Prospective Students Frequently Asked Questions

Be sure to visit our Future Students website for an additional information about pursuing graduate studies at the University of Arizona.

If you are a domestic student and an Arizona Resident you will need to complete the Residency Classification process. Only students who are claiming Arizona Residency need to complete this process. Check here for residency requirements or contact the Residency Classification office at (520)621-3636 or at REG-rco@email.arizona.edu.

To apply to separate programs or a dual degree program, you will have to submit two separate applications. However, you will not have to enter your personal information and previous schools more than once. This information is part of your profile, which gets submitted along with every application that you submit. You can work on multiple applications at the same time. On the menu at your left, under 'My Applications', click the 'Start a new application' link at any time to begin a new application. This will not affect the applications that you have already started.

The best way is to contact the department you intend to study with. They will determine if your file is complete and when it will be presented to their admissions committee for review.

Applicants may log back in to GradApp to check their application status at any time.  Once your application is in our system, it will be visible to your program of interest for review.  The Graduate College will await an admissions decision from your program of interest.  Departmental review timelines vary, however, the Graduate College will send applicants an email with the departmental decision the very same day it is entered.  After a applicant is recommended, the department should forward any official transcripts they have received to the Graduate College.  The Graduate College will notify applicants if any items are missing only after the program has recommended admission.

Contact your department of interest and the Financial Aid office. The Graduate College sponsors many different programs but all decisions about funding are done at the departmental level. Only your department can tell you their particular funding options and what may be available to you. The Financial Aid office can assist domestic students with student loans and grants only after a FAFSA form has been completed.

The Graduate College administers a handful of Funding Opportunities. Current UA students can browse many more opportunities at the UA's Scholarship Universe.

Applying for Graduate Admission can be done completely online using GradApp, our Graduate Admissions Application.

Some academic departments also have a separate application process for their program. Please be sure to consult any program-specific application procedures outlined in our Graduate Admissions Guide and/or in the application instructions within GradApp.

Applicants who wish to apply to multiple graduate programs will need to submit a separate application for each program and pay the application fee for each application. The Graduate College will send you an e-mail confirmation that will serve as your receipt for your online application.

Departmental contact information is listed in the Graduate Admissions Guide. Select the program you are interested in and view contact information along with a description of admissions requirements for the program of study. Some departments keep very specific instructions in this area, others supply general information only, but all departments will provide a link to their specific department websites.

Mailing addresses, phone & fax numbers, and links to more specific directories can be found on our Contact Information page.

The University of Arizona's institution code for sending official electronic score reports from ETS is 4832. Once received, your scores will be matched to your student record and will be available to any department that views your record. Please contact the department you intend to study with regarding their specific score requirements. If you are unable to submit the scores electronically, please email your results to the Office of Graduate Admissions at gradadmissions@grad.arizona.edu.   

All transcripts uploaded to GradApp to complete your application are considered unofficial.   If your program of interest requests official transcripts be sent directly to their office, the department will forward those official transcripts to the Graduate College if you are recommended for admission. 

If you are admitted "Subject To" providing the Graduate College with final official transcripts with your degree posted, you may ask your institution or clearinghouse to send official electronic transcripts to:  transcripts@grad.arizona.edu, or mail/deliver paper documents to:  Graduate College, University of Arizona, Administration 322, PO Box 210066, Tucson, AZ 85721-0066

When entering a previous school, major, start date, and end date are required fields and must be filled out, even if you did not earn a degree. If you did not have a major for a previous school, enter N/A or none.

You can try simplifying your search criteria. For example, try searching only for Arizona instead of University of Arizona in the school name field.

If you still cannot find your institution, it may not be in our database of known institutions. In that case, your search results will be followed by the following text: "If no institutions match your institution, please search again or add a school." The words "add a school" will be hyper-linked. You'll need to click the link, and you'll then be presented with a form to enter the information for that school. You'll need to fill out ALL fields for the school, including start and end dates, as well as degree date if you received a degree.

If you earned multiple degrees from a single institution, you must enter that school multiple times, each time with a single degree listed. If you earned one degree but had a double major, you can type both of your majors into the form.

Contact the department you intend to study with and ensure you have submitted all supporting documents. You may check the status of your application at any time by logging back into your GradApp account.

Contact the Graduate College by sending an email to gradadmissions@grad.arizona.edu.

If you're having technical difficulties, please include the answers to the following questions so that we can help you more quickly.

  • What Operating System are you using (Windows, Macintosh, Ubuntu, Red Hat, etc.)?
  • What web browser are you using (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc.) and what version?
  • What is the web page address (URL) you're accessing?
  • If you see any error messages, what do they say?
  1. If you are uncertain about your password, you might consider resetting it by clicking the Forgot your password? link under the login form.
  2. If you originally created your account automatically by logging in with your UA NetID, or if you converted your account to use UA NetID after submitting an application, then use the WebAuth link to login.
  3. It may be that your browser is having trouble storing your login session. Please try a few things:
    1. Make sure your computer's date and time are set correctly, as an incorrect setting can interfere with your browser's ability to store your authenticated session.
    2. If your computer's date and time are correct, try clearing your browser cache.
    3. If, after clearing your cache you are still unable to login, please try clearing your cookies. This will expire any logins you have to other websites (if you've checked "remember me" on websites like Facebook or Gmail, for instance).
    4. If you're still not able to login, please check your web browser settings and verify that cookies are enabled.
    5. Try logging in with a different browser.  (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, etc.)
    6. Finally, it may be that your internet service provider is using a proxy that is interfering with your ability to save your login session. If this is the case, it would be worth trying again from a computer at another location, such as at a public institution, library, or university as these are often setup without proxy-related restrictions.
  4. If you have been asked to provide a Letter of Recommendation for an applicant to one of our graduate programs, please be certain you are trying to login to the Letter of Recommendation module rather than the main GradApp user interface.

If you're attempting to attach/upload one or more documents that were requested by the department, please keep in mind that our system does not allow single files larger than 2 megabytes in size to be uploaded.

Many programs require you to submit an additional application to the department that administers the program. Be sure to contact the department to make sure that you are fullfilling all of the application requirements.

Send an email to gradadmissions@grad.arizona.edu and someone will get back to you, usually within 24 hours, but definitely within 3 business days. If it is an urgent problem, please indicate this in your email.

Contact your department regarding their required documents. They are the only ones who can extend deadline dates or make special allowances for items arriving late.

Our system will not allow you to create multiple applications for the same combination of academic program and term.

We use a secure, third-party vendor to process credit card payments. Normally, your payment will be automatically reflected in your application, however on occasion the vendor service can fail to update GradApp, making it appear the payment failed. If you believe this has happened to you, and/or you subsequently paid the application fee more than once for the same application, please e-mail gradadmissions@grad.arizona.edu. Be prepared to provide us with details of the failed or duplicate charges. We will need to know your name and student ID (if known), when you applied, how you applied, and the details of why you believe you were charged more than once. Please contact your banking institution to verify that multiple charges have not already been voided before contacting the Graduate College.

The Graduate College does not have posted application deadline dates. Please check the Graduate Admissions Guide for individual program deadlines.

You are not required to submit Financial Guarantee documents with your application. After final admission, International Student Services will contact you regarding immigration document processing.  Students will be required to submit a Financial Guarantee form before any visa documents can be processed. If you receive departmental funding, this funding may be applied towards your total financial guarantee. If you do not require visa documents, you will not need to submit a Financial Guarantee. 

Refer to our Graduate Admissions Guide for admissions requirements and check the University Catalog for additional program completion requirements.  For more detailed inquiries, please contact the Academic Units directly.

To guarantee that you receive the email that will be sent to you, you should configure your email program to accept all emails from gradadmissions@grad.arizona.edu. If you do not know how to do that and you don't receive your email within a few minutes after submitting the form, be sure to check that it hasn't been put in your SPAM or JUNK folder.

We have received occasional reports of emails from our system not being delivered by overseas mail servers. In all cases, this has been the result of the configuration of the receiving networks and, unfortunately, not in our power to remedy.