Minimum General School of Graduate Studies Admission Requirements

  1. A four-year bachelor’s degree or equivalent from a regionally accredited college or university (for U.S. degrees, accreditation by HLC, MSCHE, NECHE, NWCCU, SACSCOC, or WSCUC).  Exceptions to this policy must be approved by the Dean of the School of Graduate Studies.
    For combined degree programs, refer to the admission requirements under each department.
  2. A cumulative Grade Point Average (GPA) of at least 2.75 for all undergraduate work (2.5 for M.Engr.) or a GPA of at least 3.00 for the junior and senior years of undergraduate work (based on A = 4.00). 
  3. ADMISSIONS TESTS. All graduate admissions tests (GMAT, GRE, TOEFL, etc.) must be sent directly by the Testing Service. The institution code for the University of North Dakota is 6878 for the GRE, TOEFL, and GMAT. The institution code for the MAT is 1380. Photocopies of test scores are not accepted. Not all graduate programs require testing for admission. Please consult the School of Graduate Studies website (http://graduateschool.und.edu) for current information on admission tests.
  4. All graduate applicants must demonstrate academic-level proficiency with the English language before they will be considered for approved status admission. This requirement must be met by all applicants, regardless of citizenship, residency, or nation of birth. No applicants will be considered for approved admission status until the English Language Proficiency Requirement has been met. The English Proficiency Requirement will not be waived for any reason. This requirement may be satisfied in any of the following ways:
    1. A bachelor’s degree or higher from a recognized institution where English is the primary language of instruction in the United States and US Territories, Australia, Canada  (except Quebec), England, Ireland, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Scotland, Wales, Commonwealth Caribbean, and New Zealand;
    2. An overall band score of at least 6.0 on the IELTS;
    3. An overall score of at least 76 on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) internet-based test (iBT);
    4. An overall score of at least 110 on the Duolingo English Test; or  
    5. Successful completion of English Language Service (ELS) Language Center’s Intensive Level 112.

The programs below require additional and/or higher scores on the TOEFL test to be considered for admission.
 

Program iBT Listening Writing Reading Speaking
Accountancy 79
Applied Economics 79
Atmospheric Sciences 76 19 17 19 19
Business Administration 79
College Teaching 76 19 17 19 21
Communication 76 19 17 19 21
Earth System Science and Policy 76 19 18 19 20
Educational Foundations and Research 76 23 22
Educational Studies 76 23 22
Elementary Education 76 19 17 19 21
English Language Learner 76 18
Nursing (degrees and certificates) 76 26 26
Physical Therapy 89 18 24 21 26
Physician Assistant Studies 93
Public Administration (degrees and certificates) 79
Teaching and Learning 76 19 17 19 21

Graduate Teaching Assistants must be proficient English language communicators. Language proficiency will be established on the basis of the Internet Based TOEFL (iBT) by earning a score of at least 26 on the spoken section, or on the basis of the IELTS test by scoring an overall band score of 6.5. The applicant must meet all other admission requirements. Contact the School of Graduate Studies for more information. 

Application Policies

Applications are considered only for the program, degree, and admit term indicated on the application. A person must submit separate applications for each program, degree, and admit term he or she wishes to be considered for admission. An applicant may change the program, degree, and/or admit term of a submitted application one time, but not after an admission decision has been published regarding the application.

Applications for which the University Admissions Office has not received all of the required application materials and have a status of incomplete at the fourth week census of the semester indicated on the application are administratively denied.

Some programs have additional admission requirements or require supplemental information at the time of application. Please consult the individual program listings in this catalog, contact the University Admissions Office for more information.

Students who meet all of the stated admission requirements are eligible for consideration for Approved Status admission, but are not guaranteed admission. The entering classes will be chosen from all qualified applicants on the basis of the quality of the applicants' previous work, the adequacy of their preparation for graduate study at UND, and enrollment capacity among other qualifications set by the program. The University Admissions Office and the School of Graduate Studies reserves the right to refuse admission to any applicant on the basis of scholastic or other reasons. Applicants who do not meet all of the requirements for Approved admission may be considered for Provisional admission status.

Application Materials

Transcripts, references, and/or any other materials sent prior to submission of an application will be kept active for six months. Applicants should send all application materials directly to the University Admissions Office, not to the program to which they are applying.

It is the applicant's responsibility to ensure that the University Admissions Office has received all application materials; therefore, the applicant should be checking their email and periodically checking on the status of the application by the applicant is advisable. Once an application is complete, it will be forwarded to the program for evaluation. Each graduate program makes its own admission recommendation, but the decision is not final until it has been reviewed and approved by the University Admissions Office.

The University Admissions Office will use transcripts which were received officially so long as the transcripts have been retained according to UND's Records Retention Policy. Because written statements (statement, goals, essays, etc.) and letters of recommendation are written to a specific program, an applicant must provide new written statements and letters of recommendations for each application. Because test scores have expiration dates, a test score must be considered current by the testing agency in order to be used for an application.