Spring Break
GAS rejected by more students
The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences had more applicants, but fewer accepted enrollment this year.
by Miranda Neubauer
Senior Writer
News | 1/15/08
Posted online at 4:46 AM EST on 1/15/08
While applications to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences increased by 12 percent last year and students' GRE scores rose, fewer students who were accepted chose to attend, according to GAS Dean Gregory Freeze.
Freeze attributed some of the rise in applications to a new online application process implemented last year. Still, only 39 percent of accepted students chose to attend compared with 50 percent in previous years. The GAS will try to increase that number by creating a more "proactive and aggressive" admissions process, Freeze said. A new assistant dean of admissions, David Cotter, was hired in 2007.
Part of the new admissions process will include appealing to Brandeis undergraduates by promoting an "inside track," Freeze said. He added that GAS would present the master's program at Brandeis as an easy opportunity for a fifth year of study at a familiar location with existing student-faculty relationships.
According to Freeze, about one-third of GAS students are master's students and two-thirds are doctoral students. The stipends offered to doctoral students are not as competitive as they need to be, he said, and students chose not to attend because other universities offered them more money.
Freeze said he is working with the administration to increase those stipends in the University's budget. He said an investment was crucial for the future of the graduate school as well as Brandeis' reputation as a research university.
Top schools such as Harvard and Princeton Universities, he said, offer 12-month fellowships that include summer funding in order to help graduate students pay for rent and other living expenses. So far, Brandeis only provides those types of programs in the sciences, he said. "[Summer funding] means they don't work at McDonald's in the summer," he said.
Instead, he said, when students can focus on their academic work full-time, they tend to finish their degrees faster, minimizing the possibility of attrition. Doctoral students generally do not need to pay tuition, Freeze said.
Freeze attributed some of the rise in applications to a new online application process implemented last year. Still, only 39 percent of accepted students chose to attend compared with 50 percent in previous years. The GAS will try to increase that number by creating a more "proactive and aggressive" admissions process, Freeze said. A new assistant dean of admissions, David Cotter, was hired in 2007.
Part of the new admissions process will include appealing to Brandeis undergraduates by promoting an "inside track," Freeze said. He added that GAS would present the master's program at Brandeis as an easy opportunity for a fifth year of study at a familiar location with existing student-faculty relationships.
According to Freeze, about one-third of GAS students are master's students and two-thirds are doctoral students. The stipends offered to doctoral students are not as competitive as they need to be, he said, and students chose not to attend because other universities offered them more money.
Freeze said he is working with the administration to increase those stipends in the University's budget. He said an investment was crucial for the future of the graduate school as well as Brandeis' reputation as a research university.
Top schools such as Harvard and Princeton Universities, he said, offer 12-month fellowships that include summer funding in order to help graduate students pay for rent and other living expenses. So far, Brandeis only provides those types of programs in the sciences, he said. "[Summer funding] means they don't work at McDonald's in the summer," he said.
Instead, he said, when students can focus on their academic work full-time, they tend to finish their degrees faster, minimizing the possibility of attrition. Doctoral students generally do not need to pay tuition, Freeze said.
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