Undergraduate & Graduate FAQs

Grady College offers these areas of concentration: advertising, journalism, health media and communication, journalism, mass media studies, and public relations. An integrated advertising/public relations concentration is offered to students with a Grady College undergraduate major in advertising or public relations. In addition, Grady College has an Emerging Media (EM) Masters degree program, along with a low-residency Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program in Narrative Media Writing and an MFA in Film, Television, and Digital Media.

You should note that concentrations are not majors. If you enroll in the MA program, you will receive an MA degree in Journalism and Mass Communication.

The Emerging Media Masters (EM) degree program focuses on the intersection of communication technology and design, allowing individuals to explore the roles and applications of emerging media across an array of disciplines and careers. Designed to accommodate students and professionals from a variety of backgrounds and industries, this program is intended for individuals who wish to further personal career goals and those of their employers by gaining more knowledge and experience in emerging media and innovative technologies.

The EM concentration requires 11 courses (33 credit hours, 3 credit hours per course) and can be completed in as few as 3 semesters beginning in Summer. Students must earn a 3.0 (B) in required and elective courses. Only courses on the 6000, 7000 and 8000 levels count toward graduation.

The Emerging Media MA degree can be done as a residential (i.e., in-person) or online program. More information about the EM degree and its requirements can be found on the New Media Institute website.

It is not necessary to have a JMC degree. Many of our students have undergraduates degrees in other areas and majors — from the humanities to the physical sciences — but do quite well in our program. When it comes to applying to our MA programs, we consider your undergraduate grade point average, your letters of recommendation, and your Statement of Purpose for information about your experiences, motivations, and career goals.

The length of the MA degree program will depend on your undergraduate degree and the courses taken to complete that degree. In general, however, the MA in Journalism and Mass Communication is designed to be a two-year program, while the MA in Emerging Media is designed to be a three-semester program, which includes a summer semester.

It takes from 3 to 5 semesters to finish most of our MA degree programs assuming registration for a full-credit load in the fall and spring semesters. A limited number of graduate courses are offered in the summer semester, and summer semester courses are required for our Emerging Media MA degree. A full-credit load is 12 hours or more, which is typically 3-4 courses per semester. Thesis track MA students usually spend 3 to 5 semesters taking courses and writing a thesis; the typical MA non-thesis student spends 3 to 4 semesters taking courses.

An additional semester or additional courses may be needed if a student’s undergraduate degree work did not include prerequisites for Grady graduate courses. For example, MA students without undergraduate courses in journalism, advertising, public relations, or mass communication-related areas will most likely have to take prerequisite courses, which will require additional time.

For planning purposes, it is best to think about the MA as a two-year degree program.

The thesis-track MA degree requires the successful completion of 9 graduate courses (27 credit hours) and successful completion and defense of a thesis (3 hours) (30 total credit hours). The thesis-track MA is intended primarily for students interested in conducting original scholarship in a particular area of interest or who are planning to undertake further graduate study.

The non-thesis MA degree requires an additional three-credit hours of coursework relative to the thesis-track MA (11 courses or 33 credit hours). The non-thesis MA degree is designed to further increase students’ understanding of media and mass communication theories, processes, and effects and to provide advanced preparation for communication careers in advertising, journalism, health and medical journalism, public relations or for further graduate study in communication related fields.

While we accept applications from students enrolled in graduate programs at other universities, we do not transfer credits from other graduate programs or accept transfer credits from other institutions. If you wish to do your graduate study at UGA, you must start at the beginning of your MA degree program course work to complete your degree here.

Students admitted from another UGA MA degree graduate program may be allowed to use two graduate courses to satisfy cognate requirements. The decision is up to your advisor and/or major professor.

Deadlines for admissions purposes are the dates by which your application file, with all needed materials, should be complete and submitted to the University of Georgia Graduate School. Applications can be completed and submitted in advance of the deadlines.

For admission to the MA program, it is recommended that your application be completed and submitted by March 1. For admission to the MFA program, it is recommended that your applications be completed and submitted by April 1.

Many of your admissions application materials will be submitted online to UGA Graduate Admissions (e.g., application for admission, transcripts, resume, letters of recommendation, and statement of purpose). If offered admission, official transcripts should be sent electronically from your institution or mailed to the following address. The application process begins by submitting your application and materials to the UGA Graduate School, at their website Graduate Studies website.

Both the UGA Graduate School and Graduate Studies Office of Grady require the submission of specific admissions documents for the PhD and MA degree. The Grady College MFA degree has different requirements. See: https://online.uga.edu/online-offerings/graduate/low-residency-master-of-fine-arts-in-narrative-media-writing-mfa

Upload the following items to the Graduate School: (1) completed application form, (2) all transcripts (from every institution of higher learning at which you were enrolled; for even one course), (3) current resume, (4) Three letters of recommendation (completed via email after you submit your recommenders email addresses. Ph.D. candidates should submit 3 former professors as recommenders), and (5) a 2-3 page Statement of Purpose (SOP). The SOP should provide information about your educational background and interests, your reasons or interests in pursuing a graduate degree in a journalism or mass communication area, and the reasons Grady College’s graduate program is a good match for you and your professional, academic, or research interests.

Yes, there is an application fee. The application-processing fee is collected to help offset the cost of processing application materials. The fee is non-refundable and cannot be deferred or credited toward tuition. As of July 1, 2009, the fee to apply for graduate programs at the University of Georgia is $75 for domestic applicants and $100 for international applicants. If at all possible, you should pay by credit card as soon as you submit the application. Applications are not reviewed until you have submitted and paid the application fee. If you must pay by check or money order, please email gradadm@uga.edu for further instructions.

In general, it is not possible to waive the application fee for applying to Grady College graduate programs, particularly for international applicants. The UGA Graduate School has a list of programs under which it is possible to apply for application fee waivers. This can be found at https://grad.uga.edu/admissions/application-fee/.

Applicants whose primary language is not English may need to submit official TOEFL or IELTS scores that are not more than two years old. Applicants who have received degrees from accredited institutions in the U.S. or from institutions in countries where English is the primary language (e.g., the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand) usually are not required to submit the TOEFL (or IELTS) scores. The UGA Graduate School Admissions English Proficiency Requirement Policy can be found here: https://grad.uga.edu/admissions/requirements/international-applications/english-language-proficiency-requirement/  Country-specific requirements regarding English Proficiency requirements can be found here: https://grad.uga.edu/admissions/requirements/international-applications/country-specific-requirements/.

Grady College does not require applicants to provide GRE scores, but applicants can do so if they would like. We do not accept nor use GMAT or LSAT scores for the application and admission process.

You are responsible for checking the progress of your application. Once your application has been accepted by the UGA Graduate School, you will receive an email from gradadm@uga.edu with a link to the Check Application Status portal. You will login with the email and password you used to create the application.

You are encouraged to submit your application in advance of the deadline. You should be aware that letters of recommendations, transcripts, and test scores will usually arrive at UGA a few weeks after you request that they be sent to us. A completed application file by January 1st can only be assured in two ways: (1) getting all admissions materials to us before January 1 (for PhD),  March 1 (for MA), or April 1 (for MFA) and (2) using the UGA Tracking System to monitor your application.

A small number of competitively awarded graduate assistantships are available to admitted MA students. These assistantships usually involve 13 hours of work per week for the 9-month assistantship period, with most assignments being teaching or research assistants. These assistantships provide a monthly stipend (with 10 monthly payments) and a reduction of tuition to $25 per semester. These are renewable for up to two years based on academic and job performance. MA assistantship awards often involve a competitive application and selection process, where interested students submit a cover letter and resume in response to a provided assistantship opening.

The Grady College graduate program has very few M.A. graduate assistantships, and we generally do not know until mid-April or later if there will be funds to support M.A. assistantships for the upcoming academic year. For almost all available M.A. assistantships, we use a competitive process to fill them. When an M.A. graduate assistantship becomes available, the Grady College Graduate Office sends out an assistantship position announcement to incoming and current M.A. students. These announcements describe the assistantship responsibilities, the program in which the assistantship is housed, and the assistantship eligibility requirements, as well as the deadline for submitting a cover letter and resume. With respect to eligibility requirements, it is often the case that assistantship opportunities vary across Grady College departments, and that affects both assistantship availability and which students are considered (e.g., assistantships funded by the Journalism Dept. are only available to journalism concentration students and assistantships that involve the ADPR Dept. are only available to students in the AD, PR, Health Communication & Media, and IADPR concentrations). 

Most MA program students are admitted for fall semester entry, but it is possible to start the MA in Journalism and Mass Communication degree program in spring semester. This often happens with Double Dawg students who finish their undergraduate studies in December and return in January as graduate students. All Emerging Media Master’s students start their program in the summer.

The University of Georgia Graduate School policy states that applicants are eligible for a one-time move of their start date without filing a new application and application fee. Requests should be made in writing to gradadm@uga.edu. Please contact Graduate Admissions no earlier than 13 to 14 months before the month that your anticipated new semester of enrollment is to begin.

According to the University of Georgia Graduate School policy, you must reapply, following the same procedure and submitting the same admission materials.

More information on University of Georgia graduate program application deadlines can be found here.

Think of the Graduate School as the U.S. Federal government and the Graduate Office of the Grady College as a state. As a state, we are subject to the rules, policies, and regulations of the Graduate School. In effect, the Graduate School tells us what we can and cannot do. For example, the Graduate School approves degree programs and sets the required hours for each degree. Therefore, if you are a MA thesis student, you must complete 27 hours of course work and complete and defend a thesis. If you are a MA non-thesis student, you must complete 33 hours of course work and pass a comprehensive exam.

As a state, we set degree prerequisites, concentration requirements, course-specific hour limitations, and such. The Graduate School does not sign off on the waiver of prerequisites, the substitution of an elective course for a required course in a particular concentration, or taking 6 hours of JRMC 8050 instead of 3 hours. The authority to make Grady program-specific modifications/changes resides with the advisor/major professor.

Any advisor-approved modifications/changes in your program of study must be submitted in letter form to the Grady Graduate Office. The letter will then be co-signed by the Associate Dean and placed in your official file. If there is a problem with the approval, the advisor will be contacted to correct the problem.

(1) the UGA Graduate Bulletin (see sections on General University Information and General Degrees)
(2) https://grad.uga.edu/
(3) Grady Graduate Student listserv: enrolled students can subscribe. How to add yourself: email listserv@listserv.uga.edu. Type “subscribe gradygrd” in the body of the email. Send the email. Follow the subsequent steps to verify your email.

An advisor is the person who helps you select courses and plan your program of study. A major professor is the person who directs your thesis/dissertation research, or your MA non-thesis requirements. Your advisor and major professor may be the same person. Often a student migrates from an assigned advisor to a major professor during the course of his/her program of study. Your major professor then becomes your advisor.

Your advisor or major professor should be prepared handle all your routine questions about curricula, Graduate School and Grady policies, and such. Your advisor has the authority to exercise judgments about program-of-study modifications, course exemptions/substitutions, and such, as long as such decisions are within the guidelines and policies of the Graduate School.

You will be assigned an advisor in your first semester. However, you may change advisors during the course of your program of study. The call is yours — you simply ask another faculty member to serve as your advisor, and if the person agrees, you complete and file an Advisor Assignment/Advisor-Major Professor Change Form. Anne Hurne can help you with this.

Research faculty interests and specialties. When you identify a faculty member who matches your scholarly interests, ask that person to serve as your major professor. Once selected, the major professor assumes advising duties and is responsible for directing your program of study, administering any required examinations, and directing thesis/dissertation research or MA requirements.

Don’t forget to complete and file an Advisor Assignment/Advisor-Major Professor Change Form once you have secured your major professor.

During each preregistration cycle, you meet with your advisor (major professor) to discuss course selection. You should attend each meeting prepared — with a planned program of study and a completed Official Graduate Advisement form that can be downloaded at: https://grady.uga.edu/forms/graduate/advisory.PDF. Your advisor must sign your Advisement Form or you will not be allowed to register for courses.

Your official record (file) is maintained in the Grady Graduate Studies Office. However, you and your advisor should keep duplicate copies of planned programs of study, Advisement Forms, and letters of exemption, etc.

Under no circumstances should you handle your official file. Only faculty have access to student records, and they alone are responsible for their handling and transmittal.

Athena is the online access to the student information system application. It allows students to register for courses, view or update student records, view financial aid information, and much more. Athena may be accessed in the following ways:
MyUGA Portal (https://my.uga.edu/)
Athena Homepage (https://athena.uga.edu)

If you are on assistantship, yes it will. The Graduate School requires that students on assistantship register by the deadline or risk losing assistantship funding. A lengthy process of meetings and letter writing is required if you miss the registration deadline. If you are not on assistantship, missing the registration deadline may mean not getting a place in a needed class. Register on time.

This depends on the program.

The MA program:
Advertising thesis and non-thesis program: either JRMC 8000 or JRMC 8130 are required.
Integrated ADPR program: neither JRMC 8000 and JRMC 8010 are required.
Emerging Media program: JRMC 8010 is required.
Journalism thesis and non-thesis program: both JRMC 8000 and JRMC 8010 are required.
Health and Medical Journalism program: both JRMC 8000 and JRMC 8010 are required.
Health Media and Communication program: JRMC 8010 is required.
Mass Media Studies program: both JRMC 8000 and JRMC 8010 are required.
Public Relations program: both JRMC 8000 and JRMC 8010 are required.

Ph.D. program: JRMC 8010 is required, but may be waived based on the student’s background.

If you want to graduate in three to four semesters, the full-load for a MA student is 12 hours per term (4 course load in the fall and spring terms).

If you are a Ph.D. Student, you must register for 12 hours each term: 9 hours (3 courses) and 3 hours in GRSC 7770 or JRMC 9005 while completing course work and 12 hours of JRMC 9000 and/or 9300 after course work completion.

For students on assistantship, the minimum course load during summer sessions in 9 hours (some combination of summer sessions; the maximum load in MayMester is 6 hours).

The minimum/maximum course load for a graduate student is 3 hours/18 hours.

Go to grad.uga.edu. There you will find Graduate School deadlines and required forms, which can be completed and printed out. Your MA or Ph.D. Handbook contains a list of required forms and a degree program checklist.

MA students are required to submit 5 forms to the Graduate School: (1) Advisory Committee for MA and MS Candidates, (2) Program of Study for MA and MS Candidates, (3) Approval for Master’s Thesis and Final Oral Examination, (4) Electronic Thesis and Dissertation (ETD) Submission Approval, and (5) Master’s Application for Graduation.

MA non-thesis students are required to submit 4 forms: (1) Advisory Committee for MA and MS Candidates, (2) Program of Study for MA and MS Candidates, (3) Comprehensive Examination Results, and (4) Master’s Application for Graduation.
It is your responsibility to know deadlines and to submit forms on time to the Graduate Studies Office for transmittal to the Graduate School. All forms must be typed, completed correctly, and signed by the appropriate individuals before submission to the Graduate Studies Office.

You should know about two other forms: Request for Change of Degree Objective and Recommended Change in Program of Study. The Change of Degree Objective form must be completed to switch from one master’s degree to the other. You cannot switch from a master’s program to our Ph.D. degree program. The Change in Program of Study form must be completed if you change courses on your approved Program of Study.

If you are a MA student, your degree is a Master of Arts and your major is journalism and mass communication.

If you are a doctoral student, your degree is a Doctor of Philosophy and your major is Mass Communication.

There are no majors in advertising, journalism, health and medical journalism, mass media studies, public relations.

These are concentrations, not majors.

Undergraduate prerequisites for degree concentrations are determined by sponsoring department faculty. Your faculty advisor and/or major professor is charged with interpreting and enforcing required undergraduate prerequisites. Your advisor/major professor has the authority to exercise “interpretive flexibility” in holding you to undergraduate prerequisites and is encouraged to exercise “interpretive flexibility.”

You are permitted to have 2 Cs on your program of study. If you receive a grade of C- or lower, you must repeat the course. You must maintain an overall GPA of 3.0 or higher to graduate.

Some graduate courses have prerequisites. However, unless a prerequisite is listed, no prerequisite will be enforced for entry to a graduate course.

A completed statistics course is required for you to receive a Grady graduate degree. If you took a statistics course as part of your undergraduate degree or before enrolling in one of our programs, you have completed the requirement. If you haven’t taken a statistics course, you may complete the requirement in one of two ways: (1) taking any UGA undergraduate statistics course or (2) taking ERSH 6200 or STAT 6210 as one of your cognate courses.

Statistics is not a required prerequisite for JRMC 8010. However, students who fail to meet the College’s statistics requirement must register for statistics and JRMC 8010 concurrently.

Cross-listed courses are department-specific, and typically enroll both undergraduate and graduate students. Cross-listed courses are numbered 6000 or 7000, and only those courses listed in the UGA Graduate Bulletin are acceptable for program credit. No graduate credit is given for 5000-level or lower.

In some cases, 6000 and 7000 level courses are scheduled for graduate students and are not open to undergraduate students.

Like course substitutions, your advisor/major professor has the authority to allow you to take six hours of JRMC 8050. A letter of authorization is required and should be filed with the Graduate Studies Office.

First, you find a professor who is willing to sponsor your independent study. Then, you file a study plan, co-signed by the major professor, with the Graduate Studies Office. Once the plan is filed, you will be cleared to register for JRMC 8050 credit.

A cognate area is a combination of courses from outside the Grady College that academically augment your concentration course work. Cognate courses can be selected from any department and/or college; they need not have the same prefix.

There is no 7000 level Special Topics course in the curricula of the Grady College. Thus, there is no way for a graduate student to register for graduate student credit in an undergraduate Special Topics course.

You can receive 3 credits of internship credit by taking JRMC 7220.

First, you find a professor who is willing to supervise your internship. He or she will notify the Grady Graduate Studies office that you are approved to do the internship, and Anne Hurne will clear you to register for JRMC 7220. You will be required to keep a weekly log of your experience, and your supervising professor may require a paper or other reflection piece from you. He or she also must receive a work evaluation from your internship employer before the end of the semester.

Only if you are completing requirements for your MA thesis or doctoral dissertation. Enrollment in JRMC 7000 or 9000 should begin after you have completed your graduate courses and are doing research for your thesis or dissertation. You must be registered for thesis (JRMC 7300) or dissertation (JRMC 9300) credit the term in which you defend the thesis or dissertation.

Only if you are on assistantship and need hours to get you to a full 12-credit course load. JRMC 7005 is for MA students; JRMC 9005 is for doctoral students. If you are not on assistantship, you cannot register for 7005 or 9005 credit.

You may transfer from one concentration to another. However, all degree requirements of the new concentration must be satisfied. Credit hours may be lost, and you may be required to satisfy additional undergraduate prerequisites.

You may switch from one program to the other by completing a CHANGE OF DEGREE OBJECTIVE form. Just as with changing concentration, you will be required to meet the requirements of the new degree.

You can change your advisory committee by competing a new Advisory Committee form, listing the additions and deletions. Submit the completed form (with faculty signatures) to the Graduate Studies Office for transmittal to the Graduate School.

An Advisory Committee directs your thesis or dissertation research. If you are MA student, your Advisory Committee must include three faculty members: a major professor and two other Grady faculty members or one other Grady faculty member and an outside, non-Grady faculty member.

A doctoral Advisory Committee has five members: a major professor, three Grady faculty members, and a cognate area faculty representative from outside the Grady College. See the Ph.D. Handbook for more information.

All members of your advisory committee must be present for your defense to take place. If a committee member can’t make the defense, you have two options: (1) arrange for the absent person to participate via video/telephonic technology or (2) replace the person. If you select the second option, you must complete a new Advisory Committee form prior to the date of your scheduled defense.

Your advisory committee must be given three weeks to read and evaluate your completed thesis or dissertation before the defense is scheduled.

An application for graduation must be filed with the Graduate School no later than Friday of the second full week (the first full week for summer) of classes in the semester of the anticipated graduation date. Application forms may be obtained at https://www.grad.uga.edu.

The class wins. You should never have to alter your class schedule to accommodate assistantship duties. See your supervising department head to have to duties reassigned or modified.

Our policy is student first, GTA/GTA duties and assignment.

The College tries to put aside travel funds for our graduate students every year. Unfortunately, amounts vary and they never cover all travel needs. We follow the criteria established by the Graduate School: students must be traveling to present a refereed paper at a national conference and support is usually limited to Ph.D. students.

The full cost of a trip is never covered. To apply for travel funds, contact the Associate Dean as soon as you receive word of the acceptance of a conference paper. A Travel Authority (TA) must be submitted to the Associate Dean two weeks prior to travel. An Expense Report must be completed and turned in to the Associate Dean immediately upon return from the trip.

Alternatively, limited funds are available through Grady College’s Student Support Funds. This fund was established through generous gifts by C. Richard Yarbrough (ABJ ’59). The purpose of the Student Support Funds is provide funding to help offset extraordinary costs incur when participating in extracurricular activities, such as attending professional development meetings, associated with progress towards a degree.

Finally, limited funds maybe available through the UGA’s Graduate School. However, there are application-criteria and funds are allocated in a specific cycle.

See www.grad.uga.edu for more information.

For Thesis research, there are limited funds available through Grady College’ Student Support Fund. This fund was established through generous gifts by C. Richard Yarbrough (ABJ ’59). The purpose of the Student Support Fund is provide funding to help offset extraordinary costs incur when participating in extracurricular activities, such as attending professional development meetings, associated with progress towards a degree.

For dissertation research, there are limited funds available through the Broun dissertation fund. This fund was established through generous gifts by the former Senator Paul C. Broun (ABJ ’37). Please see the Graduate Studies office for details on how to apply for the Broun dissertation fund.

You must have a cumulative GPA of 3.0 to graduate. Only grades in graduate courses listed on your program-of-study are computed in your graduate GPA.

If you are a MA student, you must file the appropriate Program of Study form the term preceding the final term of your course work (i.e., MA = form for MA/MS students). If you are a doctoral student, you must file a Program of Study during your second summer term in the doctoral program.

The Program of Study, including a listing of prerequisite courses and graduate courses taken and planned, is prepared by you in consultation with you advisor/major professor and/or advisory committee. No grade below a “C” may be counted in your Program of Study.

Graduate students must complete a 1-credit GradFIRST seminar (GRSC 7001) during fall or spring of their first year, unless they are enrolled in an exempt program. The GradFIRST seminars supplement discipline-specific training in graduate students’ academic programs with focused professional development and engagement/networking opportunities.

Completion of GradFIRST will be listed on a student’s program of study (G138) form in GradStatus. In the section titled “GradFIRST requirement” the student should list the semester in which the course was completed. Students in programs granted an exemption by the Graduate School, or students who matriculated prior to Fall 2022, may note that they are exempt from this requirement.

GRSC 7001 should not be listed as a course under “Course Information” in programs of study.