General Admissions Information
Deadlines
Students may enter the department twice a year, in fall and spring. For enrollment in the fall, the deadline for applying is
All applicants must apply online. Please mail all supporting material by December 15th. Since the Department ranks students for financial aid only once a year (in January), students seeking financial aid must meet the December 15th deadline to be eligible for funding the following academic year. Accepted students must respond in writing by April 15th (fall) or December 15th (spring).
Application Evaluation
The application is judged on the basis of previous academic record, other experiences, letters of recommendation, personal statement (please outline specific reasons for your interest in pursuing graduate study in the Department of Educational Policy Studies), writing sample, and the Graduate Record Exam (GRE) scores (if the student chooses to submit them). Applicants for financial aid must submit GRE scores.
The admissions process in the Department of Educational Policy Studies is the responsibility of the Admissions and Financial Aid Committee. The committee will direct applications from qualified candidates to a faculty member in the department whose interests are similar to the applicant’s. A temporary adviser must be willing to accept temporary responsibility for the student’s graduate program. If no temporary adviser can be found, the candidate cannot be admitted to graduate study. If a faculty member agrees to serve as temporary adviser and the applicant is judged qualified for admission, the student is notified that the department will recommend admission to the Graduate School. Formal notification of admission comes from the Graduate School.
With rare exceptions, all students who do not hold masters degrees are initially admitted to the masters program. At the time of the defense of your masters thesis, a decision is made about your admission to the doctoral program. No further application is required for entrance into the doctoral program, and all masters coursework counts toward the doctoral coursework requirement. Students who already hold masters degrees are also initially admitted to the masters program, except in cases where the candidate has completed a masters thesis or comparable piece of writing.
All applicants must include a substantial sample of academic writing. For applicants who have completed a master's degree, the master's thesis or equivalent paper (e.g. "qualifying paper") must be submitted. For applicants wishing to apply directly to the PhD program, the EPS faculty will consider this work when determining admission at the MA or PhD level. For applicants currently working on a master's thesis or equivalent paper, that material may be submitted for consideration when it is completed. For students holding a B.A., the writing sample might include sections from an undergraduate thesis or seminar paper, or a course paper. Applicants who wish to submit an alternative writing sample (e.g., solely authored published article, solely authored research report or sections of a research report) should check first with the chair of the Admissions and Financial Aid Committee. For students who are admitted, the Admissions and Financial Aid Committee will, in consultation with an applicant’s prospective adviser, recommend admission to either the EPS masters program or the EPS doctoral program. See department website for application requirements: http://www.education.wisc.edu/
