Frequently Asked Questions

Since Covid, things look a little different when you come to our office. We have put in place some distancing rules and have hung a plexiglass barrier at our reception desk to protect both our employees and our visitors. Here’s what you need to know before you come to the office:

1. Masks are not required in our office. However, please be aware of your health and stay home if you are not feeling well!

2. Due to our small space, we encourage you to call or email the staff member you need to speak with to see if your questions can be handled over the phone or by email rather than coming in person. Our staff can also set up a Zoom or Teams meeting if you’d like – just ask them to do so when you reach out. If you’re not sure who you should talk to about your question, you can email us at wsugradschool@wichita.edu, and we will direct you to the correct person. You may also call the office during regular business hours at 316-978-3095 (option 1 for admission-related questions, option 2 for all other questions) to be connected to the person best able to assist you. If you feel that a face-to-face meeting is necessary, please contact the person you wish to speak with and ask that an in-person meeting be scheduled. We will work with you to arrange that in-person meeting

3. Due to the small size of our reception area, only two visitors are allowed in the reception area at a time. If another visitor is in the reception area, please wait in the hallway until that person has left. If you just need to drop off paperwork, feel free to leave it in the dropbox to the east of our door (107 Jardine Hall).

We are open from 8am – 5pm Monday – Friday. If you’re on campus, you’re welcome to stop by our office in room 107 Jardine Hall and submit your paperwork, forms, or your signed copy of your assistantship Notice of Appointment. We have an after-hours dropbox outside our office door as well – which you can drop paperwork into any time, even when we’re open. We check it throughout the day. Due to the sensitive nature of some of our forms and materials you would normally send to us, we prefer that you not send those documents via email. If you need to submit them electronically, please use the Dropbox feature within myWSU (myTools) to send it directly to a specific person in our office. If you prefer to send materials through the mail, our postal mailing address is:

The Graduate School
Wichita State University
1845 Fairmount, Campus Box 4
Wichita KS 67260-0004

The fillable Graduate School Exception Form is permanently housed in the Forms and Publications section of the Graduate School website. Students should download the form from our website, open it in Adobe, and fill out the form, including a detailed description of their request. The form can be signed digitally once opened in Adobe. It should then be forwarded (via Dropbox) to their advisor and then program coordinator for digital signatures. Once the form is complete, it should be submitted, with any supporting documents, by Dropbox in the myWSU portal (used to forward protected information) to our general mailbox at wsugradschool@wichita.edu. Instructions for digital signatures can be found in the Digital Signature FAQ below. Physical copies with signatures can also be dropped off at the Graduate School Office in room 107 Jardine Hall or in the dropbox to the east of our door.

Wichita State’s IT Applications Training team has provided instructions online for both creating digital signatures in Signature Fields in Acrobat Forms and Adobe Fill & Sign, which allows you to sign with a printed signature or draw a signature with a stylus or your finger on a touch screen.

Students and faculty may decide to hold the defense either in person or remotely. No formal exception is required to be allowed to have a remote defense.

IN PERSON
If both the student and the members of the committee agree to an in-person defense, it can be open to the public. Some members of the committee may be allowed to participate remotely if they so desire. It is an expectation that ALL members of the committee be in attendance at the defense, either in person or remotely. 

REMOTE
If preferred by the student and committee, defenses may be held remotely, using Zoom, Teams, Skype, etc. No special permission is required to do a remote defense, however, it should be noted on the Request to Schedule Oral Defense form that the defense will be held remotely.  It is an expectation that ALL members of the committee be in attendance at the defense, either in person or remotely. 

After the defense has been completed, the signed Recommendation for Degree form should be forwarded to our Degree Audit Coordinator, Denecia Angleton (Denecia.Angleton@wichita.edu) either by email, dropbox, or by campus mail (Box 4). If you have questions about form submission, please contact Denecia directly.

Students who need to defer their graduation semester will need to file a new Application for Degree and pay the $25 fee again. If you feel that your situation is extraordinary and that you should be exempted from the AFD filing requirement, please email Denecia Angleton, our degree audit coordinator, to discuss your case.  

Students who are finishing their graduate degree are required to be enrolled in the appropriate number of hours for their terminal activity (1 hour of thesis or project, 2 hours of dissertation, etc.). Students who wish to be allowed to enroll in fewer hours, or not to be enrolled at all, must file a formal exception with the Graduate School to request permission to be enrolled in fewer than the required number of hours. See above section about filing exceptions. 

When your Request to Schedule Oral Defense is approved, Denecia Angleton, our degree audit coordinator, will reach out to you with instructions on next steps. Further, when you have passed your defense and she has received notice of this from your committee chair, she will email you with instructions on how to upload your thesis or dissertation. She will review the document as soon as possible and email you with any changes or corrections that are needed. Please remember you are not done until she has given final approval of your corrected thesis or dissertation. If it in necessary to meet with her in person, you will need to reach out to her to set up an appointment.

Ideally, you would meet with your advisor to discuss your degree plan and to build your plan of study. We recommend reaching out to your advisor to schedule a meeting either in person, over the phone, or by Zoom or Teams. In some cases you may be able to have your discussion via email.

The plan of study form is available on our website in Forms and Publications section. Students should download the form from our website, open it in Adobe, and fill out the form. The form can be signed digitally once opened in Adobe. It should then be forwarded (via email or Dropbox) to their advisor and then program coordinator for digital signatures. Once the form is complete, it should be submitted to the Graduate School office via email to wsugradschool@wichita.edu. Instructions for digital signatures can be found in the Digital Signature FAQ above.

When the plan is reviewed and approved by our office, you’ll receive an email from our staff with a scanned copy of the approved plan. Please note that you can revise your plan any time you need to, as many times as you need to.

If you have completed graduate coursework in the past 24 months, you can enroll in courses via your MyWSU portal.

Graduate students who have completed coursework at Wichita State University, have not enrolled in the past 24 months, and want to continue graduate work must apply for readmission into the desired graduate degree or non-degree/certificate program.  If the student wishes to pursue a different graduate program, a new application is required. Readmitted graduate students with a previous Plan of Study on file will be required to submit a new plan meeting current degree program requirements. 

For teachers looking to take courses for licensure purposes and have had a previous graduate admission – please email us at wsugradschool@wichita.edu

The Graduate School does not permit applicants to review materials provided to the University during the admission process.  We are happy to remove any materials submitted so that new materials or copies may be uploaded through your application portal.  Any materials retained by the University become part of the student record upon enrollment and matriculation into the graduate program– attending on the first day of classes in the application program.  At that time, your academic record may be viewed by making  a request through the Office of the Registrar.  To our knowledge, no part of the record beyond a transcript may be provided to you to keep.  The admission file is not part of the student record until this point and the University tries to not retain admission materials from the application file once enrollment occurs.  This includes letters of recommendation, resume, goal statement, etc. 

If you’re requesting copies of your letters of recommendation, please contact your recommender to receive what was submitted. If you would like to exclude a recommender, please let us know.  You may add a substitute through the application portal.

A letter grade of "C" or better (generating 2.0 credit points) is considered to be a passing grade that can be used toward a graduate degee or certificate program unless otherwise specified by the program. A grade of "C-" cannot be used toward meeting degree or certificate requirements.