Dear Program Directors,
Thank you all for attending the fall 2014 Graduate Program Directors’ meeting on Tuesday. Below you
will find a breakdown of many of the issues dealt with during the meeting as well as contact information
for those speakers in case you have additional questions.
Announcements / Reminders:
New Graduate Scholarships: http://www.missouristate.edu/FinancialAid/scholarships/Graduate.htm
 Need-Based Scholarship for Graduate Students
 Graduate Scholarships for Enhancing Diversity
McNair Scholar Graduate Assistantships:
http://graduate.missouristate.edu/currentstudents/mcnairassist.htm
 McNair Scholars are highly sought after when they graduate, and we would like to have more of
them entering graduate programs at Missouri State University. The Graduate College is
encouraging graduate programs to recruit McNair Scholars, and is trying to help. To this end, it
is offering to fund next year 1-2 special graduate assistantships (monthly stipend and tuition
waiver) for graduate students who were McNair Scholars. Applications for these assistantships
must include letters of recommendation, and are due in the Graduate College by April.
Tracking Active Students / Inactive Students: The tracking of graduate numbers takes into
consideration students who were admitted but never attended class. These “inactivate students” are
not counted in the numbers.
Pass/No Pass Transcripts (Western Governors University): More and more students are coming from
Pass/No Pass institutions. Graduate Admissions cannot send these applicants to your department
without a GPA. Graduate Admissions has chosen to change these applicants to an ‘A – Action Required
by Student” followed by an email in which the Program Director will be carbon copied. Program
Directors can choose to have the application sent to them in accordance with the Graduate Catalog;
however, Graduate Admissions will need a written/email request.
Legal Issues: If you have legal questions related to your position as Program Director please contact Dr.
Tom Tomasi and/or contact University Counsel Rachael Dockery.
Degree Audits: Degree audits will be arriving for Graduate students in October 2015. Training sessions
will be forthcoming as soon as possible.
Application for Graduation: Application to Graduate and to complete graduate certificate are now
available through the My Missouri State web portal. This can be found under the Academic Tab /
Commencement Channel
Upcoming Sessions for Program Directors:
International Services & English Language Institute (Conditional Admission): Members of International
Services will be on hand to go over the credential evaluation process and to answer questions.
Members of the English Language Institute
Legal Issues: If you have legal questions related to your position as Program Director please contact Dr.
Tom Tomasi and/or contact University Counsel Rachael Dockery. The Graduate College intends to hold a
small session to discuss legal issues in the coming semester.
Recruiter Information Session: An opportunity to sit down with recruiters (Misty Stewart, Jane Robison,
Steve Robinette, et al.) will hopefully be coming in the Spring semester. As of now we believe it will be
included with the Legal Issues session for Program Directors.
Graduate Admissions:
Graduate Admissions Quarterly Newsletter: Next edition is scheduled for November 15th.
Communication Plan Updates: All new graduate applicants receive a phone call thanking them for their
submitting their application and offering our services to help with the application process.
Last 60 hour calculations: The last 60 hour calculation done by Graduate Admissions is now available as
a document in GRADS Dashboard’s View Document section. Please feel free to review our work and
make sure you don’t see any errors. We are only human over here!
GRADS Dashboard Manual: Graduate Admissions has put together a manual to help with those new to
GRADS Dashboard. This is available upon request.
GRE Percentiles: The actual document provided by ETS for the GRE score is now available through
GRADS Dashboard. The GRE Percentile is more easily available on this. We hope to eventually make the
GRE Percentile available with the other GRE scores, but this will have to work for now.
Statement of Purpose/Writing Sample: The Statement of Purpose/Writing Sample from the Graduate
application and International Graduate application have been made available through GRADS
Dashboard.
Credential Evaluation:
 Grade Equivalency: The grade equivalency for all international transcripts is available in GRADS
Dashboard in the Credential evaluation section.
 English Language Institute: All current ELI students will be identified in the Credential evaluation
section of GRADS Dashboard. This is to give Program Directors the option to interview ELI
applicants before making an admission decision.
Electronic Transcripts: Electronic transcripts are being used more and more by applicants to Missouri
State University as part of Missouri legislation passed in the last year. Electronic transcripts appear as all
white and black as opposed to the old color transcripts. The quality is generally always better.
Questions from the Survey:
Reapplication Process:
 Question: “Eliminating the re-admission process as unnecessary, or at least giving
students five years before they need to be readmitted”.
 Answer: University policy requires updated biographical information from a person
after one year has passed and the applicant has not attended classes.


Why?: If the student has been gone for more than one year, then the student could
have had legal issues that need to be updated in the disciplinary history. The student
may have taken classes elsewhere during his/her time away. The applicant may have
moved addresses or changed his/her phone number and email. This critical biographical
information needs to be updated for the university.
How to remedy?: If the applicant is gone for less than one year then applicant needs
only to send Graduate Admissions an email and have the Program Director readmit
him/her in GRADS Dashboard. (Program Directors will be carbon copied on the email
responding to the student’s request to be readmitted).
General Orientation for New Program Directors:
 Question: Is a general orientation give for new Program Directors?
 Answer: The Graduate College offers two options for new Program Directors:
o Make an appointment with Michael Edwards
(MichaelEdwards@missouristate.edu) to have him come to your office to give
you a run down on GRADS Dashboard and the admissions’ process.
o Make an appointment with Michael Edwards for you to come to the Graduate
College (Carrington Hall, Rm. 308) to have a sit down with Christy Graham
(Degree Audit, Graduation), Misty Stewart (Recruitment), Carla Coorts (C Grade
Letters), Tom Tomasi (Associate Dean) and Michael Edwards (Admissions).
Last 60 hours:
 Question: “Please explain why applications are sent to the department when GRE
scores are not listed”.
 Answer: The GRE is a program-specific requirement. A complete application for the
Graduate College is when an application has met the following:
o 1. Application,
o 2. App fee,
o 3. Bachelor degree transcripts
o 4. 2.75 GPA or meets one of the alternative criteria
 Answer: An email is sent to all Program Directors when an applicant at status ‘S – Sent
to Department’ receives a GRE score.
GRE Scores:
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Question: “Please explain why applications are sent to the department when the last 60
credit hours are not listed”.
Answer: All international applications have a last 60 hour calculation made and will
never be sent to the department without one.
Answer: Only domestic applications with a GPA below 3.00 have a last 60 hour
calculation done. Our time is limited and we must restrict our help to what can be the
most helpful to the most departments.
Improving GRADS Dashboard:
 Question: “When will updates be made to GRADS Dashboard to make it more userfriendly?”
 Answer: The Graduate College has made numerous requests to GRADS Dashboard to
make it more user-friendly. Unfortunately, Management Information Systems (MIS) has
limited time and can only do so much with updates. These are some of the updates we
have made that we are still waiting on:
o 2/1/2010 – Ability to have applicants submit documentation electronically.
o 7/1/2010 – Add ability to email all documents to a set of recipients.
o 7/1/2010 – Add the “personal statement” information to the Admission
Recommendation form.
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o
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8/2/2010 – Allow programs to annotate documents through GRADS
12/16/2010 – Multiple GRADS Access Assignments per person
12/16/2010 – Allow GRADS users to change email notification settings
9/13/2013 – Change term codes to readable format
12/12/2013 – Extra notes from Graduate College
1/9/2014 – GRADS needs better Mac support
3/27/2014 – Sent to department emails to departmental mailboxes
4/25/2014 – Change message for not authorized condition
5/22/2014 – GRADS and term-coded documents
5/29/2014 – Accelerated Master’s filter
6/16/2014 – GRADS Test Score column
Answer: Requests for additions to GRADS Dashboard can be made to
MichaelEdwards@missouristate.edu. We will request the addition; however, we cannot
provide an ETA on updates. Some are very quick and easy and others are not at all.
GRADS Dashboard:
 Question: “How to clear my GRADS Dashboard folders every semester. We have many
students not admitted”.
 Answer: Graduate Admissions inactivates all applications without a decision (‘I’, ‘C’, ‘S’,
‘G’) four weeks into the semester. These applications will disappear unless you check
the Include Inactive Applications in GRADS Dashboard (as shown in the picture below to
the left of the Apply Filters button)
Add Documents to GRADS Dashboard:
 Question: “How to add information (departmental application materials to GRADS
Dashboard)”.
 Answer: This is a technical process to setup, but once in place can be very easy. Please
contact Michael Edwards at MichaelEdwards@missouristate.edu to arrange a sit down
to discuss how this can be implemented for your departmental materials.
Emails Sent by Graduate College to Applicants:
 Question: “Emails sent to students from Grad College regarding contact the program
coordinator”.
 Answer: Updates have been made to the Graduate Admissions’ Communication Plan.
This includes phone calls to all new applicants as well as monthly emails to applicants to
remind them of missing documents.
 Answer: A monthly email to all applicants at ‘S – Sent to Department’ reminds
applicants’ of their application status and informs them to contact the Program Director
if they are unsure whether they are missing program-specific application documents. It
also indicates in the email that if they have already been in recent contact with the
Program Director to ignore the email.
Pending Transcripts:
 Question: Why does the transcript indicate ‘Pending’ in GRADS Dashboard?

Answer: A ‘Pending’ transcript indicates that the transcript received by Graduate
Admissions did not show final conferment of a degree and a degree date. A ‘Pending’
transcript means the applicant must send a final transcript before being able to register
for the second semester of classes.
Post-Baccalaureate Process:
 Question: “Post-baccalaureate students/process”
 Answer: Missouri Outreach handles the Post-Baccalaureate process. Questions can be
directed to Outreach@missouristate.edu.
o Complete a Course Enrollment Form:
http://adultstudents.missouristate.edu/enrlform.htm
o Delivery Course Enrollment Form:
 Fax it to 417-836-4949
 Hand-deliver it to Missouri Outreach
 Mail it.
o Applicants can register for classes on the form.
o Graduate Admissions will mail an acceptance letter once admitted as a PB
student.

Grade Conversion Scales (International Transcripts):
 Question: “Where can I find grade conversions for international transcripts?”
 Answer: In GRADS Dashboard under Credential Evaluation (The ‘C’ to the left of the
BearPass Number). Under Placement Recommendations the text box will display the
grade conversion scales for that transcripts’ country.
Statement of Purpose:
 The Statement of Purpose has been added back to the graduate application and made
available in GRADS Dashboard. In GRADS Dashboard click on ‘V – View Applicant
Materials’ located to the left of the BearPass number.

The statement of purpose will appear in the following format:
Alternate Pathways – (Online) / (Evening) designations on each graduate program:
 For questions about alternate pathways contact Ann Herring at
AnnHerring@missouristate.edu or 417-836-6660.
 For changes complete the Alternate Pathways form:
http://outreach.missouristate.edu/alternatepathwayform.htm.
Online Articulation Agreements:
 For questions about alternate pathways contact Dr. Gary Rader at
GaryRader@missouristate.edu or 417-836-7619.
 Missouri State Outreach webpage:
http://outreach.missouristate.edu/missouristateonline.htm
 Missouri State Online Faculty Support Services:
http://outreach.missouristate.edu/onlinefacultysupport.htm
If you have any questions please feel free to ask any time.
Cordially,
Graduate Admissions
Missouri State University
Graduate College
901 S. National Ave.
Springfield, MO 65897
phone 417-836-5330 | fax 417-836-6200
GraduateAdmissions@MissouriState.edu|http://graduate.missouristate.edu/
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