PS There will be a section for the Statement of Purpose on the University Electronic Application. The Statement of Purpose is an essay in which the applicant should try to articulate his or her ideas about the value of writing as well as to express how and why the Programs in Writing and its faculty may help with the realization of his or her vocational goals. Suggested length is 500 to 1000 words. GPA A bachelor's degree with a minimum 3.0 GPA is a University prerequisite for admission, which may be waived in exceptional cases. RL A total of three letters of recommendation are required and they can be submitted electronically or in hard copy. (Please see below for hard copy instructions.) Electronic letters of recommendation can be set up through the University Electronic Application. Applicants will input the email addresses of their recommenders, and the recommenders will be emailed a link that explains how to upload an electronic letter of recommendation. If needed, applicants can resend their recommenders this link by logging in to the Application Progress Review. For more assistance, applicants can contact UCI Graduate Division at Webmaster@grad.uci.edu. Electronic letters of recommendation can be submitted after the application has been submitted. Letters of Recommendation can arrive after the deadline. Transcript Applicants must submit one official, sealed copy of transcripts of all college-level work. Transcripts must be received from every undergraduate and graduate institution that the applicant has attended. This includes community colleges, summer sessions, and extension programs. Even if credits from one institution have transferred and appear on another institution’s transcript, the program will still need to receive the original transcript where the credits first appeared. Applicants who have attended UCI must request an official, sealed transcript; the program cannot obtain them on the applicant’s behalf. All transcripts must be issued by the applicant’s previous institution’s Registrar’s Office. The Programs in Writing must receive the transcripts in the original sealed envelope. The Programs in Writing cannot accept any copied, faxed, emailed, or opened transcripts. Transcripts will be accepted if mailed directly from the Institution or from the applicant. As long as the seal is not broken. Transcripts can arrive after the deadline.