Best Practices in Graduate Admissions Toolkit
To ensure selection of a diverse cohort of exceptional students, both quantitative and qualitative measures are used to obtain a more complete picture of each applicant’s attributes and potential to thrive in graduate school. Additionally, no single factor leads to either accepting the applicant or excluding them from consideration. Simple reliance on GRE or GPA cutoffs or other quantitative measures of student merit often do not predict success in graduate school, especially for students from historically marginalized communities.
Admissions Cycle Preparation
Prepare for the admissions cycle and increase transparency of the admissions process by setting expectations for faculty, staff, and applicants.
Admissions Committees
Guidance on establishing admissions goals, guiding principles, and criteria for making admission decisions. These resources include a timeline of activities that should be part of effective admissions practices.
Evaluation Rubrics
How to develop a classification system that employs consistent evaluation criteria across committee members and across applications. This section of the toolkit describes best practices and offers examples.
Interviewing
Reasons to include an interview in the admissions review and ways to create an equitable interview processes that is effective for your program.
International Applicants
Information about the unique challenges of admitting international applicants. These considerations often go beyond academic qualifications, including visa requirements, English language proficiency, and more.
Long-term Enrollment Planning
Long-term enrollment planning is essential for maintaining program strength and resilience amid evolving challenges in graduate education.
Additional Information and Resources
Self-disclosed Race by Applicant
Race and ethnicity (descriptive data) will be masked in the application data available to admissions reviewers but applicants may still disclose race or ethnicity in a statement or essay response.
If race is disclosed, it can be considered only for the experience or value related to the individual’s traits (e.g., motivation, perseverance). These characteristics could include: hard work, achievement, intellectual curiosity, potential and determination.
Additional Links and Guides
UW-Madison Graduate School Resources