Editing Postgraduate education (section)

==United States==

===Admission===
While most graduate programs will have a similar list of general admission requirements, the importance placed on each type of requirement can vary drastically between graduate schools, departments within schools, and even programs within departments. The best way to determine how a graduate program will weigh admission materials is to ask the person in charge of graduate admissions at the particular program being applied to.
Admission to graduate school requires a bachelor's degree. High grades in one's field of study are important—grades outside the field less so. Traditionally in the past, the [[Graduate Record Examination]] [[standardized test]] was required by almost all graduate schools, however, programs in multiple disciplines are removing the GRE requirement for their admission process.<ref>{{Cite web|last1=Langin|first1=Katie|date=2019-05-29|title=A wave of graduate programs drops the GRE application requirement|url=https://www.science.org/content/article/wave-graduate-programs-drop-gre-application-requirement|access-date=2020-08-27|website=Science {{!}} AAAS|language=en}}</ref>  Some programs require other additional standardized tests (such as the [[Graduate Management Admission Test]] (GMAT) and [[Graduate Record Examination#GRE Subject Tests|Graduate Record Examination (GRE) Subject Tests]]) to apply to their institutions.<ref name="PhDProcess">Dale Bloom, Jonathan Karp, Nicholas Cohen, ''[[iarchive:phdprocessstuden0000bloo|The Ph.D. Process: A Student's Guide to Graduate School in the Sciences]]'', Oxford University Press, 1998, {{ISBN|0-19-511900-2}}.</ref><ref name="AboutAdmissions101">[http://gradschool.about.com/od/admissionsadvice/a/overview.htm Graduate School Admissions 101], About.com, accessed September 2, 2007</ref> During the [[COVID-19 pandemic]], the GRE exam moved to an online format. This led some programs to waive GRE requirements temporarily or permanently, arguing that the new format was unfair or too difficult for test-takers.<ref>{{Cite web|last1=Hu|first1=Jane C.|date=2020-06-24|title=Graduate programs drop GRE after online version raises concerns about fairness|url=https://www.science.org/content/article/graduate-programs-drop-gre-after-online-version-raises-concerns-about-fairness|access-date=2020-08-27|website=Science {{!}} AAAS|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Langin |first=Katie |date=November 29, 2022 |title='GRExit' gains momentum as Ph.D. programs drop exam requirement |url=https://www.science.org/content/article/gre-exit-gains-momentum-ph-d-programs-drop-exam-requirement-amid-pandemic |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230330204224/https://www.science.org/content/article/gre-exit-gains-momentum-ph-d-programs-drop-exam-requirement-amid-pandemic |archive-date=March 30, 2023 |access-date=August 24, 2023}}</ref> In addition, good [[Recommendation letter|letters of recommendation]] from undergraduate instructors are often essential,<ref name="AboutChoosingLetters">[http://gradschool.about.com/od/askingforletters/a/askrec.htm Recommendation Letters: Choosing Referees], About.com, accessed September 2, 2007.</ref> as strong recommendation letters from mentors or supervisors of undergraduate research experience provide evidence that the applicant can perform research and can handle the rigors of a graduate school education.

Within the sciences and some social sciences, previous research experience may be important.<ref name="PhDProcess" /><ref name="AboutResearchExp">[http://gradschool.about.com/od/admissionsadvice/a/research.htm Research Experience for Graduate Admissions], About.com, accessed September 2, 2007.</ref> By contrast, within most humanities disciplines, an example of academic writing normally suffices. Many universities require a personal statement (sometimes called [[statement of purpose]] or [[letter of intent]]), which may include indications of the intended area(s) of research.<ref name="AboutAdmissions101" /> The amount of detail in this statement and whether it is possible to change one's focus of research depend strongly on the discipline and department to which the student is applying.

Some schools set minimum [[grade point average|GPA]]s and test scores below which they will not accept any applicants;<ref name="AboutGradGPA">[http://gradschool.about.com/od/admissionsadvice/a/gpa.htm GPA and Graduate School Admission], About.com, accessed September 2, 2007.</ref> this reduces the time spent reviewing applications. On the other hand, many other institutions often explicitly state that they do not use any sort of cut-offs in terms of GPA or the GRE scores. Instead, they claim to consider many factors, including past research achievements, the compatibility between the applicant's research interest and that of the faculty, the statement of purpose and the letters of reference, as stated above. Some programs also require professors to act as sponsors. Finally, applicants from non-English speaking countries often must take the [[Test of English as a Foreign Language]] (TOEFL).<ref name="ETSTOEFL">[http://www.ets.org/toefl/ TOEFL: Test of English as a Foreign Language], Educational Testing Service, accessed September 2, 2007.</ref>

At most institutions, decisions regarding admission are not made by the institution itself but the department to which the student is applying. Some departments may require interviews before making a decision to accept an applicant.<ref name="AboutAdmissions101" /> Most universities adhere to the [https://cgsnet.org/resources/for-current-prospective-graduate-students/april-15-resolution Council of Graduate Schools' Resolution Regarding Graduate Scholars, Fellows, Trainees, and Assistants], which gives applicants until April 15 to accept or reject offers that contain financial support.

===Non-degree seeking===
In addition to traditional "degree-seeking" applications for admission, many schools allow students to apply as "non-degree-seeking".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.grad.clemson.edu/Admission.php|title=Admissions - Graduate School|website=www.grad.clemson.edu|access-date=1 January 2018}}</ref> Admission to the non-degree-seeking category is usually restricted primarily to those who may benefit professionally from additional study at the graduate level. For example, current elementary, middle, and high school teachers wishing to gain re-certification credit most commonly apply as non-degree-seeking students.{{Citation needed|date=August 2023}}

===Degree requirements===
Graduate students often declare their intended degree (master's or doctorate) in their applications. In some cases, master's programs allow successful students to continue toward the doctorate degree. Additionally, doctoral students who have advanced to candidacy but not filed a dissertation ("ABD", for "[[all but dissertation]]") often receive master's degrees and an additional master's called a [[Master of Philosophy]] (MPhil) or a [[Candidate of Philosophy]] (C.Phil.) degree. The master's component of a doctorate program often requires one or two years.

Many graduate programs require students to pass one or several examinations in order to demonstrate their competence as scholars.<ref name="PhDProcess" /> In some departments, a [[comprehensive examination]] is often required in the first year of doctoral study, and is designed to test a student's background undergraduate-level knowledge. Examinations of this type are more common in the sciences and some social sciences but relatively unknown in most humanities disciplines.

Most graduate students perform teaching duties, often serving as graders and tutors. In some departments, they can be promoted to [[lecturer]] status, a position that comes with more responsibility.

Doctoral students generally spend roughly their first two to three years taking coursework and begin research by their second year if not before. Many master's and all specialist students will perform research culminating in a paper, presentation, and defense of their research. This is called the master's thesis (or, for Educational Specialist students, the specialist paper). However, many US master's degree programs do not require a master's thesis, focusing instead primarily on coursework or on "practicals" or "workshops". Some students complete a final culminating project or "capstone" rather than a thesis. Such "real-world" experience may typically require a candidate work on a project alone or in a team as a consultant, or consultants, for an outside entity approved or selected by the academic institution and under faculty supervision.

In the second and third years of study, doctoral programs often require students to pass more examinations.<ref name="PhDProcess" /> Programs often require a Qualifying Examination ("Quals"), a Ph.D. Candidacy Examination ("Candidacy"), or a General Examination ("Generals") designed to test the students' grasp of a broad sample of their discipline, or one or several Special Field Examinations ("Specials") which test students in their narrower selected areas of specialty within the discipline. If these examinations are held orally, they may be known colloquially as "orals." For some social science and many humanities disciplines, where graduate students may or may not have studied the discipline at the undergraduate level, these exams will be the first set, and be based either on graduate coursework or specific preparatory reading (sometimes up to a year's work in reading).

In all cases, comprehensive exams normally must be passed to be allowed to proceed on to the dissertation. Passing such examinations allows the student to begin doctoral research, and rise to the status of a doctoral candidate, while failing usually results in the student leaving the program or re-taking the test after some time has passed (usually a semester or a year). Some schools have an intermediate category, passing at the master's level, which allows the student to leave with a master's without having completed a master's thesis.

The doctoral candidate primarily performs his or her research over the course of three to eight years. In total, the typical doctoral degree takes between four and eight years from entering the program to completion, though this time varies depending upon the department, dissertation topic, and many other factors. For example, [[astronomy]] degrees take five to six years on average, but [[observational astronomy]] degrees take six to seven due to limiting factors of weather, while [[theoretical astronomy]] degrees take five. In some disciplines, doctoral programs can average seven to ten years. [[Archaeology]], which requires long periods of research, tends towards the longer end of this spectrum. The increase in length of the degree is a matter of great concern for both students and universities, though there is much disagreement on potential solutions to this problem.

Traditionally, doctoral programs were only intended to last three to four years and, in some disciplines (primarily the natural sciences), with a helpful advisor, and a light teaching load, it is possible for the degree to be completed in that amount of time. However, increasingly many disciplines, including most humanities, set their requirements for coursework, languages and the expected extent of thesis research by the assumption that students will take five years minimum or six to seven years on average; competition for jobs within these fields also raises expectations on the length and quality of theses considerably.

Though there is substantial variation among universities, departments, and individuals, [[humanities]] and [[social science]] doctorates on average take somewhat longer to complete than [[natural science]] doctorates. These differences are due to the differing nature of research between the humanities and some social sciences and the natural sciences and to the differing expectations of the discipline in coursework, languages, and length of dissertation. However, time required to complete a [[doctorate]] also varies according to the candidate's abilities and choice of research. Some students may also choose to remain in a program if they fail to win an academic position, particularly in disciplines with a tight job market; by remaining a student, they can retain access to libraries and university facilities, while also retaining an academic affiliation, which can be essential for conferences and job-searches.

After the doctorate degree, a second training period is available for students in fields such as life sciences, called a postdoctoral fellowship.

===Funding===
In general, there is less funding available to students admitted to master's degrees than for students admitted to Ph.D. or other doctoral degrees. Many departments, especially those in which students have research or teaching responsibilities, offer tuition-forgiveness and a stipend that pays for most expenses. At some elite universities, there may be a minimum stipend established for all Ph.D. students, as well as a tuition waiver. The terms of these stipends vary greatly, and may consist of a scholarship or fellowship, followed by teaching responsibilities. At many elite universities, these stipends have been increasing, in response both to student pressure and, especially, to competition among the elite universities for graduate students.

In some fields, research positions are more coveted than teaching positions because student researchers are typically paid to work on the dissertation they are required to complete anyway, while teaching is generally considered a distraction from one's work. Research positions are more typical of science disciplines; they are relatively uncommon in humanities disciplines, and where they exist, rarely allow the student to work on their own research. Science PhD students can apply for individual [[National Research Service Award|NRSA]] fellowships from the [[NIH]] or fellowships from private foundations. US universities often also offer competitive support from NIH-funded training programs. One example is the Biotechnology Training Program – University of Virginia. Departments often have funds for limited discretionary funding to supplement minor expenses such as research trips and travel to conferences.

A few students can attain funding through dissertation improvement grants funded by the [[National Science Foundation]] (NSF), or through similar programs in other agencies. Many students are also funded as lab researchers by faculty who have been funded by private foundations or by the NSF, National Institutes of Health (NIH), or federal "mission agencies" such as the [[United States Department of Defense|Department of Defense]] or the [[United States Environmental Protection Agency|Environmental Protection Agency]]. The natural sciences are typically well funded, so that most students can attain either outside or institutional funding, but in the humanities, not all do. Some humanities students borrow money during their coursework, then take full-time jobs while completing their dissertations. Students in the social sciences are less well funded than are students in the natural and physical sciences, but often have more funding opportunities than students in the humanities, particularly as science funders begin to see the value of social science research.

Funding differs greatly by departments and universities; some universities give five years of full funding to all Ph.D. students, though often with a teaching requirement attached; other universities do not. However, because of the teaching requirements, which can be in the research years of the Ph.D., even the best funded universities often do not have funding for humanities or social science students who need to do research elsewhere, whether in the United States or overseas.{{Citation needed|date=September 2007}} Such students may find funding through outside funders such as private foundations, such as the [[German Marshall Fund]] or the [[Social Science Research Council]] (SSRC).

Foreign students are typically funded the same way as domestic (US) students, although federally subsidized student and parent loans and work-study assistance are generally limited to U.S. citizens and nationals, permanent residents, and approved refugees.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://ifap.ed.gov/sfahandbooks/attachments/0708FSAHBKVol1Ch2.pdf|title=Handbook: Citizenship|publisher=[[Federal Student Aid]]|access-date=2019-08-06|archive-date=2017-09-11|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170911162730/https://ifap.ed.gov/sfahandbooks/attachments/0708FSAHBKVol1Ch2.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> Moreover, some funding sources (such as many NSF fellowships) may only be awarded to domestic students. International students often have unique financial difficulties such as high costs to visit their families back home, support of a family not allowed to work due to [[immigration law]]s, tuition that is expensive by world standards, and large fees: [[visa (document)|visa]] fees by [[U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services]], and [[surveillance]] fees under the [[Student and Exchange Visitor Program]] of the [[United States Department of Homeland Security]].<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/03/21/international.students.ap/index.html |title=International students refuse to pay new fee|url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040401103723/http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/03/21/international.students.ap/index.html |archive-date=April 1, 2004 }}</ref>

===Graduate employee unions===
At many universities, graduate students are employed by their university to teach classes or do research. While all graduate employees are graduate students, many graduate students are not employees. MBA students, for example, usually pay tuition and do not have paid teaching or research positions. In many countries graduate employees have collectively organized [[labor union]]s in order to bargain a contract with their university. 

In the United States there are many graduate employee unions at public universities. The [[Coalition of Graduate Employee Unions]] lists 25 recognized unions at public universities on its website. Private universities, however, are covered under the [[National Labor Relations Act]] rather than state labor laws and until 2001 there were no recognized unions at private universities.

Many graduate students see themselves as akin to junior faculty, but with significantly lower pay.{{Citation needed|date=August 2009}} Many graduate students feel that teaching takes time that would better be spent on research, and many point out that there is a vicious circle in the academic labor economy. Institutions that rely on cheap graduate student labor have no need to create expensive professorships, so graduate students who have taught extensively in graduate school can find it immensely difficult to get a teaching job when they have obtained their degree. Many institutions depend heavily on graduate student teaching: a 2003 report by agitators for a graduate student union at Yale,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.yaleunions.org/geso/reports/BlackboardBlues.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=2005-11-02 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060105040426/http://www.yaleunions.org/geso/reports/BlackboardBlues.pdf |archive-date=2006-01-05 }}</ref>  for instance, claims that "70% of undergraduate teaching contact hours at Yale are performed by transient teachers: graduate teachers, adjunct instructors, and other teachers not on the tenure track." The state of [[Michigan]] leads in terms of progressive policy regarding graduate student unions with five universities recognizing graduate employee unions: [[Central Michigan University]],  [[Michigan State University]], the [[University of Michigan]], [[Wayne State University]], and [[Western Michigan University]].

The [[United Auto Workers]] (under the slogan "Uniting Academic Workers") and the [[American Federation of Teachers]] are two international unions that represent graduate employees. Private universities' administrations often oppose their graduate students when they try to form unions, arguing that students should be exempt from labor laws intended for "employees". In some cases, unionization movements have met with enough student opposition to fail. At the schools where graduate employees are unionized, which positions are unionized vary. Sometimes only one set of employees will unionize (e.g. teaching assistants, residential directors); at other times, most or all will. Typically, fellowship recipients, usually not employed by their university, do not participate.

When negotiations fail, graduate employee unions sometimes go on [[strike action|strike]]. While graduate student unions can use the same types of strikes that other unions do, they have also made use of [[teach-in]]s, work-ins, marches, rallies, and ''grade strikes''. In a grade strike, graduate students refuse to grade exams and papers and, if the strike lasts until the end of the academic term, also refuse to turn in final grades. Another form of job action is known as "work-to-rule", in which graduate student instructors work exactly as many hours as they are paid for and no more.