Getting ready
Identify programs by the faculty whose work matches yours, not by ranking alone. Line up three recommenders who can speak to your research potential. Draft a statement of purpose that's specific about what you want to study and with whom. Take any required test early. Reach out to potential advisors before you apply.
Master's versus doctoral
A course-based master's is a credential you often pay for; a funded research master's or PhD is closer to a job. Be clear which you're pursuing and why, and whether the career you want actually requires it. Advisors will talk through that honestly, including when the answer is "not yet" or "not this."
In and around Porter Falls
Porter's eight graduate programs are small and applied — most students are working in the Valley while they study — and the Graduate School office in Millwright Hall keeps the handbooks and funding notices in one place.
The practical details
Talk to: A faculty mentor in the field and, for the mechanics, the fellowships and pre-professional advising staff. Timeline: Research programs and funding a full year out; most deadlines are December for the next fall. Funding first: For a PhD, apply only where you'd be funded — assistantship or fellowship; unfunded doctoral study is rarely worth it. Anything time-sensitive — an accommodation, a booking, a deadline — is worth confirming directly before you rely on it, because the specifics here can change from term to term.
If you have a question
The office behind this is Graduate School (Millwright Hall, Room 320). Call (715) 555–0225 or email gradschool@uwporterfalls.edu during the fall and spring terms, or sign in to MyPorter to send a message or book a time. If it turns out another office owns the question, they will route it rather than send you back to the start.
Fictional information
UW–Porter Falls is a work of parody. Every office, person, building, phone number and statistic on this page is invented; nothing here describes a real institution or a service you can actually contact.