California Residency Requirement for UC Berkeley

[dc_bro]

Hi everyone,

My girlfriend is starting a PhD at UC Berkeley soon and I live in DC. I know that students need to establish residency in their first year to avoid additional fees. From the website it says you can only be out of California for 6 weeks and that they will ask for plane tickets, bank account statements, etc for proof. This seems a bit OD to be honest. Would any current or former students be able to weight in on the strictness? 

For example if she went to visit me on a long weekend would they know and not give her the residency? Do they need entire bank history for the entire year? If I bought the plane tickets for her would they be able to find out by searching flight databases? Do they track students IP address?

[BabyScientist]

Is that 6 weeks total or 6 weeks in a row...?

[dc_bro]

2 hours ago, BabyScientist said:

Is that 6 weeks total or 6 weeks in a row...?

It’s 6 weeks total in a 366 day period. If you go on approved summer travel that does not count. 

[BabyScientist]

48 minutes ago, dc_bro said:

It’s 6 weeks total in a 366 day period. If you go on approved summer travel that does not count. 

I think that's reasonable? A PhD program is like a job. You're spending all year on your research. Spending more than 6 weeks total in a year away seems excessive? 42 days. 3-4 days a month.

[Sigaba]

7 hours ago, dc_bro said:

Hi everyone,

My girlfriend is starting a PhD at UC Berkeley soon and I live in DC. I know that students need to establish residency in their first year to avoid additional fees. From the website it says you can only be out of California for 6 weeks and that they will ask for plane tickets, bank account statements, etc for proof. This seems a bit OD to be honest. Would any current or former students be able to weight in on the strictness? 

For example if she went to visit me on a long weekend would they know and not give her the residency? Do they need entire bank history for the entire year? If I bought the plane tickets for her would they be able to find out by searching flight databases? Do they track students IP address?

She must have an extraordinarily high opinion of you if she's going to take these kinds of risks to spend time with you.

Why not prove you're worthy of such high esteem by finding ways to visit her at Cal rather than making her shoulder the burden?

[dc_bro]

16 hours ago, Sigaba said:

She must have an extraordinarily high opinion of you if she's going to take these kinds of risks to spend time with you.

Why not prove you're worthy of such high esteem by finding ways to visit her at Cal rather than making her shoulder the burden?

She has no class Friday so basically 3 day weekends every week and also academic breaks, whereas I only have the standard 2 weeks/yr. I already do plan on visiting at least once per semester. Also she is living in international house for first year and you’re not allowed to have guests >3 nights per sem. 

[Sigaba]

3 hours ago, dc_bro said:

She has no class Friday so basically 3 day weekends every week and also academic breaks, whereas I only have the standard 2 weeks/yr. I already do plan on visiting at least once per semester. Also she is living in international house for first year and you’re not allowed to have guests >3 nights per sem. 

She sure is lucky to have a guy like you, "bro."

[iwearflowers]

I'm starting at UCSF this fall, and I've been warned repeatedly that they are not fucking around about these requirements. Also, to be frank, I think you might be overestimating how much free time she'll really have to come visit you in DC. I relocated to the bay area earlier this summer and have had to fly back to the East Coast for work several times. I lose most of a day just to the flight (~5 hours plus time change and layovers), so on a three day weekend you'd really only have a day together - maybe a day and a half. PhD programs require a lot of effort outside of class. Most of my friends in PhD programs work at least part of the weekend, particularly if they have assistantships or other responsibilities on top of classwork and research.

[ResilientDreams]

Yeah...she's really not going to have time to jet off to see you on a long weekend. I'm currently in undergrad two and a half hours (driving) from where I live and I thought I would be home every other weekend, but I'm lucky if I make it back once a month. And when I do come home I usually have to spend part of the weekend working on something. I can't even imagine what that would be like with a PhD workload.