Deadlines for Fall 2013 start in the Department of Educational Leadership Studies:
- PhD: March 15, 2013
- All Other Programs, including Ed.D. and Principal program: June 3, 2013
- Superintendent Certification Program deadline May 1st
Apply for Admission
All applications for graduate study at the University of Kentucky Graduate School must be submitted on-line. We are now part of the Hobsons Apply Yourself Application Network, a system used by over 700 colleges and universities that provides an opportunity to submit all Graduate School and program requirements in one application including letters of recommendation. You may apply for as many programs as you wish, but each application requires completion of a separate application form and submission of a separate application fee.
Currently the fee for domestic applicants is $65.00 per application and for international applicants the fee is $75.00. Please note that the application cannot be submitted without payment of this fee.
Step 1 in the process is to set up a new account and establish a user name and password. Do not lose this information; you will need it if you wish to return to continue an unfinished application or review a completed application.
In order to complete the application you will need to gather several pieces of information including the following:
Transcripts: You will be asked to upload copies of transcripts from all higher education institutions attended and, in the case of domestic students, to self-report cumulative GPA’s for each institution. For degree-seeking students, the Graduate School requires an overall undergraduate grade point average of 2.75 and 3.00 on all graduate work; individual programs may have higher requirements. If you are offered admission and decide to enroll you will then be required to submit official transcripts to the Graduate School.
GRE Scores: Educational Leadership Studies requires that applicants submit current GRE scores for admission to degree programs. (If you are an applicant who is seeking only a certificate without any degree work, such as the superintendent certificate, you do not need to take the GRE). Applicants to degree programs will be asked to self-report these scores on the application (you can also supply a future date for taking the test). We will however also require official scores from the ETS or another method. These scores will be incorporated into your application and compared against self-reported scores to ensure consistency.
GRE scores should be sent directly to us from Educational Testing Service (ETS); the Institution Code for the GRE for UK Graduate School is R1837.
ETS.org does not keep GRE scores beyond five years. The University of Kentucky Graduate School policy is to accept GRE scores as long as the student can produce official scores. The University of Kentucky Graduate School will accept scores from a student’s previous institution, regardless of age, as long as the scores come directly from the school, are on university letterhead, and are verified to be true copies. If even that isn’t possible, the Associate Dean of the Graduate School will consider approving scores if a student can produce the original paper copy that was sent to them at the time of the exam. This is a last resort and one that the Graduate School uses in limited cases. If neither option is possible, the student needs to retake the exam.
We strongly suggest that applicants have scores at the following levels or higher. Please review the following very carefully. Not all our programs have the same expectations for GRE performance.
- Non-degree seeking certificate-only applicants (e.g. school technology leadership certificate; superintendent certificate)
- No GRE required
- MEd and EdS degrees not specified below
- GRE required
- No minimum scores are set.
- Leadership EdD
- GRE required
- A combined Verbal & Quantitative score of 1000 (old GRE scale) or 300 (new GRE scale).
- Analytical Writing: 4.0 or percentile rank of 49.
- Principalship EdD
- GRE required
- A combined Verbal & Quantitative score of 1000 (old GRE scale) or 300 (new GRE scale).
- Analytical Writing: 4.0 or percentile rank of 49.
- Principalship EdS
- GRE required
- A combined Verbal & Quantitative score of 1000 (old GRE scale) or 300 (new GRE scale).
- Analytical Writing: 4.0 or percentile rank of 49.
- PhD
- GRE required
- Verbal: 460 (old GRE scale) 151 (new GRE scale) and percentile rank of 49.
- Quantitative: 640 (old GRE scale) 151 (new GRE scale) and percentile rank of 48
- Analytical Writing: 4.0 or percentile rank of 49.
For Reference: Verbal Reasoning and Quantitative Reasoning Concordance Tables
TOEFL or IELTS Scores: All applicants whose native language is not English will be asked to self-report one of these scores on the application. As for GRE or GMAT scores, we also require official language scores be sent to us directly from the reporting agency.
- TOEFL scores should be sent directly to us from Educational Testing Service (ETS); the Institution Code for the TOEFL for UK Graduate School is R1837.
- IELTS scores should be sent directly to us from the International English Language Testing Service specifying the University of Kentucky Graduate School, Lexington, Kentucky as the recipient institution.
For the Graduate School, the minimum acceptable TOEFL score is 550 (paper-based) 213 (computer-based), or 79 (internet-based). The minimum IELTS score is 6.5; individual programs may however have higher requirements. Submitted scores must be no more than two years old.
Program-Specific Requirements: In the process of completing your application to the UK Graduate School, you will need to provide additional information for our program. This may include a curriculum vita, personal statement, writing sample or an assistantship application. The documents required our program must also be uploaded to the application; you can review these requirements by clicking here.
Letters of Recommendation: Most EDL programs require four (4) letters of recommendation. Click here to check the program-specific requirements to be sure. As part of the application you will be asked to supply contact information for the number of recommenders required by your program. Once your application has been submitted, the system will contact each person identified and their recommendations will be submitted directly to us. You can check back into your application at any time to see who has submitted a recommendation.
Application Deadlines: Our department application deadlines are:
- PhD Program: March 15, 2013
- All Other Programs, including Ed.D. & Principal program: June 3, 2013
For applicants who are U.S. citizens ("domestic" in the nomenclature of the UK Grad School) the Graduate School requires applications to be submitted no later than one month prior to the start of the term the applicant intends to begin graduate work. Please refer to the Academic Calendar for typical semester starting dates.
For applicants who are non-U.S. citizens ("international" in the nomenclature of the UK Grad School) the following Graduate School deadlines apply:
- Fall semester admission– March 15
- Spring semester admission- August 15
- Summer semester - Non-U.S. citizen students are not admitted for summer sessions
Obtain Answers to Your Questions: If you have any questions about UK's online application process to Graduate School, you may either send an e-mail to grad.admit@uky.edu or call either 859.257.9390 or 859.257.4905.
To begin click HERE. We look forward to receiving your application.
