Questions to Ask About Graduate School
Questions to ask about graduate school before you apply and again before you accept, put to the people who run a program, the professor you might work with and the students already in it. They cover cost and funding, how admission is decided, what the degree asks of you, advising, daily life and where graduates end up, each with a note on what the answer tells you.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Big picture
What does the whole degree cost, and how do most students here pay for it?
Why ask it
Ask for tuition, fees and a year of living costs added together, then for the share of students on an assistantship, a scholarship, an employer's money or loans. Research doctorates are often funded and master's degrees often are not, but that varies by field and country, so ask how it works in this program.
How long do most students take to finish, as opposed to the advertised length?
Why ask it
The brochure gives the fastest path. Ask what the last few cohorts actually took, and ask separately for part-time students, because each extra term is another term of tuition or of living on a stipend.
What jobs does this degree lead to that I could not get without it?
Why ask it
Put this to people working in the field as well as to the program, since only one of them is filling places. If the honest answer is that the degree helps but is not required, set its cost against what the same years of work experience would do for you.
Where are the people who finished in the last two years working now?
Why ask it
Job titles and employers for recent graduates say more than a placement percentage, which can count any job at all. If the list is mostly work you could get with the degree you already hold, that is worth knowing before you pay for another.
Is this program built for people heading into research, or into professional practice?
Why ask it
One degree title can mean a thesis and a route to a doctorate in one department and evening classes for working professionals in another. Say which you are after, then ask which most of their recent students were after.
Should I be applying for the master's or the doctorate, and can students move from one to the other?
Why ask it
Some departments admit straight to the doctorate from a bachelor's degree and others expect a master's first, and it differs by field and country. Ask too whether master's coursework would count if you stayed on, so that a cautious start does not mean repeating a year.
What would make you tell an applicant that this is not the right program for them?
Why ask it
A useful reply names a kind of student: someone who wants a topic nobody here supervises, or who needs evening classes the department does not run. If you hear that the program suits everyone, put the same thing to a current student.
Of the students who started together five or six years ago, how many finished?
Why ask it
Counting from the starting cohort keeps the people who left in the figure, which a list of graduates never does. For a one or two year master's, ask about the group that started three years ago instead. If nobody has the number, ask who would.
What support is there for students who decide they do not want an academic job?
Why ask it
The share of graduates who end up in faculty posts differs a great deal by field, so ask what it has been here. Then listen for something concrete: an internship that counts toward the degree, alumni outside universities who come back to talk, an adviser who knows those employers.
What does the career office do for graduate students specifically?
Why ask it
Campus career services are often set up for undergraduates looking for a first job. Ask whether there is an adviser for graduate students, which employers recruit from this program by name, and whether alumni can still use the office after they finish.
Admissions
How many people do you admit each year, and how many of those get a funding offer?
Why ask it
The distance between the two numbers is what to listen for. If a good many are admitted without money, ask whether those students can pick up funding in their second year or stay unfunded for the whole degree.
What are the application deadlines, and is there an earlier one for funding?
Why ask it
Fellowships and assistantships are sometimes decided from the applications that arrive by a priority date well before the final one. Ask too whether files are read as they come in, because under rolling review a late application competes for whatever places are left.
Is the GRE or another test required, and how much does the score count?
Why ask it
Test rules differ between departments, even inside one university, and some have changed recently, so take the answer from the program's own office and not from a general guide. Where scores are optional, ask whether leaving one out is read as neutral.
Who reads applications here, a committee or individual faculty?
Why ask it
Where a committee decides, the whole record has to hang together. Where individual professors pick their own students, an email to the right person before the deadline can matter as much as the file, so find out which it is before you plan the next few months.
If I name a potential advisor in my application, how does that change the way it is read?
Why ask it
In some departments naming someone routes your file to them, in others it narrows you unhelpfully. The answer tells you whether to name one person, several, or none.
When the pool is strong, which part of the application ends up deciding?
Why ask it
Asked what separates two good files, people tend to stop saying that everything counts and name one thing: the statement, a letter from someone who has supervised your work, research or job experience. That is where to spend the weeks you have left.
Which requirements on the admissions page are firm, and which do you bend for a strong applicant?
Why ask it
Published minimums for grades, test scores and prerequisites are hard cutoffs in some places, applied by a central graduate office, and guidance a department can waive in others. Knowing which saves you an application fee, or stops you ruling yourself out over a number nobody enforces.
How many of your current students came straight from an undergraduate degree, and how many worked first?
Why ask it
The split tells you who you would be sitting next to and what the committee reads as readiness. Where most people arrive with a few years of work behind them, time away is something to describe with confidence, not a gap to apologize for.
Is there an interview or a visit day, and who pays for the trip?
Why ask it
Some doctoral programs bring shortlisted or admitted applicants to campus and cover the travel, and many master's programs hold an online session instead. Ask what the day includes, and whether any of it is time with current students and no faculty in the room.
Which other programs should I be looking at for what I want to do?
Why ask it
Faculty usually know who else is strong in your corner of the field, and plenty will say so plainly. Someone who names a rival department and explains why it might suit your topic better is doing you a favor, and showing you how candid they would be as a teacher.
Funding
What exactly does the funding package cover: tuition, fees, health insurance, summers?
Why ask it
A package described as fully funded can still leave student fees, insurance premiums or the summer months for you to pay. Ask for the itemized list and add up what is left over, because the headline stipend tells you none of that.
How many years of funding are guaranteed in writing, and what happens in the year after they end?
Why ask it
Guaranteed means it appears in the offer letter. Anything described as typical or as usually renewed is not a guarantee, so ask what the students now in their final year are living on.
Is the funding attached to teaching, to a specific grant, or to the department?
Why ask it
Money from a professor's grant can stop when the grant does, and teaching posts can depend on how many undergraduates enroll. Ask what the department did for students the last time either fell through, and whether that backstop is written down.
What work comes with an assistantship, and how many hours does it take in the heaviest week of term?
Why ask it
The contract states a number of hours, and grading season produces a different one. Ask a current teaching assistant how many students they are responsible for, and whether preparing a lab or a section happens inside those hours or on top of them.
Can a student live on the stipend here without borrowing, and what does rent near campus run?
Why ask it
Two offers are only comparable after housing comes out, so a smaller stipend in a cheaper town can leave you more each month. Get the rent figure from a current student, who is paying it, and ask whether most people share.
What money exists for conferences, fieldwork, equipment or archives, and how do you get it?
Why ask it
Ask the amount per student per year and whether it is an entitlement or a competition. If your project needs travel or materials and there is no budget for them, the cost falls on you, usually in the middle years when the research is under way.
What scholarships or assistantships are open to master's students, and how many of them hold one?
Why ask it
Departments often keep their funding for doctoral students and leave master's students to find their own. The count of people in the current cohort with any support is more honest than a list of awards you could in theory apply for.
Does tuition stay the same once I start, or can it rise each year?
Why ask it
A two-year degree priced at this year's rate can cost noticeably more by its final term. Ask whether your cohort's rate is fixed, and whether you would pay full tuition while finishing a thesis or only a smaller continuation fee.
Am I allowed to hold a job outside the program, and do students manage to?
Why ask it
Some funded offers forbid outside work, some visas cap it, and some professional programs are timetabled around a full-time job. Get the rule from the office, then ask a student whether anyone keeps a job going past the first term.
Is there a graduate student union, and what does the contract cover?
Why ask it
Where students are unionized, the contract usually sets out pay floors, workload limits and a grievance route, and it is often posted where an applicant can read it. Where they are not, ask who a teaching assistant goes to about a late paycheck or a section that has doubled in size.
Program
What does the first year look like, term by term?
Why ask it
In some programs the first year is all coursework, and in others you are in a lab or drafting a proposal by the second term. If the reply is that it depends on your advisor, ask two students who have different advisors.
Is there a thesis, a capstone project or a final exam, and can I choose between them?
Why ask it
A thesis is the usual choice for someone who may go on to a doctorate, and it tends to take longer. A project or an exam is quicker, so ask which one most students pick, what employers in your field make of each, and whether you can switch partway.
Are the required courses offered every year, and does anyone get held up waiting for one?
Why ask it
Small departments run some courses every second year, or only when a particular professor is around. One missed prerequisite can add a term, so ask to see the actual schedule for the last two years as well as the catalog.
How big are the classes, and are they taught by the faculty listed on the website?
Why ask it
A seminar of ten and a lecture of ninety are different educations at the same tuition. Well-known names may be on leave or teaching only doctoral students, so ask who taught the core courses last year.
Can the program be done part time, in the evenings or online, and is it the same degree?
Why ask it
Check whether the same faculty teach it, whether the transcript marks the format, and whether part-time students can get funding or a place on a research project. Flexible versions are sometimes run as a separate operation with a separate price.
Can master's students join a research group, or is that kept for doctoral students?
Why ask it
If a doctorate might come later, a research project and a letter from whoever supervised it are what the next application will lean on. Ask how many master's students worked on faculty research last year, and whether they were paid.
Does the degree include a practicum, internship or clinical placement, and who arranges it?
Why ask it
In professional fields the placement is often where the first job comes from. A program that finds and vets the sites is offering something different from one that hands over a list, and unpaid placement hours decide whether you can keep working.
Is the program accredited by the body my profession requires, and will it count toward a license where I plan to work?
Why ask it
In licensed fields such as counseling, teaching, nursing and social work, a degree without the right accreditation can fall short of what a licensing board asks for. The rules differ by state and country, so confirm the answer with the board itself as well as the school.
What are the milestones between admission and candidacy, and when do they fall?
Why ask it
Get them as a list with the term each one is due: coursework finished, qualifying exam passed, proposal defended. Then ask which one students most often reach late, since that is where the extra years tend to come from.
What happens to a student who fails a qualifying exam?
Why ask it
A second attempt, a move to the master's and leaving the program are very different consequences, and departments differ on which applies. Ask how many people have failed in the last few years and what became of them.
How is student progress reviewed each year, and who sees the review?
Why ask it
A written review read by a committee gives a student a second opinion beyond their own advisor's. Ask a current student whether last year's review told them anything they could act on, or was a form signed in five minutes.
Can a doctoral student leave with a master's degree, and has anyone done so recently?
Why ask it
You are asking whether there is a respectable way out if the doctorate turns out not to be for you. In some departments leaving with a master's is routine, and in others there is no mechanism at all, which is better learned before you enroll than in your third year.
Advisors
How are new students matched with advisors, and at what point does that happen?
Why ask it
With rotations or a first year of coursework, you choose after seeing how several people work. Where you are admitted into one professor's group, your application makes the choice, so the homework on that person has to be done now.
Are you taking on a new student for next year, and is there funding for one?
Why ask it
Send this before you build an application around one person. A professor who is about to go on sabbatical, short of grant money or close to retiring can be delighted by your interests and still unable to take you.
How many students are you supervising at the moment?
Why ask it
Follow the number by asking who a new student works beside from day to day. In a large group that may be a postdoc or a senior student, which suits some people well, so ask one of them how often they see the professor alone.
How often would we meet, and what would you expect me to bring?
Why ask it
A weekly one-to-one, a fortnightly group meeting and an open door are three different amounts of attention. Compare the reply with what their students tell you, because advisors tend to describe the schedule they mean to keep.
Do your students choose their own thesis topic, or take on a piece of your project?
Why ask it
In grant-funded labs the topic often arrives with the money, which means a running start and less ownership. In fields where the dissertation is a solo project, you may be looking for your own question from the first day. Find out which you would be signing up for.
When you and a student disagree about the direction of their work, how does that usually get settled?
Why ask it
Ask for an example, not a principle. In the story they tell, notice whether the student's idea ever wins, and whether the advisor sounds pleased or irritated that it did.
How do you decide who is named as an author on a paper, and in what order?
Why ask it
Publications are much of what you leave with, and the customs differ between fields and between labs on the same corridor. An advisor who can state the rule has thought about fairness. If the reply is that it sorts itself out, ask a student how the last paper was settled.
What happens to a student whose advisor leaves, retires or runs out of funding?
Why ask it
Ask for the mechanism and then for the last time it happened. Whether that student was found a new supervisor and kept their funding tells you more than the written policy on changing advisors.
How does the department handle a conflict between a student and a faculty member?
Why ask it
Find out who a student goes to first, whether that person is independent of the supervisor, and whether anyone has changed supervisors as a result. A department with a named ombudsperson or graduate director can explain the route in a minute. A long pause suggests there may not be one.
Could I speak with a student who works with you, and one who used to?
Why ask it
The second half is the part that matters. A former student has nothing riding on the answer, and an advisor who offers a name without hesitating, including someone who left, is telling you something good.
Student life
What does a normal week look like for a student in this program?
Why ask it
Requirements on a web page say nothing about the shape of the days. Ask about last week in particular: hours teaching, hours in class or the lab, reading, and what was left over. Then set it honestly beside the week you have now.
What do you wish you had known before your first term here?
Why ask it
Save it for a current student with no faculty in the room. The first answer is usually polite, so leave a pause for the second, which tends to be about money, isolation or how long things really take.
If you were choosing again, would you pick this program?
Why ask it
People who would choose it again say so at once and tell you why. A long pause, or praise for the city and nothing about the department, is your answer, and there is no need to push for more.
What would you change about this program if you could?
Why ask it
Easier for a student to answer than a request for complaints, and usually just as informative. When three people separately name the same thing, whether the stipend, a required course or an office that never replies, take it as settled.
Do students here help each other, or compete with each other?
Why ask it
Where funding or advisor places are handed out by ranking, classmates can become rivals whether they like it or not. Ask how the first-years prepared for their last big exam: together in one room, or each alone.
Do people take weekends and holidays off, and does anyone mind when they do?
Why ask it
Expected hours are rarely written down, so students learn them by watching who gets praised. If the people you meet joke about never leaving the building, believe the joke.
What is the policy on leaves of absence and parental leave for graduate students?
Why ask it
Ask to see it in writing, and ask whether the stipend, the health cover and the funding clock keep running or pause during a leave. Entitlements differ by country and by whether students count as employees, so check how it works at this university.
What do students do when the work gets on top of them, and does the health plan cover counseling?
Why ask it
Graduate study is long and often solitary, and plenty of people hit a bad stretch somewhere in it. Ask how many sessions the plan allows, how long the wait is, and whether students feel able to tell an advisor they need a couple of weeks.
How do students with a partner or children make it work here?
Why ask it
Ask about childcare on campus, family housing, health cover for dependents and whether seminars run into the evening. Ten minutes with one student parent in the department will tell you more than the policy page.
What does the international office do for graduate students once the visa paperwork is done?
Why ask it
Rules on working, traveling and staying on after the degree depend on the country and change often, so ask the office how they apply to this program in particular. Then ask an international student what the office was slow on.
Asking Programs, Advisors and Current Students
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Who to ask
The program office or director
Cost, deadlines, requirements, course schedules, completion and placement figures. These are matters of fact and an email is fine. Ask for numbers by cohort, and for anything about money in writing.
A professor you might work with
Whether they are taking students, how they supervise, and what became of the people they trained. Keep the first email to a few lines and hold the harder questions for a call or a visit.
Current students
Workload, atmosphere, how far the stipend stretches, and whether they would choose the place again. Ask away from faculty, and ask more than one person, since a single unhappy or delighted student is not a department.
People doing the job you want
Whether the degree is needed at all. Someone five years into the career you are aiming at can say what the credential changed for them, and nobody is paying them to recruit you.
When to ask what
Before you apply
The Big picture questions and the admissions mechanics: what it costs, how long it takes, deadlines and tests, who reads files, whether to name an advisor, whether anyone is taking students next year. A short email to the program office or the director of graduate studies answers most of it, and asking early costs you nothing.
At an interview or visit
Advising, milestones, daily life and what happens when something goes wrong. These need a real conversation, because you are reading hesitation as much as content. Bring five or six questions for each person and let the answers open the rest.
After an offer, before you accept
A program that has made you an offer wants you to say yes, so this is when it is most willing to answer. Ask for the funding terms in writing, ask about leave policy and completion rates, and ask to be put in touch with a former student. If a request is brushed aside now, do not count on it being met once you have enrolled.
Reading a funding offer
- Number of guaranteed years, stated as years and not as ongoing support subject to satisfactory progress.
- Whether fees, health insurance and dental are inside or outside the stipend figure.
- Whether summer months are paid, and from what source.
- What work is required in exchange, in hours or in courses taught per term.
- What happens in the year after guaranteed funding ends, when many doctoral students are still writing.
- Who to contact if a payment is late or an amount looks wrong.
- The date you must reply by, and whether you can ask for more time while you wait to hear from another program.
Judging a prospective advisor
Look at their students, not their CV
A publication record tells you whether they can do research. Their students' records tell you whether they can train people. Find three former students and see where they are.
Ask about the last person who left their group early
Most people who have supervised for a while have one. Whether they describe it with sympathy, blame or some reflection tells you how they might one day describe you.
Check whether they will still be there
A sabbatical, a retirement or a move can leave a student without a supervisor partway through. Ask directly about the next few years, and ask who would supervise you if they left.