Accelerated MS Degree Guidelines

Funding:

Accelerated MS students are not guaranteed funding that comes with tuition remission (e.g. GTA, RA), though they MAY be offered TAships in cases where the department has unfilled TA slots. Thus, we expect that most often, these students will pay tuition just as they would for a Bachelors—with the exception of cases where we have TAship needs and they are offered GTAs. Accelerated MS students are allowed to work half time (20 hours/week) elsewhere during their program. 

Note: Accelerated MS students will have completed 12 credit ours of coursework when they finish their Bachelor’s degree. After that point, they still have to take 8-12 credits of coursework (8 credit hours of courses at 900- 800-level with no 400 counterpart + up to 3 hours of seminars still apply), and 6-10 thesis hours. 

Financial aid policy for accelerated MS students can be found here: https://financialaid.unl.edu/receiving-funds/accelerated-programs/

Applying to the Accelerated MS Degree Program

Before Applying:

Accelerated MS students are required to complete and defend a thesis to obtain their MS degree (option A). Thus, it is important that the student begin engaging in their research project well in advance of their completion of their bachelor’s degree. Thus, the application to the program requires a letter of support from the research advisor. The prospective student is responsible for seeking out a prospective research advisor who will agree to supervise the research. 

The student should apply for the Accelerated MS program early enough to make sure that they have enough time to get 12 graduate credits before they finish their bachelor’s degree. We suggest that students apply for the program by the end of their Sophomore year or the first semester of their Junior year. The prospective student should talk the Biology undergraduate advisors to plan their grad course work.

They should work with the Biology Advisors to fill out their Accelerated courses worksheet.

Application Materials:

1. One recommendation letter from the student’s prospective advisor. 

This letter should:

      a. Indicate that the prospective student is suitable for the accelerated Master’s degree program

      b. Document that support will be available for the prospective student’s research project

      c. Comment on the feasibility of the project

      d. Acknowledge that student funding (e.g. assistantships) has been discussed with the prospective student

2. Curriculum Vitae or Resume

3. Personal Statement: Your statement of purpose should be no longer than 2 pages. It should include a description of your previous research experiences (if any), how those experiences have shaped your current interests, and the types of research you would like to conduct during graduate school.

4. Accelerated MS Program Course Worksheet

Admission Criteria/Process:

Once application is submitted and complete, the application will be considered by the SBS Graduate Committee. Once a positive admission decision is made, the Graduate Coordinator will accept them in the system. The student will then be guided to go to go.unl.edu/gradappstatus and accept our offer for admission. 

Process for receiving graduate credit:

Once enrolled in the Accelerated MS program, the student will be able to choose to take the select 400/800-level course for graduate credit. To do this, they will first enroll in a 400-level course on MyRed. Then, they need to complete the Graduate Credit for Undergrads form for each class using the graduate level course information here: https://go.unl.edu/gradcredit.  This tells the instructor/program and our office of the request. It also tells the Registrar’s office how to apply it to their undergraduate degree to clear them to graduate. 

Approved Courses:

Table 1: Currently approved courses that can count towards both Bachelor’s and MS degree under the Accelerated MS program.