Suggestions for applying to UNR Geography MS & PhD programs -- A Graduate Director's perspective
Since 2018, I have been serving as Graduate Director for the Geography Department. The Graduate Director is a rotating service role in the department and involves recruitment, program planning, managing teaching assistantships, advocating on behalf of graduate students, problem-solving, and perhaps most of all, signing memos and forms! We are in the process of updating our information for applications. Since taking on this role, I've noticed that there can be a division between prospective students who know the "unwritten" rules of the graduate application process and those who don't. For example, we still get applications "out of the blue" by students who have not contacted any of our faculty ahead of time. Unfortunately, such applications are rarely accepted. Like many programs in geography and related fields, our program requires students to establish contact with potential advisors ahead of time in order to apply successfully. This is for at least two reasons: 1) we do really diverse types of research across physical, bio-, human, and geotechnical aspects of geography so applicants can't always be easily "ranked"
and swapped across faculty and 2) the research-oriented focus of our programs centers on a strong advisee-advisor mentorship and collaboration.
So, please check out the draft application suggestions and let me know if anything is unclear or could be improved. We hope to get something like this on the website soon, but with application season fast approaching, I thought it was worth putting this out here in the interim.
The application process for the M.S. and Ph.D. programs begins with identifying a prospective faculty graduate advisor who would act as a mentor and collaborator in research and learning during graduate studies. Advisor-advisee matches are based on several factors. First, you probably want an advisor who does work you admire and that is related to your interests and objectives. A great starting point for this is to look at our faculty and their web pages. Second, the vast majority of our graduate students are funded by a combination of teaching and research assistantships. Advisors sometimes know whether they will be able to offer these in anticipation of the application cycle. There are additional factors that may determine whether an advisor is able to accept a student, such as number of students currently supervised, travel and administrative duties, and other prospective student applications.
After researching faculty, we suggest you prepare an e-mail introduction. There are many resources on how to be effective at this that can be found by entering “how to approach faculty graduate school” in a search engine. Here’s one good one.
Once you have identified a faculty member with the possibility to serve as advisor, you may proceed to the UNR graduate application system. There, you will provide the following:
A graduate admission application form, including fees
Official college transcripts
A 1-2 pp statement of purpose and goals, including indication of prospective advisor(s)
Three letters of recommendation
GRE scores are not required (but can be submitted if desired).
Applications received in full by Feb. 1 will receive priority consideration for the fall semester. Note that the graduate school allows unofficial transcripts and scores for consideration by the deadline, but will require official versions for final acceptance.
More information on the application process (including for international students) can be found here.
A master's degree is required for admission into the geography Ph.D. program. A maximum of 24 credits of coursework from a master's degree program or previous post-baccalaureate graduate studies program (with grades of B or better) may be allocated toward the doctoral degree. These credits are subject to the approval of the advisory committee and the Graduate Dean.
