In addition to departmental admission requirements, applicants must also meet the university requirements for admission described in the ''Graduate Education'' section of the General Catalog.

Admission is available for the MA, MA/Ph.D., and Ph.D. programs. A candidate for admission must fulfill the scholarship requirements for graduate study and have had undergraduate coursework equivalent to PSTAT 120A-B-C (Probability and Statistics), Math 108A (linear algebra) and a basic computer science course.
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