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The Admissions Process
No uniform procedure exists for graduate admissions in the
United States. The graduate admissions office almost always
shares the responsibility for admissions with the academic
departments, and most commonly there is a graduate admissions
committee for each department made up of faculty members and
graduate admissions office staff. However, the roles and the
relative authority of the graduate admissions office and the
academic departments, as well as the relationship between
them, vary markedly from institution to institution. To make
your admissions experience more positive, it is a good idea
from the beginning of the process to network with both the
graduate admissions office and your specific department of
interest. Develop a clear understanding of the institution's
general admission requirements and the department's academic
and research objectives to see if they match your personal
and professional goals.
In addition to the match between the strength of your application
and the admissions standard of a school or department, two
other factors may influence your chances of admission. First,
graduate student research may be highly specialized and dependent
on the availability of a faculty member who shares a student's
interest, and on resources available in the department. A
department may suggest that you be admitted because your research
interests match well with those of a particular faculty member,
or may advise against admission because faculty members and
resources for your research are lacking. Secondly, since faculty
members review applications to decide who should receive any
available research or teaching assistantships, departments
often look for applicants who can teach or do research in
particular areas.
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