Office of International Education

UC Santa Cruz

Getting Settled

Welcome to the University of California at Santa Cruz. We are happy you are here and look forward to helping make your educational program run smoothly.

Obtaining a Social Security Card

Only students who have an Employment offer can apply for a Social Security Number.

A social security number is used by US employers to identify their employees to the government for tax purposes.

All student employees of UCSC must obtain a Social Security Number (SSN)) BEFORE reporting to the UCSC Career Center for Payroll processing.

A printable version of these instructions are available in the Student File and Document Library

  1. Must be enrolled full time at UCSC (8 units for Graduate students and 12 units for undergraduate students).
  2. New students must attend the international student orientation and submit copies of F-1 or J-1 documents to verify legal status (I-20/DS-2019, passport, visa, I-94)
  3. Must update residential address using the student portal. Go To http://my.ucsc.edu The address can not be a P.O. Box and it can not be the department address.
  4. Must be registered in the SEVIS database. The ISSS office will register students’ SEVIS record after ISSS verifies full time enrollment, submission of visa documents and residential address.
  5. Obtain an Employment Offer Letter and submit offer letter to ISSS.  The letter must specify that the student has been offered a job and dates of his/her employment. Submit this letter to International Adviser at the ISSS office.
  6. Upon receipt of the employment offer letter, ISSS will issue student an additional letter. certifying his/her legal status in the U.S. Students can only obtain the letter after the first 4 steps have been completed, and if the employment start date is within 30 days or less.
  7. Student must bring the following ORIGINAL documents to the Social Security Office.
    • OriginalI-20/DS-2019
    • Passport with I-94 and Visa
    • Employment Letter from employer
    • Original Social Security Letter from ISSS
    8. Locations of Social Security Administration Office:
    Santa Cruz: 169 Walnut Avenue, Santa Cruz (Telephone 426-8111)
    Watsonville: 315 Main St. Suite A, Watsonville (Telephone 722-7141)
  8. In two days, the student should call the social security office to request their new social security number. The card will be sent to the student in ten days.  However, only the social security number is required to complete the hiring process at UCSC.
  9. Once you have a social security number, bring the following documents to the Career Center to complete payroll signup forms and receive a blue card:
    • Original I-20
    • Original passport with I-94 and Visa
  10. Career Center will enter you in the GLACIER on-line tax system and give you a user name and password. Log in, complete the required information, print and sign the resulting forms and give to the Career Center payroll representative. This completes the payroll sign-up process.