Admission
How Do I Apply for Admission?
There are two steps to becoming a graduate student in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Arkansas.
- Get accepted by the International Admissions Office.
- Get accepted by the Department of Electrical Engineering.
The web site and Email address for the admissions office are given below. A good way to begin is to read the web site of the admissions office. You can apply through the web site, or by mail.
After a student is evaluated by the International Admissions Office, if he or she meets the basic Graduate School admission requirements, then the student's file will be sent to the Department of Electrical Engineering for evaluation.
There is a committee in the Electrical Engineering Department that accepts or rejects potential graduate students. The International Admissions Office sends all information to the Electrical Engineering Department, so you do not have to send it again.
In summary, you need to apply through the International Admissions Office and interact with them to complete your file so that they can do the evaluation. Once they have your application, they will correspond with you to let you know if anything is needed to complete your file. Once it is complete, they will evaluate it and then send your file to the Electrical Engineering Department for a final admission decision.
Admission's Office Addresses
Mailing Address
International Admissions Office
180 DICX
University of Arkansas
Fayetteville, AR 72701 USA
Phone & Email Address
Phone: (479) 575-6246
Email: iao@uark.edu
Websites
The web site for the International Admissions Office is:
http://www.uark.edu/ua/iao/ .
Domestic U.S. students should apply through the following website:
http://www.uark.edu/depts/gradinfo/recruit/applying.html .
Requirements for Admission
For the masters degree program in the Electrical Engineering Department, a student must have a grade point average of at least 2.85 (based on a 4.0 system)on all undergraduate work, or else a 3.20 average or above on the last 60 hours of undergraduate course work. Note that this is higher than the minimum requirement for the University of Arkansas Graduate School. Also, the sum of a student's verbal and quantitative GRE scores must be at least 1100 unless his or her undergraduate degree is from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and GPA is at least 3.0.
For the Ph.D. program, there must be a faculty member in the Department of Electrical Engineering who is willing to be your major advisor. Once you are accepted by the Graduate School, your file will be circulated among the faculty of the Electrical Engineering Department to see if there is a faculty member who is willing to serve as your major advisor and supervise your dissertation. A GRE score of at least 1100 is also required for the Ph.D. program unless the student's M.S. degree is from the University of Arkansas.
The main requirement for being accepted into the Ph.D. program is that a faculty member must be found who is willing to serve as your major professor. Failure to find a major professor is the most common reason for Ph.D. applications being rejected. It may be helpful to contact by email faculty who are doing research in your area of interest. Please do not spam the entire faculty. Only contact faculty who are doing research in your area of interest. Please consult the appropriate specialty area page for a list of the faculty doing research in your specialty area. A summary of the research being done by each faculty member can also be found on the faculty directory page.
Since the Electrical Engineering graduate program receives many more applications than the department has faculty or money to support, admission is competitive. Meeting the minimum requirements listed above does not guarantee admission to the program.
Deadlines for Admission Application
Decisions on admission for the Fall 2008 semester will be made on two dates, April 22 & June 10. The Electrical Engineering Graduate Committee will meet on April 22 to decide which applicants to admit and which to deny. The Graduate Committee will meet again on June 10 to make decisions on applications received between April 22 & June 10. Students will be notified of decisions by email within a week of each meeting.
An application and all of it's supporting material (transcripts, statement of purpose, letters of recommendation, etc.) must be received by the International Admissions Office about two weeks before the Graduate Committee meets in order to be considered. It takes that long to get through the International Admissions Office and for review by the Electrical Engineering Department prior to the meeting. Be aware that there are often long delays during which the Admissions Office is waiting to receive supporting materials for an application. An application will not be processed and sent to the Electrical Engineering Department until all supporting materials have been received.
Miscellaneous
Department of Electrical Engineering Contact Information
If you have a question that needs to be answered by the Department of Electrical Engineering instead of by the Admissions Office, contact the Department of Electrical Engineering Graduate Coordinator, Randy Brown, at rlb02@uark.edu.
Statement of Purpose
Be sure that your statement of purpose describes the specialty area within electrical engineering that you wish to pursue. The specialty areas pages of this web site describe common specialty areas and list the faculty doing research in each area.
I 20
I 20's are issued by the International Admissions Office instead of by the Electrical Engineering Department. If you have questions about your I 20, please contact the International Admissions Office at iao@uark.edu.
