Graduate Studies

As you can expect, graduate school is a much different experience than working towards your bachelor’s degree. You can expect smaller class sizes, in-depth discussions with faculty and peers, more rigorous reading and writing assignments, and a focus on topics specific to your discipline. There is a lot of information available within the School of Graduate Studies website, wiu.edu/grad, that you should familiarize yourself with. We handle graduate admissions, registration problems, graduate assistantships, and everything through degree verification. Most issues relating to graduate education can be handled in our office. Please contact us whenever you need assistance.


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Policies

The policies of the School of Graduate Studies are your responsibility to know. First, make sure that you are regularly checking your WIU email. All official communication from the University will be sent to that email address. Next, the graduate catalog is your instruction manual containing your program requirements, rules and regulations of the graduate school. You should review the academic guidelines and policies section before classes begin. It is also important to ask your department if they have their own handbook.

Graduate students are only allowed to receive 6 hours of C or lower grades in most programs. Programs that require more than 46 credit hours allow 9 hours with the exceptions of Counseling and Speech Pathology. Students that receive more than the allowable amount are not eligible to earn a degree from WIU. You also must earn at least a 3.0 GPA to receive your degree. Grades from undergraduate courses are not calculated in the graduate GPA and any 400-level course must have a G designation to count for graduate credit. Grade replacement is allowed at the graduate level but must be requested by petition before the course begins. Other policies can be found at the below links.