Mar 29, 2024  
2022-2023 Graduate Catalog 
    
2022-2023 Graduate Catalog ARCHIVED CATALOG: CONTENT MAY NOT BE CURRENT. USE THE DROP DOWN ABOVE TO ACCESS THE CURRENT CATALOG.

Admissions Policies (listed alphabetically)


Admission Acceptance

Application Fraud and Revocation of Admission

Change of Program, Plan, or Subplan

Deferrals

Enrollment in Terms of Admission

Immunization Records

Incomplete Applications

Nevada Residency for Tuition Purposes

Readmission to the Graduate College

Rebelmail

Rollover or Rollback of the Application

Transfer Credit Policy

Withdrawal of Application/Admission

 

Admission Acceptance

Admitted students cannot register until they have accepted admission. Students must accept their admissions offer in the Grad Rebel Gateway for the term in which they have been admitted at least two full business days prior to the last day to enroll for classes. Failure to do so will void the Offer of Admission.

 

Application Fraud and Revocation of Admission

It is the assumption of the Graduate College that the information provided on the application for admission is complete and accurate. Subsequent evidence to the contrary may result in the admission being revoked and the loss of any credit or degree stemming from the admission.

 

Change of Program, Plan, or Subplan

Students are admitted to pursue a graduate degree or certificate in a specific department or program. To change to another department (or program) or degree/certificate (called a ‘plan’), students must submit a new application for admission, the required application fee, and all necessary admission credentials to the Graduate College. In order to change a concentration or track (called a ‘subplan’) within a degree/certificate, graduate coordinator or department chair approval is needed. Newly admitted students must email gradadmission@unlv.edu and current students must email grad.rpc@unlv.edu to request a subplan change.

 

Deferrals

The Graduate College allows for one deferral of admission per application within one year. A deferral request must be made by the student and approved by the academic department to the Graduate College via email (gradadmissions@unlv.edu). Deferral requests should be made before the start of the semester that the applicant is initially admitted. Late deferral requests will only be accommodated up to the late registration deadline in a given semester. After the late registration deadline for a given term has passed, students will need to reapply for admission consideration in a future term.

 

Enrollment in Terms of Admission

Students must enroll in graduate-level classes in the semester in which they are admitted. Failure to accept admission and enroll or subsequent withdrawal from all coursework during the semester of admission will void the admission and result in the student’s separation from their graduate program. If an applicant does not complete the admission process, the student must reapply and submit another application processing fee to be considered for admission in a future semester. 

Materials from the previous application, such as official transcripts, may be used if they are still on file with the Graduate College and acceptable by the graduate program. All application materials are kept within the Graduate College in accordance with the NSHE Records Retention Schedule.

 

 

Immunization Records

Nevada Administrative Code (441A.755) requires that all students who attend courses on campus must provide documentation of having received the following immunizations unless excused by religious belief or medical condition and with an approved waiver on file with the Office of the Registrar:

  • Two doses of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR). The first dose must be on or after your first birthday.
  • One dose for tetanus/diphtheria (TD), taken in the last 10 years.

Copies of immunization records must be sent to the Office of the Registrar, either: via fax at: 702-895-1118 or hand delivered (Student Services Complex – SSC-C, near the Tropicana Garage). If students feel comfortable sending these documents via email, they may also email a copy to registrar@unlv.edu.

Students without appropriate documentation will need to reestablish immunizations before they can attend classes. Immunizations may be obtained from a physician, the UNLV Student Health Center, or a local county health district. 

 

Incomplete Applications

The Graduate College will cancel all incomplete application files after the late registration deadline for each semester. Applicants who are denied for having an incomplete application file must reapply for any future semester in which they seek admission. Transcripts will be saved in accordance with NSHE Records Retention requirements.

 

Nevada Residency for Tuition Purposes

The Office of the Registrar determines the Nevada residency of graduate students according to the Board of Regents regulations and the laws of the State of Nevada. The regulations pertaining to Nevada residency for tuition purposes are established by the Board of Regents. Each applicant claiming legal residency in Nevada must submit a residency application and the supporting documentation along with their admission application. The residency application forms can be obtained from the university website.

For admitted graduate degree- or certificate-seeking students, residency status is determined at the time of admission to a degree-seeking program and is indicated in the official Certificate of Admission from the Graduate College. Please note that new graduate students who live in Nevada, and/or those who have held Nevada residency in the past, may still be classified as out-of-state students upon graduate admission. These students will need to follow the directions on their Certificate of Admission and apply for residency in order to be reclassified as a Nevada resident. 

Graduate non-degree-seeking students will generally be classified as out-of-state until and unless Nevada residency is determined via the residency application process. If the residency status is not “Nevada,” out-of-state tuition will be assessed.

 

Readmission to the Graduate College

Students may not be admitted to a graduate degree or certificate that they have already earned at UNLV.  However, students may apply or reapply to any other UNLV graduate certificate or programs if it results in earning a different degree or certificate from the one(s) they have already earned. In these cases, students must submit a new application for admission, the required admission processing fee, and all supporting credentials required by the Graduate College and the new department or program. UNLV will not issue more than one of the same graduate degree or certificate to a student regardless of the track or concentration. 

If a student is admitted to a graduate program but fails to complete that program, this may impact future graduate program admissions decisions. Such assessments are made at the department or school level upon consideration of a prospective student’s application materials.

 

Rebelmail

Pre-admission communications are sent to the email address the student used to create their Grad Rebel Gateway Account. Once admitted and enrolled, students must use their Rebelmail accounts to communicate with UNLV faculty and staff members. Official Rebelmail email accounts are created for all admitted students. The addresses are all in the form of [ACE ID USERNAME]@unlv.nevada.edu. These accounts must be activated by the students online. Graduate students who are GAs or otherwise employed by UNLV will also be given a [ACE ID USERNAME]@unlv.edu employee account.

If a student wishes to redirect their UNLV official email to another email address, they may do so at their own risk. The university is not responsible for the handling of email by outside vendors or departmental/unit servers, none of which are considered official student email accounts. Having an email redirected does not absolve a student from the responsibilities associated with official communication sent to their [ACE ID]@unlv.nevada.edu account.

All official emails from UNLV to students are sent to UNLV email accounts. Students are expected to check their Rebelmail frequently in order to stay current with UNLV communications from the university, the student’s program, faculty/staff, the Graduate College, financial aid, etc. and to recognize that some communications will be time-sensitive. Students must ensure that there is sufficient space in their accounts to allow for delivery of official email communications and that UNLV emails do not go to their spam/junk mail folder. 

All students will receive emails from the Graduate College regularly while they are enrolled. Timely emails will be sent through the entire student lifecycle and cover everything from enrollment and policy reminders, to invitations to participate in The Grad Academy programming, to invitations to complete annual surveys, information about scholarships and funding opportunities, important deadlines, and much more. Emails continue through graduation, focusing on things such as graduation deadlines and requirements, our Doctoral Recognition Ceremony, and Commencement.

For more information, please see the UNLV email policy.

 

Rollover or Rollback of the Application

A rollover is a request to push an application for admission or admissions offer to the next admissions cycle. The Graduate College allows for one rollover per application. Students must make written rollover requests to the Graduate College via email (gradadmissions@unlv.edu) as early in the admissions process as possible. 

Rollbacks (for admission to a semester before the semester that the applicant applied for admission) are not allowed if the department application is closed for the new admit semester. In other words: a student may not apply to a future semester and be admitted for an earlier semester if the department application for the earlier semester is closed.

 

Transfer Credit Policy

Transfer credit approval is not guaranteed. The age of the transfer work under consideration may also be a factor in the decision as to whether or not the coursework is transferable. Students must submit a Transfer Credit Request Form, available on the Additional Forms tab in the Grad Rebel Gateway, in order to request the transfer in of coursework from other institutions. UNLV transfer credits taken prior to admission should be listed on the Plan of Study Part II form, but must still adhere to all of the transfer credit rules listed below. Transfer credits are subject to the approval of the academic department and the Vice Provost for Graduate Education and Dean of the Graduate College. On approval, a Graduate College Retention, Progression, & Completion (RPC) team member will post the transfer credits to the student’s record in MyUNLV.

Courses taken prior to admission to the current graduate program at UNLV or elsewhere, and/or post-admission from another institution, are subject to the following transfer credit rules:

  • The student is responsible for providing evidence and documentation as required.
  • No more than one-third of the minimum number of credits required for the degree or certificate (not including credits for thesis, dissertation, and professional/scholarly papers), to a maximum of 15 credits, may be transferred into a graduate program. 
  • Coursework must have been taken at a regionally accredited institution in the U.S. or international equivalent.
  • Experiential (life and work experiences), correspondence, and audited courses may not be transferred.
  • Coursework must be clearly designated and certifiably “graduate-level.”
  • Coursework must have been completed with a grade of B or higher (B- is not acceptable) on a 4.0 grading scale (B = 3.00, A = 4.00). 
  • During the COVID-19 pandemic, the university allowed graduate students to opt for Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory (S/U) grading for the following semesters: spring 2020, summer 2020, fall 2020, spring 2021, summer 2021, and fall 2021. From classes held in spring 2020 through fall 2021, the university considered letter grades of “B-” or higher as equivalent to “S”, and grades of “C+” or lower as equivalent to “U”. Graduate students in most programs (excluding students in some graduate programs due to licensure requirements) will be permitted to count up to six credits of “Satisfactory” graded coursework from summer 2020 through fall 2021 toward master’s or doctoral degree requirements.

    Beyond the COVID-19 exception described above, UNLV allows a maximum of three (3) graduate coursework satisfactory/unsatisfactory (S/U) units to apply towards a master’s degree, and up to six (6) credits of S/U or S/F coursework may be used toward doctoral degrees, excluding the S/U or S/F units allowed for the comprehensive examination, professional paper and thesis/dissertation units, but including transfer units. No pass/fail, satisfactory/unsatisfactory (S/U), satisfactory/fail (S/F), credits may be transferred in unless they were earned in the spring/summer/fall 2020 or 2021 semesters/trimesters/quarters during the COVID-19 pandemic. For graduate courses, a grade of “S” indicates achievement equivalent to a “B” or above. The grade of “U” represents performance equivalent to a “B-” or below.

  • Non-semester credits will be converted to semester credits for transfer.
  • Coursework must not have been used to earn any prior degree, at UNLV or elsewhere.
  • Coursework must not be a workshop, correspondence course, or career-related continuing education course.
  • Coursework must be posted to the student’s permanent academic record.
  • With program approval, students may occasionally be allowed to transfer in courses; in these cases, the coursework must be comparable in content, substance, and rigor to the coursework it is replacing in the student’s UNLV graduate Plan of Study.
  • Official transcripts covering the work must be sent directly from the issuing institution to the Graduate College.
  • For coursework taken outside the U.S., in addition to official transcripts, a course-by-course foreign credential evaluation from a NACES-approved agency must be submitted to the UNLV Graduate College as soon as possible after work has been completed.

 

Withdrawal of Application/Admission

Prior to an admission decision, applicants may submit application withdrawal requests to the Graduate College via email (gradadmissions@unlv.edu). Once an offer of admission is sent, students may decline admission in the Grad Rebel Gateway or submit a declination in writing to the Graduate College via email. The Graduate College does not offer application refunds, even when an application is withdrawn.

 

 

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