Admission Requirements for Education Doctoral Programs at Top 20 American Universities

By Walker, Gabriela

A quantitative analysis of the admissions requirements guidelines of the education doctoral programs at the top 20 American universities was conducted. An Internet search was used to obtain information on top-ranked world and U.S. universities. Admission requirements typically include, at minimum, an application fee (mean 55.5 USD), previous coursework GPA (mean 3.40), previous field experience, GRE scores (mean 542.8 for Verbal and 617.7 for Quantitative), TOEFL scores (mean 570.7 for the Paper Based Test), professional writing sample(s), letters of recommendation, and enrollment. Results indicate that the admission requirements and perhaps the quality of the instruction of the top 20 graduate education programs in the U.S. is comparable to that of the top 20 universities around the world and to that of the top 20 universities in the U.S. Education is currently a field of growing employment needs in order to develop and provide better services and opportunities for individuals who need it in the areas of administration, counseling, curriculum, educational psychology, education policy, elementary education, secondary education, higher education, special education, vocational education, and related areas. The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act has been in effect since President George W. Bush signed it on January 8, 2002. NCLB emphasizes stronger teacher accountability for results, flexibility in the use of federal education funds, usage of educational methods shown to be effective by means of research guidelines, and increased informed choices for parents (U.S. Department of Education, 2004). Some jobs that involve research or administration require persons with doctorate level training to maximize continued progress in this area.

Many of the top education graduate programs are offered at American universities. In one of the few rankings available on the World Wide Web of best universities in the world, Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Web site (2006) ranks 17 U.S. universities among the best 20 in the world (also see India Education.Net, 2006; MSNBC, 2006; National University of Singapore, 2006). Eleven of the best universities from the Jiao Tong University’s Web site are also listed in a U.S. News & World Report ranking (2006b) of the best 20 universities in the U.S.A. Of the American universities with the best graduate programs in education according to the US News & World Report assessment (2006c), six are among the best 20 universities in the world, and five are among the best 20 universities in the U.S.A.

Educational attainment may be an important income predictor. One would conclude that opportunities to earn a high-er salary should increase with the number or the level of degrees that one attains. A table compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau and entitled “Earnings by Occupation and Education, United States, Both Sexes” (2005), summarizes data from the 2000 census and suggests that people with an advanced degree (defined as higher than a bachelor’s degree) earned, on average, 2.02 times more than high school graduates. Furthermore, the table shows that people with high school diplomas were earning incomes which had increased 1.5-fold by the end of their employment career, whereas people with advanced degrees were earning incomes that had increased 2.2fold by the end of their careers. According to the 2000 census, 15.54% of the American workforce had earned a bachelor’s degree, and 8.86% had earned a graduate degree (Free Demographics.Com, 2005). Two of the highest graduate degrees are Doctor of Philosophy (Ph. D. – Philosophiez Doctor) and Doctor of Education (Ed. D. or D. Ed. – Doctor Educationis). While a Ph. D. program typically prepares students for research positions, an Ed. D. degree may prepare individuals for research, teaching, or administration positions in colleges and universities. Both degrees may lead to leadership positions in various educational agencies.

An extensive literature search revealed no surveys focusing on admission requirements in doctoral programs. The purpose of this manuscript is to provide prospective candidates to education doctoral programs with an up-dated guideline as to the quality, admission requirements, and geographical setting of 20 of the best academic programs in the U.S. The ten areas of education investigated herein are: (1) Administration/Supervision; (2) Counseling/Personnel Services; (3) Curriculum/ Instruction; (4) Educational Psychology; (5) Education Policy; (6) Elementary Education; (7) Higher Education Administration; (8) secondary Education ; (9) Special Education; and (10) Vocational/Technical. In addition, the survey may provide parents and practitioners with information about the top 20 education doctoral preparation programs in the country. Hopefully, this survey will also encourage more individuals to choose to study a field in the area of education and pursue higher degrees in order to contribute to the improvement of services for individuals who need them, and to extend the body of research in the area of education. A statistical analysis may provide the administration personnel of various colleges and universities with a consistent report about other universities’ requirements and may assist in developing a more homogeneous collection of requirements variables.

Methodology

What started as a government-backed military project in 1969 (Hafner & Lyon, 1996; Naughton, 2000; Webopedia, 2006), namely the Internet, is now having an immense, and growing array of uses. Uses of the Internet and the World Wide Web currently include: (1) rapid retrieval of information; (2) dissemination of audio, video, or written information; (3) communication and interconnection; (4) searching for data and services; (5) distance learning; (6) numerous uses in the classroom; and (7) interdisciplinary resource use (Everett, 2002; Isaacson, 2002).

The Internet was used here to obtain information on top-ranked U.S. universities, which offered doctoral level programs in ten areas of education, the entrance requirements for those universities and programs, and other topics related to the focus of this survey. Web searches were initially conducted using well-known search engines (Google, Yahoo, and MSN) and keywords such as “top universities”, “world rank universities”, and “rank colleges” in order to obtain a ranking of top universities around the world and within the U.S. A search of the universities’ Web sites was subsequently conducted using any keyword which constituted a variable targeted in this survey, such as “education”, “doctoral program”, “admission”, “application”, “GRE”, “fee”, and combinations of these. A third search was conducted on the official Web site of the U.S. News and World Report, where a subscription to the Premium Online edition provided a comprehensive list of universities with the top-rated programs in the United States. When the information from these main sources was insufficient or unclear, an email message or a phone call to the admission officer was necessary to obtain the needed information. The criteria for inclusion of the first-ranked 20 education programs in the U.S. were that: (1) the university had to offer one of the ten education specializations; (2) the university had to offer a Ph. D. or Ed. D. in one of the areas of education; (3) the education program had to be ranked among the top 20 in the U.S.; (4) the university had to be accredited; and (5) the university had to have a Web site. [For more information about how the school rankings were made, see U.S. News & World Report (2006a), and for details about accreditation of schools, refer to the Graduate Guide (2006)].

Results

The search revealed several rankings of American universities at the U.S. News & World Report Web site (2006a; 2006b; 2006c) and at other Web sites which cited the U.S. News & World Report ranking. Additionally, the search produced information about minimum admission requirements in doctoral education programs in the top 20 universities in the U.S. for 2006 (Tables 1 and 2). The ranking from the U.S. News & World Report was accepted for the purposes of this survey because (1) this ranking was cited at all other visited Web sites that provided a university ranking, (2) this publication has journalistic prestige (U.S. News & World Report, 2006e), and (3) the company’s staff conducted a stringent and thorough analysis of information in order to come to their conclusions.

The doctoral education programs investigated include ten specialties: (1) administration and/or supervision in education; (2) counseling and/or personnel services; (3) curriculum and/or instruction; (4) educational psychology; (5) education policy; (6) elementary education; (7) higher education administration; (8) secondary education; (9) special education; and (10) vocational and/ or technical education. For a candidate to be considered for admission into an education doctoral program at any of the 20 top special education doctoral programs investigated, the following items must be submitted: (1) an application and processing fee; (2) a letter of intent (sometimes referred to as a letter of aspiration or statement of goals); (3) two official transcripts of all previous college work (i.e., bachelor’s and master’s level coursework at accredited colleges or universities in the U.S. or at equivalent foreign institutions); (4) three to five letters of reference; (5) official scores from the Graduate Record Examination (GRE); (7) a minimum Grade Point Average (GPA) report; and (6) official scores from the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), if applicable (Table 2). All documents must be submitted by the admission/application deadlines, typically approximately six months prior to the semester for which the candidate wishes to be accepted. Some colleges also ask for a curriculum vitae and/or an interview, tape, or for a video recording with answers to questions selected by the admission committee. Some programs require an additional scholarly written sample. Application fees for the 20 programs listed in Table 2 range from nothing to $105, with an average of $55.5 +- 19.2. Some education doctoral programs require a master’s degree, while others require only a bachelor’s degree. The minimum acceptable GPA earned in previous college coursework ranges from 3.0 to 3.5. Instead of reporting the minimum of the GPA and GRE scores required by the universities, the two scores earned by the applicants were preferred for three reasons: (1) a specific cut-off score was not consistently reported by all the investigated institutions; (2) the cut-off score may be different at various departments within the College of Education (or an equivalent) of the university; and (3) admission is competitive. The average GPA reported by applicants to doctoral education programs is 3.40 +- 0.09. The GRE mean score reported is 542.8 +- 35.1, with a range from 482 to 616 for Verbal Reasoning, and 617.7 +- 32.7, with a range from 551 to 682. Even if the department does not require a minimum GRE score, the prospective students are reminded that the admission is competitive and that a GRE score report may be helpful in evaluating their overall abilities, and especially in considering allocation of financial aid. The minimum TOEFL mean score required for admission is 570.7 +- 28.4 for the Paper-Based Test, or 228.3 +- 21.3 for the Computer-Based Test. The GRE and TOEFL scores must be less than 5 and 2 years old, respectively. The length and quality of the work experience in the field of education counts towards admission and funding decisions. The student enrollment fees vary from $105 to $ 8,107, with a mean of $2,032.3 +- 2,463.5. The mean cost of full-time in-state tuition, consisting generally of an enrollment of 9 credit hours of graduate courses, is $14,050.1 +- 10,280.7, with the costs ranging from $2,043 to $ 31,644. From a mean of 427.8(+- 239.3) applications received in 2005 by the doctoral education programs of the 20 investigated programs, on average only 71 students were accepted into the reviewed education doctoral programs (Table 2).

International applicants who are not native English speakers are required to submit their scores from the TOEFL exam. Typically, international students are also required to submit an additional writing sample or an essay as proof of their competence in English. Furthermore, international students who have qualified for admission may be required to provide an official statement of financial resources which may be used to support their education for the first semester or year of graduate school. The official letter of admission is usually accompanied by a packet of information and an 1- 20 form with which international students obtain a U.S. Visa.

All colleges reviewed herein strongly recommend online application, which provides several advantages: (1) the application fee may be waived or reduced, (2) the application can be saved in an electronic form that can later be re-accessed for revisions if necessary, (3) the possibility to check on the status of applications to see which items have been received and processed, and (4) the speed of electronic application versus regular mail. Admission guidelines for all colleges generally state that attainment of minimum examination scores and timely submission of all required materials do not guarantee admission and/or financial aid because several other factors need to be taken into consideration. These include: (1) strength of the letter of introduction; (2) strengths of the letters of recommendation; (3) quality of the writing sample; (4) quality of previous experience and background in special education or a related field; (5) match of the applicant’s and department’s goals; (6) availability of a professor with a vacancy in the targeted specialty, and (7) availability of funds.

The recommendation decision (admit/do not admit) is usually made by an admission committee from the department that offers special education courses at each university. An official notification of admission is sent to the applicant via mail or e-mail from the appropriate department or from the Graduate School. It is therefore important to provide the university with a current e-mail and/or postal address, since the notification will also include further procedural instructions and contact informati1on for the applicant.

Conclusion and Discussion

Results indicate that several of the top 20 universities from the U.S. News Report ranking of the top education programs in the U.S. are also considered to be among the top 20 universities in the world. This may mean that the achievements of special education programs contribute to the good reputation of the university as a whole and that the quality of the instruction offered by the top 20 education doctoral programs in the U.S. is comparable in quality to the instruction offered by the top 20 universities around the world and by the top 20 universities from the U.S. For admission into one of the top 20 education doctoral programs in the U.S., a candidate needs, at minimum, to write a letter of aspiration, to send official transcripts of all previous coursework that show a minimum GPA of 3.0, to provide three to five letters of recommendation, to obtain approximately 1160 points for GRE (Verbal and Quantitative Reasoning) and 571 points for TOEFL (if applicable), to pay for the processing fee, and, if admitted, to pay the student enrollment and tuition fees.

Recommendations

Similar analyses, which would focus on various fields of study emphasizing both admission and graduation requirements for undergraduate and graduate levels, would be useful additions to the existent statistical data about the quality of the colleges and universities in the U.S. and around the world. Such studies may motivate prospective students to make informed decisions about their future careers. It is recommended that official Web sites of various colleges and universities should report information about admission and graduation in a more detailed and consistent fashion. Universities’ Web sites could also provide statistics about the employment success rate upon graduation, on the number of graduates and employed graduates per year, and the satisfaction of the employees with their job. Should more statistical data about education preparation programs be made available, they could be summed up in a meta-analysis which could offer overall conclusions about the areas of education.

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GABRIELA WALKER

University of Georgia

Copyright Project Innovation, Inc. Jun 2008

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