Students possessing a four-year bachelor's degree earned at a regionally accredited college or university may apply for admission to graduate study. Admission to the graduate school is open to all who qualify with no limitation based on race, religion, color, veteran's status, sex, age, national origin, marital status, physical and mental disability, sexual orientation, creed, status due to receipt of public assistance or any group against which discrimination is prohibited.
Students seeking a graduate degree must submit a completed application in duplicate for a specific graduate degree program. The applicant must make arrangements to have two official transcripts sent directly to the College of Graduate Studies and Research from the institution(s) where the undergraduate or graduate degree was received. Some programs require transcripts from all academic institutions attended. The award of the baccalaureate degree must be listed on the transcript. If a student is seeking admission to the College of Graduate Studies and Research before his/her graduation from an undergraduate institution, an incomplete transcript will be reviewed for provisional admission. It is the student's responsibility to arrange for an official degree verifying transcript to be sent by the degree-granting institution once it is available. Students are not considered to be fully admitted until an official final degree verifying undergraduate transcript is received by the College of Graduate Studies and Research.
All applicants must submit an application fee with the application for graduate study. The fee is waived for applicants currently enrolled in the McNair Scholars Program.
Materials filed with the College of Graduate Studies and Research cannot be returned, borrowed or reproduced. Application materials of applicants who do not enroll in graduate courses are destroyed after two years. If a student starts but does not complete a graduate program, his/her files will be destroyed after six years without course registration.
A four year accumulated minimum GPA of 2.75 on a 4.0 scale is required in all programs unless otherwise specified. Some programs require a higher GPA. Please review the admissions standards of each program for requirements of minimum grade point averages, Graduate Record Examination, Miller's Analogies Test, letters of recommendation or prerequisite requirements. If the program requires standardized test results, official scores must be in the applicant's file before the file will be reviewed for admission.
Once the applicant's file is complete and the applicant meets all the requirements of the College of Graduate Studies and Research, the file is sent to the department for review and admission recommendation. A student is not officially admitted to the College of Graduate Studies and Research until an admission recommendation from the department is reviewed by the Dean of the College of Graduate Studies and Research. A review of an application review may require several weeks.
The reviewing department may require the student to complete certain deficiencies in addition to the normal requirements of the graduate program. Upon receipt of the department's recommendation, the Dean of the College of Graduate Studies and Research will admit the student to the program and the College of Graduate Studies and Research. The College of Graduate Studies and Research officially informs the applicant of his/her admission status.
Applicants with poor academic records or limited probability of succeeding in graduate work may be denied admission to a degree program and permission to take graduate courses. Applicants may also be denied if the department involved and the Dean of the College of Graduate Studies and Research concur that the applicant does not meet the professional standards commonly required for a student earning a graduate degree in that area.
Some graduate programs require the Graduate Record Examination, the Millers Analogies Test, or the GMAT for admission to the program. Students should check the specific admission requirements for individual graduate programs.
To change degree programs, students must complete the admission requirements of the new program including a review and acceptance by that program's admission committee. Students must submit a new application form to the College of Graduate Studies and Research for the change to be effective. No more than 12 graduate credits taken by a degree seeking student can be applied to the new program. Earned graduate credit can only be counted once towards a degree.
Most graduate programs at Minnesota State University, Mankato accommodate the student who, because of employment, family or other obligation, chooses to attain a degree on a part-time basis. Students may choose to not register for classes for several semesters, and resume a part-time or full-time load at a later date. However, the maximum time limit to complete all master's degree and specialist program requirements, including coursework and the capstone project, is six years.
All students born after 1956 are required by law to be immunized for measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus and diphtheria. Students will need to provide proof of these immunizations before they are allowed to register.
