UC Graduate Student Experience Survey (UCGSES)

What is the UCGSES?

The University of California Graduate Student Experience Survey (UCGSES) is an online survey administered at UC Davis and each of the other UC campuses. It asks students for their input around a broad range of academic and non-academic experiences. All UC Davis graduate and professional students are invited to participate. Winter 2025 was the third biannual administration of the survey following its launch in 2021.

Survey Content

The survey asks questions in the following topic areas:

Advising Experience
Professional Development and Progress to Degree
Quality of Program, Faculty, and Curriculum

Campus and Program Climate
Financial Support
Well-Being and Satisfaction
Basic Needs

Post-Graduate Career Plans
Undergraduate Scholarship, Research and Creative Activities

Accessing the Survey

All graduate and professional students receive an email inviting them to participate in the UCGSES. Students log in with their CAS/Kerberos credentials, and follow a link to the UC survey. This site will also have a link to the survey during periods of active data collecton.

Survey Results

The UC Information Center has extensive online reports; see the UCGSES dashboard. Contact gradsurvey@ucdavis.edu for additional studies or reports informed by UCGSES survey responses.

Voluntary Participation

Participation in this survey is entirely voluntary. Your decision whether to participate in the survey will not affect your relationship with UC Davis, your academic program, or benefits to which you may otherwise be entitled.

Benefits

UCGSES is an opportunity for graduate and professional students to share their opinions. Data from the survey informs the University about the quality of education, student services, and other aspects of the graduate experience. Graduate Studies uses the results to set priorities and improve programs and services for students. This 2021 news summary gives examples, but there have been many more recent examples.

Asking Questions and Reporting Concerns

The UCGSES engages some sensitive topics around campus climate, including sexual harassment, discrimination, and student mental health. We need this information to understand and improve the environment on campus, but responses to the survey may not be reviewed immediately. If you have experienced or witnessed incidents that concern you, or if you need to take immediate action or disclose dangerous situations, please contact the appropriate campus resource:

Also, please keep in mind that University policy requires all reports of sexual harassment and sexual violence against students to be forwarded to the UC Davis Title IX office. Students who disclose that they experienced sexual harassment or sexual violence while students may be contacted by the Title IX office with information about reporting options and support services available to them.

Protecting Your Privacy

The main purpose of this survey project is to gain a fuller understanding of the factors affecting the success of graduate and professional students and the campus climate. The design of the study requires that we also obtain background information about you from official campus records. This includes but is not limited to program, degree objective, whether you have advanced to candidacy, years of attendance, gender, race and ethnicity. With appropriate Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval, the data may also be used in anonymized form for academic research.

Survey responses will be matched against student background information for aggregation and reporting purposes. Data that can identify you individually is limited to student ID, name, and email address, which are used strictly for the purposes of emailing survey invitations and reminders and for authentication into the survey. Please be assured that your identity will not be connected to your survey responses, your responses will be confidential, and the results of the study will be reported only as aggregated (group-level) data. Any identifiable information that is obtained in connection with this study will remain confidential and will be disclosed only with your permission or as required by law.