|
Initial Steps for New Graduate Students
Progression, Forms, and Milestones
Transfer Credit Policy
Online Surveys and Mandatory Annual Individual Development Plans
Early-career students are defined as students who are working on completing the first third of the coursework required for their degree.
Initial Steps for New Graduate Students
- Students should identify their initial advisor or contact their graduate coordinator listed in their Grad Rebel Gateway portal or on the Degrees Directory which also houses the program handbook.
- Students must complete the mandatory new graduate student orientation online modules provide by the Graduate College so they can get information on important policies, access to campus resources, and more.
- New graduate students must also complete any orientation/meeting for their specific programs as an opportunity to get to know fellow incoming students, meet faculty, and access information they will need as they are starting their program.
- New GAs must attend the GA orientation to learn more about their role and responsibilities.
- Students are encouraged to engage with the Graduate College and the GPSA to become involved with the larger graduate community and take advantage of the many free resources available to students.
Progression, Forms, and Milestones
- Early-career students must satisfy any admissions conditions or provisions as specified on their admissions offer letter (see Admission status and classification of students ).
- Students needing to declare a subplan (concentration or track) or change a plan or subplan, should do so during the early-career stage by contacting their Graduate College RPC coordinator who will work with the student and their department.
- Students who need a Graduate Advisory Committee (GAC) should identify a faculty mentor and begin working on establishing their full GAC. Students needing a GAC will see the Appointment of Advisory Committee form in the Required Forms page in their Grad Rebel Gateway account. All students completing a thesis, dissertation, or doctoral project are required to have a GAC. Students who need a Graduate Faculty Advisor should work with their department to identify that individual. Students needing a Graduate Faculty Advisor will see that form on their Required Forms page in the Grad Rebel Gateway.
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 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. (Plan of Study Part II forms are located on the student’s program page in the Degrees Directory website). 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.
- Passing qualifying exam results and coursework from a regionally accredited institution in the U.S. or international equivalent may possibly be accepted if appealed and approved by the admitting program and department faculty, academic dean, and vice provost for graduate education and dean of the Graduate College. However, the student must undergo a prospectus defense with a UNLV graduate advisory committee.
- 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 and the December 6, 2023 campus incident, the university allowed graduate students to opt for Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory (S/U) grading for the following semesters: (i) during COVID-10: spring 2020, summer 2020, fall 2020, spring 2021, summer 2021, and fall 2021and (ii) during the December 6, 2023 campus incident: fall 2023. From classes held in spring 2020 through fall 2021 and then in fall 2023, 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/accreditation requirements) will be permitted to count up to six credits of “Satisfactory” graded coursework from spring 2020 through fall 2021 and additional three credits of “Satisfactory” graded coursework from fall 2023 toward master’s or doctoral degree requirements.
- Beyond the COVID-19 and the December 6 incident exceptions 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 or the fall 2023 semester during the December 6 incident. 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.
- Coursework must adhere to the Course Credit Expiration policy.
- Those applicants who have taken classes at a college or university during high school or any time before their application to UNLV must submit a separate official transcript from each institution attended regardless of whether credit was earned or not. All students using VA Education benefits are required to send military transcripts for transfer credit evaluation (38 CFR 21.4253, 21.4254, 21.4263).
Online Surveys and Mandatory Annual Individual Development Plans
Please see Stay Connected & Informed section of this Catalog.
Navigation:
Next: Mid-Career Students
Previous: The Graduate Student Lifecycle
|