To be considered for admission to UCSB, applicants must have received a bachelor's degree or its equivalent (with a cumulative grade point average of 3.0 or better) from an accredited university prior to the quarter for which admission is sought.

The department requires a bachelor's degree in Spanish or its equivalent. Candidates who are deficient in preparation will be required to take the necessary undergraduate courses to make up for deficiencies before beginning work in the M.A. program.

completed an undergraduate or graduate degree at an institution whose primary language of instruction is English. The minimum score for consideration is 550 when taking the paper-based TOEFL, or 80 when taking the internet-based test, some departments require a higher score. Applicants must make arrangements to take the TOEFL directly with ETS (www.ets.org). Scores should be reported to UCSB using institution code 4835. TOEFL scores must be no more than two years old at the time of application submission. UCSB also considers a minimal score of 7 on the IELTS as an alternative to the TOEFL. IELTS scores must be no more than two years old at the time of application submission