FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
1) I have sent my application and supporting materials (test scores, transcripts, letters of recommendation, etc.) in and I want to know if the University and Department have received them?
To check whether the University has received your application materials; utilize your Gatorlink user id and password and Check Status on the website at www.admissions.ufl.edu and follow the directions. If you haven’t established a Gatorlink user id, you will need to do that by clicking on the banner Check Status on our website at www.admissions.ufl.edu and follow the directions.
To check what materials should be sent to the Department and which to the University, read this page.
Because the University gets thousands of applications, it can take two to four weeks (sometime longer near deadlines) to get information entered into the system. International transcripts take longer as they have to go through a special office that converts the GPA system used in other countries to a US equivalent.
Do not worry about the deadline (we set an early deadline to accommodate the delays of processing many applications); application packets for Fall admission will not be reviewed for admission until the end of January or February, or some in March (sometimes even April). We set the December deadline to allow time for all of these delays to work through the system. If we find your file is incomplete in late –January or February; we will let you know by e-mail. Then, you will have 2-3 weeks to send in any missing materials before we review applications.
If the department has a copy of everything; we can proceed with a review with that information and then only need the University to confirm they have official copies later.
Regarding the application materials sent to the Department. The best way you have to know if we have received those materials is the tracking receipt provided to you by FedEx, UPS, DHL or USPS; whichever carrier you used. If they say they have delivered the packet; then we have it. The Department cannot stop to verify what we have received for each applicant, if you send an e-mail requesting this, due to us getting besieged with applications and supporting materials around and after the deadline. If we stopped to check the status of every applicant for everyone that asks, it would slow the whole process down for everyone. It will take some time for us to create folders for each applicant and organize all the separate mailings coming in (in some cases there is one mailing with the application; then 3 different mailings at three different times from the reference letter writers; then another mailing with the test scores, etc. It takes several weeks to organize all of this and get all the information for each of several hundred applicants in a folder and documented in a database. In addition, December is the end of the semester and we have graduation clearances to process and grading to do plus time off for the holidays. We will be reviewing the folders for completeness generally in the 3-8 weeks after the deadline and if anything is missing; we will contact you and you will have time to re-submit it. Admission decisions for Fall semester do not begin until late January and into February and even March. If you don’t hear from us, in the 8 weeks or so after the deadline, that is a good thing; it means that your folder is complete and will undergo an admissions reviews in next 1-2 months. For Spring admissions, application reviews are generally occurring from October through November
2) Can I send the Department application materials through e-mail attachments?
Yes, you can send .pdf copies of all the Department application items (listed here: http://hhp.ufl.edu/trsm/acad/graduate/applicationprocess.php) to TRSMGRAD@hhp.ufl.edu but be sure the official test scores and transcripts have been sent to the University. The Department can use copies and verify the official scores and transcripts have been received at a later date. If we offer you admission, that admission cannot be formally completed until the University has received the official versions from the testing agencies or the universities sending your transcripts of previous colleges attended.
3) I am interested in obtaining an assistantship to assist me financially in my graduate program.
Due to the difficult economic situation in Florida; the Department is no longer able to offer assistantships to Master’s students; only to some PhD students. However, there are other options for Master’s or PhD admitted student to obtain assistantship and they are summarized here: http://hhp.ufl.edu/trsm/acad/graduate/financialassistance.php
A number of our Master’s students do fund themselves through these options, so it can be done.
For very well qualified (fairly high GRE scores, higher GPA, possible previous research experience or publications (not required, but do make the candidate more competitive) ; PhD applicants, there is the Graduate School Fellowship program which is very competitive and with only three offered per year in our college and a deadline of late January. This fellowship will pay for four years of tuition and salary. You do need a support letter and study plan submitted by a faculty member in our department to apply for this; so start discussion early and be sure to have all your application materials in also. More information is available here: http://hhp.ufl.edu/find/forfacstaff/forms/HHP-GSF-Process-2012.pdf
4) What factors enter in to a decision of being admitted or not?
GRE Score: All sections (verbal, quantitative and analytical writing) are evaluated. Scores are to be competitive with the other application’s received during the application period. The competition can vary from semester to semester. Though this is not absolute and we do look at other criteria; in general we prefer GRE Verbal and Quantitative scores 150 or above (under the new ETS score ranges adopted in November 2011).
Letters of recommendation (at least two must be from academic sources, i.e., professors).
The applicant’s statement of purpose for applying to the department. Does it match a topic area that the department faculty have expertise in? Does it convey a strong interest by the student on a topic that the Department can train the student in? Is it well written? For those applying for the PhD. program, please examine the research areas of the faculty to determine which area is of the most interest to you. Once you have determined this, contact that faculty member directly to discuss the possibility of becoming his or her Ph.D. student.
http://hhp.ufl.edu/dir/links/depa_trsm_faculty.php
http://hhp.ufl.edu/trsm/acad/graduate/Documents/facultyresearchinterests.pdf
The availability of a faculty advisor (some faculty may already have enough graduate students and cannot take more until some graduate). Some semesters there is a lot of faculty capacity; other semesters there may not be much capacity.
For PhD applicants, teaching, research and other department needs in cases where departmental financial support is requested.
Numbers of current graduate students graduating in the semester(s) immediately prior to your intended enrollment semester.
Generally, more students are admitted in Fall semester; but a few are admitted in other semesters.
How many students who may have been offered admission before you, decline to attend, and open up new options to make offers to additional applicants. If this occurs, it will likely result in a late notice of acceptance, perhaps as late as July for Fall applicants.
For assistantship funding of PhD new admits, the amount of budget allocated to the department by the legislature, university, and college for assistantships; this can vary each year and while an estimate is given to the department chair early each year; they don’t get the final numbers typically until June for the next fiscal year starting in July.
For assistantship funding of PhD new admits, the number of faculty who might have a semester off due to a sabbatical or who have “bought their teaching out” [ meaning they have a larger external funded grant and have given the department chair some funds so that they don’t have to teach] and the chair uses the monies to pay others (often doctoral students, but not always; there could be a qualified person in Gainesville who could teach as an adjunct lecturer, depending on the topic) to teach their course(s) for one or more semesters.
Whether faculty members have obtained outside funding from a grant or research project; that would benefit from hiring a research assistant (RA) to assist with the workload on the project and if there are sufficient funds in the grant to support the tuition waiver, salary and health insurance costs of hiring an RA.
5) Why is my graduate admission decision taking so long?
The department receives hundreds of applications. Sometime there are delays in receiving your test scores, transcripts or letters of reference. It takes time to organize all of the application materials for each applicant. Then, those materials are scanned into a complete file for each applicant and posted on-line in a password protected file for the admission committee (faculty) from each specialization area to review and vote on. Faculty are very busy and some are away traveling during any given week. It can take 2-3 weeks for all the faculty to vote on each candidate. We get the most applications for Sport Management Master’s program, so it can take especially long to vote on all of those applications. Then, the votes are tabulated and reviewed by the graduate coordinator. In some cases (many in some semesters) everyone has voted to admit a student; but no one has agreed to be the advisor for that student. In such cases, the student will be denied. In some cases, of especially well qualified applicants in this situation, an extra effort will be made to encourage faculty to take on another student (this takes extra time to do this). Sometimes this works, sometimes it does not. In some cases, a faculty member may be we waiting to be sure that their current graduate student(s) will be graduating soon (as expected) or not. Once it is confirmed that their current student is graduating; then they may be willing to advise another student. Other issues can arise also as noted in the response to Question 4 above. Finally, you may be an applicant who almost made admission; but did not. We may hold your application to see if some who were offered admission before you, decline our offer; hence making room for you. This takes time as we have to wait 2-3 weeks to hear back from those already offered admission. We thank you for your patience; you will eventually hear from us, sooner or later.
6) I am applying for the Master's degree. Is it true that there are no assistantships or fellowships available for MS students from the department?
That is correct - there are no fellowships or assistantships funded by the department for MS students; the one exception being if a professor has external grant funding to do research and wants to provide an assistantship to an MS student; they may (but, technically, the grant is paying for that; not the department; so the first statement stands). That has happened a few times; but usually, faculty prefer PhD students to assist with their research as they have more experience and knowledge about research. There may be occasional exceptions if you as an MS student have some particular expertise in a topic closely related to the focus of the funded research. There are potential assistantships available to MS students from the Athletic Association, student union, etc. as described under the financial assistance information link to the left on the web site; some MS students are able to obtain those; though not a lot of them. We regret that this is the case, due to budget restrictions. Six years ago we did fund some MS students; but with the recession and budget cuts, there a no longer funds for the department to offer assistantships for MS students. We don't even have enough funds to provide them for all the PhD students or applicants who want an assistantship either.