national academies in astronomy and the life sciences. Alumni include astronaut Kathryn Sullivan and political activist Huey P. Newton, who completed a doctorate there.

Graduate programs lead to M.A., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees, with some professional master's options in engineering and education. Doctoral training is research-centered under a faculty adviser, and teaching assistantships are common. The campus uses a quarter calendar. Students live among the colleges and go into the small coastal city of Santa Cruz; marine labs sit at the shoreline, several miles from the main redwood campus.

In the Grad School Navigator directory, University of California, Santa Cruz lists 67 graduate programs across 28 subjects: 29 master's programs and 38 doctoral programs, with the widest choice in biology, earth & environmental sciences and communication, media & journalism. University of California, Santa Cruz holds rank 119 in the GSN Overall University Ranking.