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GEPA provides a number of fee waivers to departments based on the amount of applications the department received during the previous cycle. The department decides which applicants receive these GEPA-provided fee waivers; there are no guidelines or rules set by GEPA for them. These fee waivers may be are granted to an applicant after submitting they’ve submitted their application. However; however, the applicant should be in communication with the department prior to the submission of their application.
Number of Waivers Per Department
Each department has a set number of waivers that are shared among all of their state-supported programs and another, separate set number of waivers that are shared among any self-supported programs they may have. To make it as clear as possible, we have written a separate line for each on our Fee Waiver Spreadsheet.
Beginning in Fall 2024 (with the opening of the Fall 2025 applications), the number of GEPA-provided fee waivers granted to each department will be based on the total number of applications that were submitted to that department during the previous admissions cycle. (You can verify how many applications were submitted to your department last year in the admissions dashboards on Tableau.)
Departments with under 500 applications submitted receive 5 fee waivers
Departments with 500 to 1000 applications submitted receive 10 fee waivers
Departments with over 1000 applications submitted receive 20 fee waivers
To verify the number of fee waivers your department receives/has remaining, see our Fee Waiver Spreadsheet.
Granting an Applicant a GEPA-provided Fee Waiver
Instruct the applicant to submit their application but do not pay the fee.
Email the Admissions Assistant at gradadmissions@ucsd.edu with the applicant’s name and slate ID.
We will send you a confirmation the waiver has been applied and that application has been moved to the Department Review 1 bin.
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As a reminder, your department will be billed for the total amount of application fees awarded using this process in Slate at the end of the admissions cycle.
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Important Conditions
Only those with graduate coordinator level access in Slate will be able to process a department-supported fee waiver for an applicant in Slate.
In order to apply a department-supported fee waiver, the applicant will need to have submitted their application, but cannot have already paid the application fee. The application must be in the “Awaiting Payment” bin in order to proceed with a department-supported fee waiver. The form to apply this fee waiver will not be available to you if the applicant is not in this bin. Please be sure to provide these clear instructions to applicants you wish to provide a department-supported application fee waiver for. GEPA will not refund application fees to applicants who do not follow these instructions or who have already paid their application fee. No exceptions.
It is at the discretion of the department on whether they wish to advertise the opportunity to request a department-supported fee waiver from your department to prospective applicants. GEPA does not share information about department-supported fee waiver options for prospective applicants on the GEPA admissions website. If your department wishes to provide this information on your website you may do so, though it is not required. If you do share this information publicly, we ask that prospective applicants are clearly instructed to reach out directly to your department with their request for a department supported fee waiver, and not to GEPA. GEPA will not be processing these requests. We also ask that you share that applicants who have already paid their application fee are not eligible for a department supported application fee waiver, as noted above. There are no exceptions to this policy.
How-To Guide For New Users
A step-by-step guide on how to submit a department-supported fee waiver can be found here.