How to Apply
Congratulations on your decision to apply to a graduate program at the University of Michigan-Dearborn!
The University of Michigan-Dearborn is committed to building a diverse learning community. We serve highly motivated candidates whose accomplishments suggest the ability to successfully complete a rigorous program of graduate study. Applicants are evaluated not only for academic ability, but for career goals and overall "fit" for their selected program of study. Applicants should carefully review the available graduate programs and choose one that is most appropriate for their future goals.
Basic admission requirements and application deadlines vary by program. Reviewing our admissions processing timelines can help you plan for the timeframe between application submission and receiving an admission decision. Note: not all programs admit for every term.
All correspondence must be in English and should contain the full legal name of the applicant, as shown on a passport or other government-issued identification. It is vital that your full legal name is included on all materials submitted to ensure proper and timely matching of supporting documents to your application. If there are any discrepancies, you must notify the Office of Graduate Studies. All applicants have the opportunity to disclose any previous names on the application prior to submission.
More information on admission timelines and monitoring your online portal can be found in our instructions on monitoring your application status.
Graduate Non-Candidate for Degree (NCFD) and Guest Applicants should follow the Graduate Non-Degree Application Procedures.
Apply Online!
Create your login details in the online application linked below and follow on-screen instructions. A valid email address is required to create and verify your account.
Your application does not need to be completed all at once, as your login and password will allow you to return at a later date. If you need to make changes to your application, do not complete a new application. Reach out to the Office of Graduate Studies via email and a staff member can either provide guidance or update that information for you.
Submission of an online application requires payment of a $60 application fee. UM-Dearborn has a limited number of application fee waivers available each year. Fee waiver requests are considered on a first-come, first-serve basis and must be requested before you pay the application fee. The application fee is nonrefundable and cannot be credited toward tuition or any other fees.
Note: An applicant may only apply to one program at a time. After an admission decision is made on the first program, the student can apply to one other program, but will have to submit a new application and fee. Details needed for submission of a second application will need to be coordinated with the Office of Graduate Studies.
Note: Students seeking readmission should work with the admitting department.
Apply for Graduate Admission
Supplemental Application Materials
As part of the admissions process, several documents supplement the online application to complete your admissions profile. Some items require upload in the Online Application to submit. Once the application has been submitted, our portal does not support upload functionality within it; please review the instructions below on submission options by requirement.
If you have additional items to submit that are not itemized below, please send an email to umd-graduatestudies@umich.edu with the items attached as separate PDFs per item.
Be sure to review our Application Deadlines to ensure your supplemental materials are submitted on time for consideration.
Required Within Online Application
Some items require direct upload in the Online Application in order to submit. If these items require updates after submission, they can be sent via PDF to the Office of Graduate Studies at umd-graduatestudies@umich.edu.
Degree-seeking applicants are required to upload a statement of purpose. General instructions (though some programs may have other guidelines): Please describe your post-graduation career plans. How will your education, experience, and development to date help support those plans? How will this graduate program help you to attain your goals? Preferred length is around 500 words.
Essays must be uploaded within the online application in order to submit.
Clinical Health Psychology Applicants
Applicants to the Clinical Health Psychology program must provide an additional statement briefly describing events or experiences you consider to be evidence that you will be an effective health care professional. This could include work or school experience, life experiences, personal philosophy, or other information.
Ed.D. Applicants
Applicants to the Education (Ed.D.) program will be asked to upload a letter of intent in place of a statement of purpose and respond to an additional writing sample prompt related to a current education issue. Cited references should be in APA format.
Ph.D. Applicants
The academic statement of purpose should indicate the intended field or fields of research. A personal statement is also required that describes the background and life experiences, including cultural, geographical, financial, educational or other opportunities or challenges that motivate the decision to pursue a Ph.D. degree at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.
D.Eng. Applicants
The Statement of purpose should include a research topic and research plan. It is strongly suggested to identify a faculty advisor at the time of application. A faculty advisor must be identified after admission and before enrollment.
Two-page limit for master's applicants; Four-page limit for doctoral or specialist applicants. Please include education information; work experience; research, teaching, or internship experience; professional affiliations, volunteer activities; community engagement; and relevant honors or awards.
Your resume must be uploaded within the online application in order to submit.
Supporting recommendations are required for degree-seeking applicants. The number of recommendations required by college is listed below. If you do not know where your program of interest is housed, please review our graduate programs offered by college.
- College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters (CASL): 3 for Psychology, 2 for all others
- College of Business (COB): 1
- College of Education, Health, and Human Services (CEHHS): 2
- College of Engineering and Computer Science (CECS): 2 for master’s level; 3 for doctoral level
There are exceptions to the required number posted above for current UM-Dearborn undergraduate students eligible for a 4+1 option:
- Students eligible for the 4+1 option in the MS in Criminology and Criminal Justice (CCJ) program are only required to submit 1 recommendation from CCJ faculty.
- Students eligible for the 4+1 option in the MS in Accounting program are not required to submit a letter of recommendation.
- Students eligible for the 4+1 option in the MSE in Bioengineering program are only required to submit 1 recommendation from the UM-Dearborn ME/BENG faculty.
- Students eligible for the 4+1 option in the MA in Educational Technology program are only required to submit 1 recommendation from an Educational Technology faculty member or instructor.
- Students eligible for the 4+1 option in the MS in Applied Behavior Analysis program are only required to submit 1 recommendation from a UM-Dearborn faculty member or instructor.
- Students eligible for the 4+1 option in the MS in Applied and Computational Mathematics program are required to submit 2 recommendations from mathematics or statistics faculty.
Appropriate recommenders are generally current or former professional supervisors or academic instructors. Additional questions about whether or not a potential recommender can be used should be directed to the academic program.
Requesting Recommendations
In the online application, you are required to enter your recommender(s) name and email address. An automated notification will be sent by the application system. We highly recommend reaching out to your recommender prior to completing this section of the application. Additionally, you will select whether or not you waive the right to review the recommendations if you are admitted and enroll in courses.
After submitting your application, you can monitor the status of received recommendations.
CAS Recommendation Assistance
If you submitted your application in GradCAS, BusinessCAS, or EngineeringCAS, CAS manages the recommendations section, setting required questions, sending email requests to your recommenders, and providing submitted information back to UM-Dearborn to feed into our system. If you require assistance making changes to your recommendation requests, please contact your relevant CAS Applicant Help Center.
Required College/University Transcripts
Transcripts (academic records) for all colleges/universities attended, regardless of whether a degree was earned, are required. All colleges/universities should be reported within the online application, including the University of Michigan-Dearborn and credit transferred into a University of Michigan-Dearborn degree. Academic records provided must show the course work completed and grades earned.
Applicants must have obtained a four-year U.S. Bachelor’s degree from an accredited university or college, or its equivalent.* You may submit an application before receiving your degree, or while your degree is still in progress, so long as the degree will be completed prior to the start of classes.
*Some three-year degrees may not be equivalent to a U.S. bachelor's degree. If your three-year degree is from India, Canada, Australia, or certain other countries, we will not consider the degree to be eligible for graduate admission as a standalone credential. This is our policy even if the degree has been evaluated as equivalent to a four-year degree by an outside credential evaluator. If you have completed an honours degree, a post-graduate diploma, or a graduate degree, with your three-year bachelor’s, you may be eligible to apply. If you are unsure about the equivalency of your educational experience(s), you are encouraged to obtain an Educational Credential Evaluators (ECE) course-by-course evaluation. Our equivalency guidelines are generally aligned with those of ECE for determining equivalency to a U.S. bachelor’s degree.
For additional information specific to current/previous UM-Dearborn students and applicants with international records, please be sure to read through the accordions below.
If you are a current or prior student of the University of Michigan-Dearborn, your transcript(s) on record will be transferred to your graduate admission application during processing post-submission.
Required Documents
Academic records listing all courses and grades and proof of degree (diploma, degree certificate, diploma supplement, etc.) must be submitted. In cases where the original document is in a language other than English, a version in the native language AND an official English language translation must be provided. English translations must be literal, word for word translations in the same format as the original academic record. If your academic institution does not supply an official translation, we will accept an official translation prepared by a professional licensed translation service. Proof of degree awarded must be included, through a posted statement on the transcript or a separate degree certificate/diploma. All documentation received becomes the property of the University of Michigan-Dearborn and will not be returned.
Additional documentation may be required based on specific country or region, including a diploma supplement (Bologna process) or individual semester marksheets for all attempts (India, Bangladesh, Pakistan). If semester marksheets are required for your country of education but your institution only issues consolidated marksheets, you will be required to submit documentation from your institution confirming that individual marksheets are not issued in order to satisfy the requirement. The document must be on official letterhead and signed by the institution official responsible for issuing academic records.
Transcript Evaluation
Non-U.S. transcripts require an evaluation to confirm institution accreditation, U.S. education equivalency, and to convert grades/cumulative GPA to the 4.0 scale. Effective Winter 2024, there are two options to fulfill this requirement:
Option 1: UM-Dearborn does not require a third-party credential evaluation, however we strongly encourage course-by-course evaluations from the following services in order to expedite the application review process and aid our students in their future endeavors including U.S. job applications, other higher education institution applications, or meeting professional licensure or certification requirements:
- Educational Credential Evaluators preferred
- Designate University of Michigan-Dearborn - Graduate Studies in ECE Dispatch
- SpanTran (Course Analysis type; clicking the link will bring you to a custom UM-Dearborn application that auto-selects the correct evaluation type for a discounted rate of $170)
- World Education Services (Course-by-Course ICAP type)
- Designate University of Michigan-Dearborn - Graduate Studies in Access WES
- Educational Perspectives
Course-by-course evaluations from other NACES members may be utilized on a case-by-case basis. The completed report must include institution accreditation, degree equivalency, and converted CGPA.
If you are admitted and enroll with us for the Winter, Summer, or Fall 2024 term, we will reimburse you up to $200 to help cover the cost of the course by course international evaluation. This reimbursement will be applied to your first term’s bill.
Option 2: Applicants with international transcripts that do not submit an approved third-party transcript evaluation will have an internal evaluation completed. The results of the internal evaluation are for internal purposes only and will not be shared with the applicant. This process cannot start until all other required materials have been received and generally adds 4-6 weeks to the admissions process before your file can be considered for admission for programs with rolling admissions. For hard deadline programs, as long as all needed materials are in by the deadline, the internal evaluation will receive prioritized processing to meet internally established review deadlines.
Applicants can upload unofficial copies of academic records (evaluation reports, transcripts and/or marksheets, etc.) within the Online Application for the initial review of your application. Documents can also be submitted outside of the application after the application has been submitted, but we are unable to consider your file for admission until all required materials have been received. Please be sure to read through the required documentation noted above to ensure you submit all necessary materials.
Academic records can be submitted in the following ways in order of UM-Dearborn preference:
- Uploaded with the online application; Uploads should include the applicant's name, institution name, and all courses/grades. Once the application has been submitted, we can review the uploaded documents for processing to complete your checklist item(s).
- Submitted electronically via email (official or unofficial) to umd-graduatestudies@umich.edu. Electronic delivery is only accepted as official when sent directly from the institution, by a Registrar or similar official of the university either by an accepted third-party service (ex. Parchment, National Clearinghouse, ECE Dispatch, AccessWES, etc.) or from an institutional domain. In cases where the institution/service could have an account designated for us, we are often under University of Michigan-Dearborn Graduate Studies or University of Michigan-Dearborn Graduate Admissions. Please connect directly with the sender if you have questions about their request service.
- Mailed to the Office of Graduate Studies: 1055 Administration Bldg (AB), 4901 Evergreen Rd., Dearborn, MI 48128
Transcripts/evaluation reports are considered official only if they are sent directly to UM-Dearborn from the educational institution of origin or forwarded by one of the approved evaluation services noted above.
If you are offered admission based on unofficial or in-progress documents, your offer is contingent upon the receipt of the final, official records by the end of your first term of enrollment.
Required Test Scores
All test scores must be valid to be added to an admissions file. GRE and GMAT scores are valid for five years from the test date. English language proficiency scores are valid for two years from the test date. Expired test scores will not be added to your admissions file.
Notify the Office of Graduate Studies if there are any discrepancies in your name reported for your test scores and your online application. If your name does not match exactly, there will be a delay in matching your test scores to your application data.
Our graduate programs do not require the GRE or GMAT. If received, they will be linked to your application file and weighed at the discretion of the review committee during decision review. As part of our holistic admissions process, the admissions committee may ask some applicants to submit scores if additional information is necessary to help demonstrate readiness to succeed a graduate program. Official scores are required if submitting GRE or GMAT scores.
GRE Scores
Our ETS Institution Code for GRE registration is 1861. Individual department codes are not necessary for the GRE. As long as the institution code is used, your scores will be electronically delivered to us.
GMAT Scores
Our GMAC Institution Code for GMAT registration varies by program.
- Accounting (MSA): 1V5-HP-06
- Business Administration (MBA): 1V5-HP-19
- Business Administration (MBA) - Online: 1V5-HP-50
- Business Analytics (MS): 1V5-HP-93
- Finance (MS): 1V5-HP-12
- Information Systems (MS): 1V5-HP-38
- Marketing (MS): 1V5-HP-80
- Supply Chain Management (MS): 1V5-HP-71
- Dual Degree: Accounting (MSA)/Finance (MSF): 1V5-HP-22
- Dual Degree: Business Administration/Industrial & Systems Engineering (MSE): 1V5-HP-45
- Dual Degree: Business Administration (MBA)/Finance (MSF): 1V5-HP-58
- Dual Degree: Business Administration (MBA)/Health Services Administration (MHSA): 1V5-HP-56
- Dual Degree: Business Administration (MBA)/Information Systems (MS): 1V5-HP-40
- Dual Degree: Business Administration (MBA)/Supply Chain Management (MS): 1V5-HP-87
Any applicant whose native language is not English must demonstrate English proficiency in one of the following ways:
- Submit official scores from an approved English language proficiency exam
- Meet the criteria for an exemption from taking an English language proficiency exam
English Language Proficiency Exams
Accepted English language proficiency exams are the International English Language Testing System (IELTS), Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), and Duolingo English Test. Applicants only need to take one of these test options. Achieving the minimum score does not guarantee admission, only consideration. You may take any of the exams more than once, but only your most recent score will be considered. Scores must be no more than 2 years old.
Please see below for minimum required scores for each proficiency test. We do not have sub-score requirements.
- IELTS
- IELTS (Academic): 6.5
- IELTS scores are received electronically to University of Michigan, Dearborn - Graduate Studies. An institution code is not required.
- TOEFL
- IBT Internet-Based Test: Most programs have a minimum score of 79; Select programs noted below require a minimum score of 84
- Ph.D., Ed.D., Ed.S. and Psychology (MS) programs: 84
- Our ETS Institution Code for TOEFL registration is 1861. Individual department codes are not necessary to match scores to your application.
- We do not utilize TOEFL MyBestScore to meet our English language proficiency requirement. We require the posted overall minimum score for an individual test.
- IBT Internet-Based Test: Most programs have a minimum score of 79; Select programs noted below require a minimum score of 84
- Duolingo English Test
- Duolingo: 105
- Scores should be sent electronically to University of Michigan, Dearborn - Graduate
- Ph.D. programs and the Psychology (MS) program are not accepting the Duolingo English Test to meet the English language proficiency requirement.
English Language Proficiency Exemption Policy
Applicants are exempt from providing an English language proficiency score if they meet one of the following criteria.
- Applicants who have earned or will earn an accredited bachelor's or master's degree from a country where the official language is English (United States of America, Australia, or United Kingdom)
- Applicants who have earned or will earn an accredited bachelor's or master's degree from an institution where the language of instruction is exclusively English. Verification from the school is required. Some institutions post a designation directly on the transcript or related academic record (ex. diploma supplement). In cases where there is not a designation on the transcript, a supplemental letter from the institution may be required. If you have questions, please contact the Office of Graduate Studies for further details regarding verification for your case.
Online Student Disclosures and Certifications Supplemental Form
All applicants applying to a fully online program must complete a supplemental Online Student Disclosures and Certifications form that will appear in your UM-Dearborn applicant portal alongside your application checklist. This covers important Distance Education Student Information and Procedures and Export Control Regulations our campus must follow.
Financial Support and Student Visas
Office of International Affairs (OIA) manages I-20 and DS-2019 Form Processing. Please contact their office directly for further details or forms related to the following:
- Proof of Financial Support
- Health Insurance
- SEVIS Form DS 2019
- Transfer Clearance Form
Please note that admitted international students in need of an F or J student visa must submit certification of financial resources adequate to provide for all expenses while attending. The Financial Affidavit and Bank Certification forms are not needed for your admissions application to be reviewed.
Most international students are eligible to receive our generous non-residential scholarship with a yearly value of approximately $10,000 (exact value depends on your program’s 2023-24 tuition rate and your overall course enrollment).
Our Ph.D. programs are fully-funded. Students admitted receiving full-funding in the form of an appointment as Graduate Student Instructor (GSI), Research Assistant (GSRA), or a combination of both. This covers a competitive monthly stipend, health insurance, and tuition waiver.
An extended 24 month Optional Practical Training (OPT) is available for STEM-designated programs. The OIA
Change in Start Term Needed?
If a change in start term is needed, a deferral request must be sent to the Office of Graduate Studies via the Graduate Admissions Deferral Request Form. It is recommended that the request be received by the advisory deadline for the new requested term of entry.
Applications are valid for one academic year from your initial term of application (ex. Fall 2022 is valid through Fall 2023). Deferral requests for students offered admission to hard deadline programs are always reviewed on a case by case basis by the program.
All documents previously submitted will be transferred to the new term along with your admission if you are eligible for a deferral. If you choose to attend another university in the meantime, transcripts must be submitted from that enrollment. Effective Fall 2023: admitted students required to pay an enrollment deposit must pay the deposit prior to requesting a deferral.
Processing of deferral requests is completed in order of receipt, with immediate upcoming deadlines prioritized.
International Students
Deferring your admission does not automatically defer your I-20. You must work with the OIA to receive an I-20 with an updated program start-date to coincide with the semester of your arrival on campus. If you have been previously issued an initial I-20, you must submit an I-20 Deferral eForm via M-International. If you have not yet received an initial I-20, then you must submit the Initial I-20 Request eForm via M-International.
Student Expectations
The primary purpose of the Statement of Student Rights and Code of Student Conduct is to assist the University in providing an environment which supports the educational process and the well-being of the campus community. The responsibility for maintaining such an environment is shared by all members of the campus community including faculty, staff, current and prospective students. Therefore, any person expressing interest in enrolling at the University of Michigan-Dearborn is expected to demonstrate behavior consistent with the Code of Conduct. Behaviors inconsistent with the Code of Student Conduct will not be tolerated. The University seeks applicants that demonstrate the potential to be contributing members of the campus community and reserves the right to deny admission based upon violation(s) of the Code of Student Conduct.