Questions to Ask Grad School Programs
Questions to ask a grad school before you apply, on a visit, or with an offer in hand, for master's and doctoral applicants alike. The first group is what to get from every program on your list. After it come admissions and the questions to ask when visiting a graduate school, then funding, advising, how the program runs and where it leads, and what to put to current students with no faculty in the room.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Essentials
What exactly does the funding package cover, and which fees would I still owe?
Why ask it
Stipends are often quoted separately from fees, and mandatory charges for health, technology, activities and registration can take a noticeable share of a monthly payment. Ask for the annual fee total as a figure, not a description of coverage. For a master's with no package, the same question becomes what the tuition price leaves out.
What is the median time to degree for students who finished in the last three years?
Why ask it
The length printed on the website is a target, and what you want is how long recent graduates took. If the median runs past the funded years, the difference is time you would pay for yourself. A program that can only offer a range may not be counting, which is worth knowing too.
Where are your last three cohorts of graduates working now?
Why ask it
Ask for employers and job titles, not categories. A program-wide placement rate blends groups with very different records, and a recent list of real jobs is much harder to dress up. Follow with how many of those jobs needed this degree.
How are advisors matched with students, and how often does someone switch?
Why ask it
Rotations, a first-year search and admission straight into one lab each carry a different risk. A program that reports almost no switching is either unusually well matched or quietly discouraging it, so ask what the last person who switched had to do.
Of the students who started six years ago, how many have graduated, and what happened to the others?
Why ask it
This is the attrition question in a form that is hard to soften, because it asks about one class you can both picture. For a two-year master's, ask about the class that started three years ago. Notice whether every departure is described as the student's own choice.
What has changed in this program in the last two years?
Why ask it
The answer brings out faculty departures, funding cuts, a rewritten curriculum or a new director, none of which a website announces. A program partway through a reorganization is not quite the one in the brochure, so ask what is still being decided.
What does this program do that the others on my list do not?
Why ask it
Name the programs you are weighing it against, because a comparison gets a sharper answer than an open invitation to boast. A reply about a particular method, archive, clinic or employer link is something you can check. A reply about community and rigor describes every program you applied to.
Who is this program a poor fit for?
Why ask it
Faculty usually know who has been unhappy here: people who wanted more structure, people set on industry in a department built around academic careers, people whose interests fell between two groups. If the description sounds like you, ask how the last such student got on. Being told it suits everyone means nobody has thought about it.
Admissions and visits
What does the admissions committee weigh most: grades, research or work experience, letters, or the statement?
Why ask it
The weighting differs by field and by degree. A research doctorate may care most about evidence that you can do research, while a professional master's may look harder at your work history. Find out before you spend a month polishing the part they skim.
Is the GRE or another test required, and how are scores used when they are optional?
Why ask it
Test policies have shifted a good deal and can differ between departments of one university, so check for the exact program and year. Where scores are optional, ask whether leaving them out affects fellowship decisions, which are sometimes made by a different office from admissions.
Does it help to contact a professor before applying, or does a committee make the decision?
Why ask it
Where students are admitted straight into one person's group, a short, specific email can matter a great deal. Where a committee admits a whole class, the same email may change nothing. Knowing which system you are in tells you where to put your effort.
Do most students arrive straight from undergrad, or after a few years of work?
Why ask it
The mix shapes the room. A class of people with jobs behind them tends to want evening schedules and practical examples, and one straight from college may move faster through theory. It also hints at how a gap in your own record, or the lack of one, will be read.
Is there a visit day or open house, and can I sit in on a class before deciding?
Why ask it
An hour in a real seminar shows you who talks, how the professor handles a weak answer and whether you could follow the material. Ask whether travel is paid for admitted students, and whether a video call with a current student is offered to people who cannot come.
Could I see the visit schedule ahead of time, and is there room in it for meetings I ask for myself?
Why ask it
The printed day is built around what the department wants to show you. Asking a week ahead for half an hour with one named professor and one of that professor's students is an ordinary request. How quickly it is arranged says something about how the office treats the students it already has.
Is this a visit for people already admitted, or is part of the day still an interview?
Why ask it
Some departments bring applicants in before decisions are made and others only afterward, and the invitation does not always say which. If you are still being assessed, ask everything you would otherwise ask, but keep the questions about improving the package until an offer exists.
Can I see the desk, bench or shop a first-year student works at now, not only the buildings on the tour?
Why ask it
Tours favor the newest atrium. The place you would spend your days may be a basement lab or a shared room across campus, and it takes ten minutes to walk there and look. Go at an ordinary working hour and notice whether anyone is in it.
Could I sit in on a group meeting or a research seminar while I am here?
Why ask it
A class shows you the teaching, and a group meeting shows you how work gets criticized. Watch who presents, who asks the questions, and whether the newest students speak at all. If meetings are closed to visitors, ask a student to describe the last one.
Is there time during the visit to see where students live, not just the campus?
Why ask it
You would be living in this town for years, and the campus is the part of it that needs the least checking. Ask a student to mark two neighborhoods on a map, then go and look at one: the rental listings, the grocery store, the bus stop at the hour you would use it.
Who can I write to after the visit with the questions I think of on the way home?
Why ask it
The sharpest questions tend to turn up a day or two later, once you have set this program beside another. Leave with the name of one staff member and one student who have agreed to hear from you. How fast they reply before the decision date is a small preview of the place.
What help do international students get with visas, work limits and funding rules?
Why ask it
Rules on work hours, internships and which fellowships a visa holder may take differ by country and change over time, so put this to the university's international office as well as the department. Ask how the stipend is taxed for someone in your position.
How long do I have to decide, and can that be extended while I wait on another program?
Why ask it
Some programs share a common reply date and others set their own, and professional degrees often want a deposit much sooner, so ask what applies to this offer. If you need more time, name the date you are asking for and the reason. Pressure to answer early is worth remembering when you compare.
Could I defer for a year, and would the funding offer still stand?
Why ask it
Policies run from an automatic yes to reapplying from scratch, and a place is sometimes held while the money is not. Get the answer in writing before you turn down anything else on the strength of it.
Funding
For how many years is the funding promised in writing, and what could end it early?
Why ask it
The offer letter is where this lives, so ask to be shown the number of years and the conditions in it. Common conditions are good standing, passing exams by a set date and a satisfactory teaching review. Support that depends on a renewal each year is a different thing from support committed up front, even when it has always been renewed.
How do current students afford rent here on this stipend?
Why ask it
It asks what people do, not whether the figure is adequate, so nobody has to defend it. Answers about roommates well into their thirties, long commutes or second jobs tell you what the stipend is worth in that city.
How many hours a week of teaching or lab work does the funding require?
Why ask it
The appointment on paper and the hours people put in can differ, especially for teaching assistants who run their own sections. Put the same question to a current student and compare the two numbers, because the difference comes out of your own research time.
What training do first-time teaching assistants get before they stand in front of a class?
Why ask it
Teaching may fill half your working week for years, and it is the main thing on your record if you later apply to teaching-focused jobs. A term of supervised practice with feedback is training. A single afternoon of orientation is a formality.
Is the stipend paid over nine months or twelve, and what do students live on in the summer?
Why ask it
Divide the annual figure by the months it is paid over before you compare offers, since two stipends that look alike can differ by a quarter of a year. If summer money has to be applied for, ask how many of the current first years got it.
If I am still writing when the funded years end, what do students in that position live on?
Why ask it
Set the answer beside the median time to degree. Where the funding is shorter than the median, the last year is paid for by extra teaching, a completion fellowship, savings or a loan, and somebody in the department knows the usual mix. Ask whether tuition is still charged in that year.
Does the stipend go up each year, and when was it last raised?
Why ask it
A stipend that has sat still while local rents climbed is worth less every year you are enrolled. The date of the last increase, and whether it reached current students or only new ones, shows how the department treats the people already there.
When does the first payment arrive, and what will I have to pay before then?
Why ask it
Moving, a housing deposit and the first term's fees often fall due weeks before any stipend is paid. Ask whether there is a relocation payment or an advance, and whether fees can come out of your pay instead of being billed up front.
What does the department pay for beyond the stipend: conference travel, software, moving costs?
Why ask it
Each of these is small, and together they decide whether you can present your work anywhere. Ask what one student received last year and how long the reimbursement took, since paying for a flight yourself and waiting three months to get it back is a cost of its own.
What health insurance do students get, and what is the policy on parental or medical leave?
Why ask it
Over a degree that runs for years, illness, caregiving and births are ordinary events. Ask whether leave pauses the funding clock and the degree clock, because a policy that pauses one and not the other leaves you racing the second.
Are graduate assistants here covered by a union contract, and what does it set?
Why ask it
Whether graduate students count as employees, and whether they can bargain, depends on the country, the state and the type of university, so ask how it works there. Where a contract exists it is usually public, and it is worth reading for the pay scale, the cap on hours and the grievance steps.
What does the whole master's cost with fees and living expenses, and how many students get an assistantship or scholarship?
Why ask it
Much of this list assumes a funded doctorate, and a master's you pay for is a different purchase. Ask for one figure for the whole degree, not a price per credit, and whether assistantships go to master's students at all or are held for doctoral ones.
If another program has offered more, is there room to revisit this package?
Why ask it
Asked once, politely, and with the other letter in hand, this is an ordinary request. Departments that cannot move the stipend can sometimes find a summer award, lighter teaching in the first year or money for the move. A request that is turned down leaves you where you started.
Advising
What happens to my funding if I change advisors?
Why ask it
Few applicants think to ask this before they accept. Where support is tied to one person's grant, leaving a bad match can mean losing your income, which is one reason students stay in groups they should leave. A commitment that comes from the department and not the lab removes that trap.
Which of the faculty I named in my application have room and funding for a new student next year?
Why ask it
A department can admit you while the two people you came for are full, on leave or between grants. Ask about each by name, and ask who else works near your interests if neither is available.
How many students has the advisor I would work with graduated, and how long did each one take?
Why ask it
The department average blends quick groups with slow ones, so the record that counts is this person's. A new professor with no graduates yet is not a bad sign, but ask whether their own post is permanent yet and who else would sit close to your work.
If my advisor moves to another university or leaves, what happens to their students?
Why ask it
Faculty move, retire and lose grants during a degree that lasts years. The usual choices are to follow, to finish from a distance or to start again with someone new. Ask whether the department has been through it recently and where those students are now.
Would I be handed a project or expected to find my own, and by when?
Why ask it
Neither is better. A defined piece of a funded grant gets you moving quickly and limits how far you can wander, while an open brief gives you ownership and a slower, lonelier start. Work out which you would do well under before you hear the answer.
How much of the work in this group is building and testing hardware, and how much is modeling at a desk?
Why ask it
Two students in one engineering department can spend their years very differently, one at a test rig and the other in code. Ask a current member how last month divided for them. Then ask which of those skills the employers who hire from the group come looking for.
Besides my advisor, who reads my work, and when do they get involved?
Why ask it
A committee that first engages at the defense is no protection against an advisor who is absent or unreasonable. Where committees meet every year, a stalled project has more than one witness, so ask when the first meeting would be and who calls it.
Can students work with faculty outside this department, and has anyone recently had an outside committee member?
Why ask it
If your question sits between two fields, the person best placed to supervise part of it may be in another building. A recent example, with the name of the other department, shows the route exists and gives you someone to ask how hard the paperwork was.
How does the department handle a serious conflict between a student and an advisor?
Why ask it
You want to hear about a named person, an ombuds office, or a director of graduate studies with real authority. If the answer is that people work it out informally, the student's only real option may be to leave.
Is there a publication requirement to graduate, written or unwritten?
Why ask it
A handbook can be silent while individual advisors expect several papers before they will sign off. Ask a senior student what the last few people to defend had in print, because that is the working rule.
Is this group's research paid for by a company or a public grant, and who owns what I invent?
Why ask it
Sponsored projects are common in engineering, and a sponsor may have a say in when results are published or who holds a patent. The terms depend on the university, the country and the contract, so ask how it works there and where the policy is written down. It is fair to ask whether a thesis has ever been held back for a sponsor.
Program and careers
How much of my first year is fixed in advance, and how much would I plan myself?
Why ask it
A year of required courses, rotations and a teaching assignment is a very different start from being shown a desk and told to find a question. Ask to see the timetable of someone who is in their first year now.
Are the core classes taught by the professors listed on the website, and how big are they?
Why ask it
The names that drew you to a program are sometimes on leave, running a center or teaching only doctoral seminars. Ask who taught the required courses this year and how many students sat in each, since a seminar of twelve and a lecture of ninety are different things to pay for.
How often is each required course offered, and what happens if I miss one?
Why ask it
A requirement taught every other year can add two semesters to a degree on its own. Ask which courses have clashed or been canceled recently, and whether substitutions are approved in practice or only in the rules.
What is the qualifying exam, and what happens to someone who fails it?
Why ask it
Policies run from a second attempt, to leaving with a master's degree, to dismissal, and that is the risk you carry into your second year. Ask how many students failed it in the last five years, not just what the rule says.
Is there a written handbook with milestones and deadlines, and may I read it before I decide?
Why ask it
The handbook holds the rules you will be held to, and reading it answers a dozen questions at once: annual reviews, leave, time limits, what happens after funding ends. Reluctance to share it is itself an answer.
How many students start each year, and do they share offices or lab space?
Why ask it
With three in a class you lean almost entirely on your advisor. With thirty you have a peer group and more people after the same attention. Shared space is the practical half: people who sit near each other tend to trade drafts, code and warnings in a way a weekly seminar does not allow.
Does the master's end in a thesis, a project or an exam, and which do most students choose?
Why ask it
A thesis needs a supervisor and usually more time, and it matters most if a doctorate might follow. If nearly everyone takes the exam route, check that a thesis is supported in practice and not only listed as an option.
For an engineering master's, is this the research degree or the course-based one, and can students move between them?
Why ask it
Many engineering schools run both under names that look alike, and the two can differ in length, in price and in whether assistantships are open to you. Titles and rules vary from one university to the next. If a doctorate might follow, ask which of the two this department's own doctoral admissions would rather see.
If I left the doctoral program early, could I leave with a master's degree?
Why ask it
Asking is not a sign that you plan to quit. It tells you whether two or three years of work would count for something if your funding, health or interests changed, and at which milestone the degree is awarded.
Can this program be done part time or alongside a job, and how many current students do it that way?
Why ask it
Permission on paper means little if every required class meets on weekday mornings. The headcount is the test: a program with a real part-time group schedules for them, and one with two such students leaves them to work around everyone else.
If the degree includes a practicum or clinical placement, does the program find the site or do I?
Why ask it
In counseling, social work, teaching, nursing and similar degrees, the placement is where much of the training happens, and it can lead to the first job. Ask where last year's students were placed, how far they traveled, and what happens when a site falls through partway through the year.
Which equipment, data or collections would my work depend on, and how do students get time with them?
Why ask it
The instrument in the brochure may be booked months out or reserved for one group. Ask who controls access, what it costs a student's project, and what people do when it breaks.
What safety training comes before a new student uses the lab or the machine shop, and who signs it off?
Why ask it
High voltage, solvents, lasers and machine tools are everyday things in engineering and the lab sciences. On a visit you can see much of the answer for yourself: eye protection on faces, clear benches, a posted name to call. A student who was handed the keys in the first week with no training has told you how the group is supervised.
Of the graduates who wanted academic positions, how many got one?
Why ask it
A placement rate that counts every kind of job hides this. The denominator is everyone who wanted an academic post when they started looking, not only those still applying, since some stop after a year or two. Ask what the positions were: permanent, fixed-term or postdoctoral.
For graduates working outside universities, what are the jobs, and how did they find them?
Why ask it
The second half separates a program with employer contacts from one whose graduates worked it out alone. If every story begins with an internship or a former labmate, you know which doors to look for in your second year.
Can students take an outside internship, and has anyone lost funding for doing it?
Why ask it
A handbook may allow internships while individual advisors discourage them, so ask for a recent example by year and employer. A summer in industry is a common route into non-academic work, and you want to know now whether taking one costs you your stipend or your advisor's goodwill.
What does the career office do for graduate students in particular?
Why ask it
Campus career services are often built around undergraduates and entry-level recruiting. Ask whether anyone on the staff works specifically with master's and doctoral students, and what that person did for someone in your field last year.
Could you put me in touch with two or three people who finished in the last few years?
Why ask it
Recent graduates have little reason left to be careful, and they know how the degree is read by employers. Ask what they would have done differently in the program, not only whether they liked it. A department that struggles to produce names may not be following where its graduates go.
Is this program accredited by the body that licenses or hires in my field, and when is its next review?
Why ask it
This one is for professional degrees such as counseling, teaching, nursing or engineering, where an unaccredited program may leave you unable to sit for a license. Requirements differ by country and state, so check the licensing board's own list for the place you intend to work.
Ask students
Knowing what you know now, would you choose this program again?
Why ask it
This one is for students, not faculty. The pause before the answer carries most of the information, and a student who says yes with qualifications is giving you the most honest account of the place you are likely to get.
What do you wish you had known about this place before you accepted?
Why ask it
Expect small, practical answers, and value them: the lease that starts a month before the stipend, the course most people repeat, the professor who is rarely on campus. When three students separately give you the same answer, you can rely on it.
How did you end up choosing this program over the others you got into?
Why ask it
Their reasoning tells you what this program was competing against and what tipped the decision. An answer that stops at rank or a good feeling usually means nobody gave them better information either.
What does a normal week look like for you right now?
Why ask it
Hours in the lab, teaching, seminars and reading are easier to compare across programs than a curriculum page. A student who cannot describe a normal week may not have one, and that tells you something about the workload as well.
Do people here take weekends and holidays, and does anyone comment when you do?
Why ask it
The stated expectation is rarely the real one. Listen for stories about messages sent at midnight or a labmate teased for a week away, and ask whether the pressure comes from the advisor or from the students themselves.
Is it competitive between students here, or do people share notes, code and job leads?
Why ask it
Ask for the last time someone helped them, which is harder to invent than a general yes. Competition usually has a cause you can find out: too few fellowships, one advisor with too many students, or a class ranking that everyone can see.
Has your funding turned out the way your offer letter described it?
Why ask it
This checks the department's promises against one person's bank account. Listen for a fellowship they were expected to win themselves, a fee that appeared in the first term, or a teaching load that grew. No surprises at all is a good sign and worth writing down.
What happens here when a grant runs out partway through someone's degree?
Why ask it
Grants end on their own schedule, not the student's. You want a specific case and what was done, such as bridge money from the department or a teaching post found at short notice, not a reassurance that it never happens.
How often do you meet with your advisor, and who set that pace?
Why ask it
A standing weekly slot and a door you knock on when you are stuck are both workable, as long as the student is not the one doing all the chasing. If they had to fight for meetings, expect the same fight.
Where do most students live, and is university housing worth applying for?
Why ask it
Students know which neighborhoods are affordable, which leases start before the term does, and whether graduate housing is a bargain or a waiting list. Ask what the trip to campus is like in the worst month of the year.
Who do you spend time with outside your lab or classes, and how did you meet them?
Why ask it
Loneliness wears people down over a long degree and is hard to see on a visit day. A student whose whole circle is three labmates is describing a small world. One with friends across departments is describing a campus where that is possible.
Do you know students here with children, or a partner who moved with them, and how is it working out?
Why ask it
Skip this if it is not your situation. If it is, ask about childcare costs, whether dependents can join the health plan, and whether partners have found work nearby, since those decide whether the offer is livable for more than one person.
Are there students here with a background like mine, and could I talk to one?
Why ask it
You decide what the phrase covers: first in your family at university, older than the cohort, an international student, a parent, or arriving from another field. One frank conversation with that person will tell you more about belonging here than a statement on the website.
When a student here is struggling, where do they go, and do people really use it?
Why ask it
Knowing that a counseling service exists and being willing to walk in are separate things. Ask about waiting times and whether sessions are capped, and listen for whether taking time off is talked about openly or in a lowered voice.
What does this department do badly that nobody mentions on the visit?
Why ask it
Visit days are curated, and this gives a student permission to step outside the script. A precise complaint, such as late paychecks or a required course nobody can get into, is more useful than a shrug and easier to check with someone else.
What should I ask the faculty that they will not bring up themselves?
Why ask it
Students know which topics professors steer around. Ask it early in the day, so you still have meetings left in which to use what you are told.
Evaluating a Graduate Program Before You Commit
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
How to Do the Due Diligence
Ask the Same Three Questions Everywhere
Median time to degree, what happens to funding if you switch advisors, and where the last three cohorts work now. Putting identical questions to every program lets you compare them, because each one will otherwise steer you toward its own strengths.
If You Have Not Applied Yet
Most of these questions work before an application as well as after an offer, and asking early can save you an application fee. Start with the admissions group, then time to degree, funding and where graduates work. Save the questions about your own package for when there is one.
Talk to Students Without Faculty Present
Arrange this yourself if the visit schedule does not include it, and ask specifically about the advisor you would work with. Students are usually careful but rarely dishonest, and a question they decline to answer tells you something too.
Read the Handbook and the Offer Letter Line by Line
Number of funded years, teaching obligation, fee coverage, insurance, leave, time limits and annual review requirements. Many of the unpleasant surprises students describe were written down in one of these two documents before they happened.
Do the Arithmetic on the Stipend
Take the stipend, subtract the fees it does not cover, subtract twelve months of local rent taken from real listings, and look at what is left. Do it for every offer before you compare anything else, because the larger stipend in an expensive city can turn out to be the smaller one.
Take Each Question to the Person Who Knows
Requirements, deadlines, deferral and visit days belong to the admissions office or the program coordinator. Figures on time to degree, attrition and fees belong to the director of graduate studies. Advising habits belong to the advisor and, separately, to that advisor's students. Rent, hours and what the place is like in the middle of winter belong to students, asked with no faculty in the room. Putting one question to two of these people is a check, not a repetition.
On an Engineering Grad School Visit
Ask to be walked through the lab, shop or cleanroom your project would use, and to meet whoever keeps it running day to day. Then settle four things before you leave: who pays for the group's work and what the sponsor is owed, how the weeks split between hardware and modeling, whether the master's on offer is the research degree or the course-based one, and how new students are trained before they touch the equipment. Any program built around a lab deserves the same four checks.
If You Are Paying for a Master's
Most of the funding questions assume a stipend. For a degree you pay for, the comparison is the whole cost against where recent graduates work, so lean on the questions about total cost, who teaches the core classes, part-time study, placements, accreditation and the career office, and ask for last year's figures instead of the brochure's.
Warning Signs Worth Acting On
- Time to degree and attrition figures that nobody can produce, or that arrive only as a range.
- Funding described as typically renewed, with no number of years stated in writing.
- Current students who are hard to reach, or who are only available with a faculty member present.
- An advisor whose recent students have not graduated, or whose last few left the program entirely.
- Placement described through one exceptional graduate from several years ago.
- Any suggestion that asking about money or outcomes shows the wrong attitude. Expect later problems to be met the same way.
Common Mistakes
Choosing on Rank Alone
Rank describes an institution, and your days there will depend on one advisor and one funding arrangement. A highly ranked department with an absent advisor and no committee oversight is a hard place to finish a doctorate.
Accepting an Unfunded Doctoral Offer Without Asking Why
In fields where doctoral students are normally funded, ask the department directly why this offer is not, and how often students admitted the same way have picked up support in later years. Paying for a doctorate yourself is a decision to make deliberately, with the arithmetic written down, not out of momentum.
Not Asking About the Package
With a competing offer in hand, a stipend supplement, summer support, moving costs or lighter first-year teaching are things programs sometimes find. Ask once and politely, with the other letter ready to show. Some departments have no room to move at all, and it does no harm to hear that.
Deciding During the Visit
Visits are designed to persuade, and they tend to work. Write your answers down the same evening, then compare programs a week later on time to degree, funding terms and placement, not on how the weekend felt.
Two Conversations Worth Planning
With a Prospective Advisor
- 1What are your current students working on, and how far along is each of them?
- 2How often do you meet students individually, and how do you give feedback on writing?
- 3Is your funding secure for the next five years, and what would happen to me if it were not?
- 4Where did your last three students go after finishing?
- 5What do you expect from a student in the first year?
With a Current Student, Alone
- 1How long is this really taking people, and why?
- 2How is your advisor when something goes wrong?
- 3What do you spend on rent, and does the stipend cover the year?
- 4Who has left, and what happened?
- 5Would you choose this program again?