TU grad school offers multiple options
Liza Mata, Opinion Editor
The graduate school at the University of Tulsa offers a variety of programs and opportunities to prospective students. These options are determined by each academic department and the Graduate School Admissions Office.
Hope Geiger, Senior Graduate School Admissions and Student Services Coordinator, said the office makes presentations and answers questions about any graduate program in or outside of TU.
The office recruits students for all colleges except the business graduate program.
The TU graduate school is considered a separate college and is virtually independent from the academic departments of the Arts and Sciences, Engineering and Natural Sciences and Business colleges.
However, Geiger said applying for graduate school is inherently different from the undergraduate application process.
She said each school typically wanted the same things for undergraduate admission in terms of general requirements, such as ACT or SAT scores, letters of recommendation and essays.
On the other hand, graduate schools have similar basic applications, but their requirements vary in terms of what documents they look at, which scores they require and what percentages of prospective students they accept every year.
Graduate programs are also more demanding in terms of academic performance. Geiger said students within these programs are frequently required to maintain a GPA of at least a 3.0 in order to graduate.
Geiger said that students should attempt to contact the specific department of interest to ask about averages and to guage an idea of the competition.
Most graduate programs, including TU’s, offer students with extenuating circumstances the opportunity to enter the program on a probationary status. That way, the select students have the opportunity to improve within a specific period of time, Geiger said.
Whereas undergraduate programs usually grant aid to students at the time of their acceptance into the school, graduate schools tend to first evaluate students for admission and then award financial aid depending upon the amount they have available.
This year, TU admitted 241 new graduate students, of which 84 had obtained an undergraduate degree at TU.
Students who choose to advance to graduate school within the university’s programs have chosen to do so because they are already familiar with the programs, the campus and the city. If students have a good relationship with the faculty, it increases their chances of getting financial aid.
Students can apply for different types of financial aid, including assistantships, scholarships and fellowships.
In this light, Geiger said, “all of (TU’s) graduate programs have at least two or three assistantships that are funded through a specific academic department. They have tuition waivers attached to them and they also have living stipends.”
This amounts to master-level students currently receiving around $1100 per month while doctoral students receive around $1200 per month for stipend.
Geiger also said that graduate students who get a full assistantship through the university are eligible to get health insurance in addition to their stipend.
Some of the programs also have research assistantships, which means they receive external funding from research grants or different scholarship foundations that are funding similar awards on campus.
Geiger said, “These students get the same award you would working for the department, but would be working for an office on campus.”
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