Questions to Ask Graduate School Admissions
Questions for applicants to put to admissions staff, directors of graduate study and faculty, covering funding, advising, time to degree, attrition and where graduates end up.
The questions
Open any question for the note
How many students do you admit each year, and how many people apply?
Why ask it
Two plain numbers tell you whether the program turns people away or needs bodies to staff undergraduate sections. Offices that cannot produce either figure usually do not track their own cohorts closely.
Who reads my application, and does a faculty member in my subfield look at it?
Why ask it
Some departments run a central committee; in others an individual professor pulls the applicants they want to supervise. If it is the second, your statement of purpose should read as a pitch to one person rather than to a discipline.
Is funding guaranteed, and if so for how many years?
Why ask it
Guaranteed multi-year support and year-by-year support produce very different lives. Listen for the hedge 'typically funded': it usually means someone in a recent cohort was not.
After tuition and fees come out, what does the stipend actually leave a student to live on?
Why ask it
Advertised stipends are often quoted before mandatory fees are deducted. Someone who cannot compare the remainder to local rent has not thought about whether students can survive on it.
How many hours a week does the assistantship take, and is that number realistic?
Why ask it
A twenty-hour appointment can mean forty in grading weeks. If the answer stops at the contract figure, take the same question to a current student before you accept.
What is the median time to degree here, rather than the minimum?
Why ask it
The minimum is a brochure number. A gap of two or more years between minimum and median means something in the middle of the program reliably stalls, usually the dissertation proposal.
Of the students who start, roughly what share finish?
Why ask it
Attrition is the figure programs least like to say out loud. A department that tracks it and can describe why people left is being run by someone paying attention.
How are students matched with an advisor, and what happens when the match does not work out?
Why ask it
Assigned, chosen in year one, or negotiated before admission are three different levels of risk concentrated in one relationship. Ask specifically about switching, because nobody volunteers that part.
Which faculty are taking new students next year, and how many are they supervising already?
Why ask it
A professor with ten current advisees will not read your drafts quickly, however well you get on. The list also reveals whether the person you applied to work with is actually available, or on leave, or leaving.
When do students start teaching, and what training comes with it?
Why ask it
Teaching is either training or unpaid apprenticeship depending on whether preparation, observation and feedback exist. Being handed a section in week one with none of that is common enough to be worth checking.
What are the milestones between the first term and the defense, and when does each one fall?
Why ask it
Dated milestones let you tell whether you are behind while there is still time to fix it. Programs without them tend to let students drift and then discover the problem at the defense.
What happens to a student who fails comprehensive exams the first time?
Why ask it
Every program has a retake rule, and hearing it stated plainly tells you whether one bad month ends the degree. Vagueness here usually means the outcome depends on your advisor's mood that week.
Is there a written expectation about publishing or conference presentations before graduation?
Why ask it
Fields differ on whether published work is required or merely rewarded. Where the bar is informal, students discover it only by missing it, so a written norm is worth more than encouragement.
What health insurance, parental leave and summer funding do students get?
Why ask it
These three items decide whether a person can get through five years with a chronic condition or a new baby. Summer funding is the one most often quietly absent.
Are international students funded and supported on the same terms as domestic students?
Why ask it
Visa rules cap outside work, so any funding gap lands harder on international students. The answer also shows whether the office has considered this before you raised it.
Where did the last two or three graduating cohorts end up?
Why ask it
Recent placement lists are checkable and specific, unlike claims about where alumni often go. If the only example is one star graduate from a decade ago, that is the real answer.
What support exists for students who decide they want work outside the university?
Why ask it
In most fields most graduates do not end up on the tenure track. A department that treats industry, policy or teaching work as a failure will not help you build toward it.
What do current students complain about, and has the program changed anything in response?
Why ask it
You are asking someone to say something unflattering about their own program, which is the point. One honest complaint plus one concrete change beats an assurance that everyone is happy.
What would make you say a student here is struggling, and what happens at that point?
Why ask it
This surfaces the department's picture of trouble and, more usefully, whether the response is support or a quiet nudge toward the exit.
If I am admitted, what would you want me to read or work on before the first term?
Why ask it
A specific answer, a methods course to brush up on or two papers to read, signals a program that plans its cohorts. A shrug tells you how much structure to expect later.
Using these questions in an admissions conversation
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Ask the right person each question
Admissions staff
Staff own the process facts: deadlines, application review order, fee waivers, visa paperwork, insurance and the mechanics of the stipend. They are usually the only people who will tell you the fee deductions accurately.
The director of graduate study
Milestones, exam policy, attrition, time to degree and what happens when an advising relationship fails all sit with this person. They are also the one who can say which faculty are taking students.
Current students
Workload, whether the stipend covers rent, how advisors behave in practice, and what the department does when someone is in trouble. Email two students who are not on the recruitment page, and ask short questions.
A workable order for a short call
Twenty minutes, four questions
- 1Open with a number they can answer easily: how many admits against how many applicants.
- 2Move to funding: how many years are guaranteed, and what is left after fees.
- 3Then structure: median time to degree, and the milestone calendar.
- 4Close with the one that needs their judgment: what current students complain about and what changed.
If you only get one question
Ask what happens when an advising relationship stops working. The answer covers funding, milestones and departmental culture at once, and it is the risk that ends the most degrees.
How to read the answers
- Hedges carry information: 'typically', 'most students' and 'we try to' each mark an exception someone lived through.
- Ranges without medians are marketing. Ask for the middle number, not the best case.
- If two people in the same department give you different funding answers, believe the less generous one and get it in writing.
- A department that names its own weak point has usually fixed something recently. One that claims none has stopped asking.
What not to spend your turn on
Anything printed on the program page
Credit counts, course lists and application deadlines are published. Asking about them uses up goodwill and tells the reader you did not look.
Flattery disguised as a question
Long preambles about how excited you are leave no room for an answer. Ask the question in one sentence and let the interest show in what you chose to ask.
Salary speculation
Nobody in an admissions office can tell you what you will earn afterward. Ask instead where the last cohorts went, which is a fact they either have or do not.