The BA/MA Program (Fifth Year Masters)

Application for the BA/MA program can be made in either the student’s Junior or Senior year. The deadline for submission of completed applications for Juniors will be no later than March 1and for Seniors, the deadline will be December 1.

Applications including a research proposal and copy of the student’s official transcript must be submitted to the Chair of the Department or Program of the student’s BA/MA by the above deadline. The student must also arrange to have three letters of recommendation submitted to the Chair.

Departments must review all proposals and indicate whether or not they support the application by the signature of the Chair on the application. All completed applications that receive departmental support, must then be submitted to the Office of Graduate Student Services by March 21 (for Juniors) or January 10 (for Seniors). Departmental approval is only a preliminary step. It is requisite for acceptance into the BA/MA but does not constitute acceptance. Only the Director of Graduate Studies (currently John Kirn) has the authority to accept students into the Program. Therefore, students must not be informed of acceptance into the Program after only departmental approval.

The Director of Graduate Studies will review all applications and students will be informed by letter of the decision by April 7 (for Juniors) or January 31 (for Seniors).

No more than 8 Juniors will be admitted into the BA/MA Program each year. This limit is to assure that at least 7 slots will be available each year for students who apply as Seniors. Any student not accepted as a Juniors are eligible to reapply as Seniors. Applications submitted later than December 1 of the student’s Senior year can be considered only as long as vacancies exist in the 15 student limit.

This policy continues with the current practice of permitting applications from both Juniors and Seniors, but it institutes firm deadlines and it also limits the numbers of accepted Juniors so that all students applying before December 1 of their Senior year have an opportunity to compete for one of the 15 available slots.

The new policy also incorporates a new step in the process, an initial review of all applications by the student’s department or program. This places the burden on the Departments of making certain applications are completed, and it also makes certain that Departments have reviewed and approved (or disapproved) applications before further review takes place. The procedure gives Departments an opportunity to rank their candidates if they wish in order to be sure that their strongest applicants get most favorable attention.

As mentioned above, the new policy removes the collection of the applications from the Office of Graduate Student Services to the departments. This should help the departments to determine those students that are truly serious about applying to the program.

Applications are still available from the Office of Graduate Student Services. The students will be instructed to send all of their materials to their department and not the Office of Graduate Student Services.

Once the applications are complete, and the department has either accepted or rejected, the original application will then be sent to the Director of Graduate Studies (John Kirn). From there, the Office of Graduate Students will receive a letter of acceptance from the Director of Graduate Studies. A copy of this letter will be sent to the department. Students will then send their formal letter of acceptance to the Office of Graduate Student Services (a copy of this letter will also be sent to the department). The dates for acceptance notification are January 15 for seniors and April 7 for juniors. Departments should make a copy for their files of the student’s application material. All original copies should go the Director of Graduate Studies. In turn, the students file will be sent to the Office of Graduate Student Services to keep on file in the student records.