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 for a specific graduate degree program. 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.
Students wishing to take graduate coursework, but who do not wish to seek a graduate degree or enroll in a graduate certificate program, must complete an application as a non-degree seeking student prior to registration. No more than 12 graduate credits taken by a non-degree seeking student may be applied to a graduate degree program. This option is not typically available to international students.
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.
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. 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 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. The limited number of available spaces for new students within some program will also have an impact in the number of students who can be admitted to a program.
A maximum of 10 semester credits of graduate credit, all of which must be related to the program, and completed with an earned grade of "B" or better, may be transferred from other appropriately accredited colleges or universities into a master's degree program. A maximum of 16 semester credits of graduate credit may be transferred from the other Minnesota state universities and applied to a program at Minnesota State University, Mankato.
To be accepted as transfer credit and applied towards a Minnesota State University graduate degree, the following conditions must be met:
The following will not be accepted as transfer credit:
All work that fulfills the requirements of a master's degree program, including all transferred credit, must be completed within six calendar years. Credit used to complete another graduate degree program can not be transferred into another graduate program at Minnesota State University, Mankato.
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 be counted to only one graduate degree program.
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.
