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Graduate school dean outlines new admissions policies
By MARY COCHRANE
Contributing Editor
Bruce D. McCombe, vice provost for graduate education and dean of the Graduate School, spoke to the Faculty Senate Executive Committee yesterday, outlining changes that are being made in graduate admissions policies at UB, and reassuring representatives of the professional schools that the revisions affect only doctoral and master's of fine arts applicants.
"I don't believe there is any significant effect on any of the professional schools," McCombe said, adding that the policy changes also do not apply to admissions of international students.
In addition to defining what constitutes a complete graduate application to UB, the revised application process has improved data-gathering regarding applicants, he said.
"One of the major motivations for this was to provide a system that would allow us to gather data with integrity and to provide that data in reports to all kinds of constituencies, deans departments, deans, the central administration and external groups," McCombe said.
The new policy also requires applicants to have achieved a minimum grade-point average of 3.0 from U.S. institutions with a 4.0 quality-point system.
"This does not mean that departments cannot accept people who have GPAs of less than 3.0," he noted. "All they have to do is provide us with some reasonable justification and we will permit it. The first time through this we will be pretty liberal about that."
Once departments determine applicants meet the requirements for admission, they will set in motion the acceptance process by pushing the "admit button" of the university's GrAdMIT admissions program.
"If you push an admit button—which means that someone in the department has verified the candidate has a 3.0 GPA and that the schools attended are those that appear on the transcript—that finalizes a complete application and if you wish to admit that student you push the admit button. It will automatically send out a confirming letter by electronic mail, signed by me as dean of the Graduate School, stating that the student is admitted to this program. This confirms the letter that students will receive later from the departments," McCombe said.
Samuel D. Schack, professor and chair of the Department of Mathematics, suggested that the policy of sending students letters of acceptance from the dean of the Graduate School before they receive letters from the departments themselves can cause confusion.
"Students do not think they have applied to the Graduate School; they think they have applied to the department. They expect to hear from the department," Schack said.
McCombe pointed out that the letters his office sends to accepted students will specify that they will soon be receiving letters from the departments whose programs they have been admitted to. He added that he is willing to monitor the practice to see if problems arise.
He also confirmed that applicants to dual-degree programs would receive two letters of acceptance.
Faculty members also had expressed concerns during a past FSEC meeting that they had not been consulted during the process in which these changes were made. McCombe said that he had communicated the suggested revisions during meetings with department chairs, deans and vice presidents, as well as through memos sent to graduate school directors in September.
"It seems to me that the changes we've made are completely consistent with what most of our peer institutions do," he said. "It's still a decentralized admissions process. We don't make the decisions. The departments make the decisions. We just ask that if students look like they need to be justified, will you please justify them."
Ultimately, his office is "after improving the excellence of the graduate program," McCombe said. "We think the changes will improve our ability to recruit because we will have a lot of info from where people are applying. We will have much improved data integrity and we will be able to provide standard reports about the number of applicants, the number of admissions and where they come from."
In other business at yesterday's meeting, John Ringland, associate professor of mathematics and chair of the Faculty Senate's Computer Services Committee, reported that focus groups conducted with faculty, staff and students regarding technology at UB included requests to increase the number of technology-equipped classrooms available to all faculty, as well as the number of computer labs available to students. The student focus groups also requested improvements in printing services, wireless access and that some tech services be available on a 24-hour basis.