Graduate Admissions
The department accepts students for fall semester admission only. Deadlines for admission are:
- Priority deadline for U.S. residents and international students: Feb. 1. However, the department will continue to accept applications until April 15th.
- Graduate assistantship application deadline: Feb. 1.
- Note: beginning Fall 2010, the GRE will be required for students who wish to be admitted under the traditional MA program. GRE is not required for the professional MA program applicants.
Eligibility for admission to the Criminal Justice Master’s Degree program
- An undergraduate degree from an institution with regional or national accreditation is required. Students are encouraged to complete some undergraduate course works related to criminal justice/criminology, and statistics in social sciences.
- A minimum of a 2.75 GPA for all undergraduate work AND a 3.0 GPA for the last two years of undergraduate work are required. A student who has met the minimum GPA requirements is not guaranteed admission. A student with less than the minimum GPA may be provisionally admitted if there is compelling evidence to indicate a reasonable likelihood of success in the program.
Graduate Record Examination (GRE)
- Traditional Master's Program Applicants - The GRE is required for admission.
- Professional Master's Program Applicants - The GRE is not required for admission.
Graduate College Online Application
The admissions process requires submitting all information and materials through the UNLV Graduate College online application for admission (click “Apply to Graduate School” in the upper right corner):
1. A completed application includes the following:
- Required application processing fee
- Under the Post-Secondary Institutions section, you should: o Attach copies of transcripts from all colleges/universities attended (Note: upon admission, final official transcripts with degree posted are still required to be sent to the Graduate College upon admission)
- Under the Supporting Documents section, you should:
- Attach the completed Criminal Justice Graduate Program Application Cover Page (doc.x)
- Attach the Statement of purpose (docx.)
- Under the Recommendations link, you should:
- Input the complete information of two individuals who will submit letters of recommendation on your behalf. The CJ department prefers to receive all letters electronically, therefore be sure to mark "Yes" for the online submission question, and provide a valid email address. The system will then automatically send an email to the recommender with instructions on how they can upload the letter online. This information can only be input before the applicant submits their application, and the applicant will be notified when a recommendation is submitted. It is however your responsibility to make sure that the letters are submitted on time.
- It is preferred that both letters be from professors from whom the applicant took the classes. If the applicant completed the undergraduate degree work within the past five years, it is required that at least one letter be from a professor, unless the applicant can document the reasons why a letter from a former professor is difficult to obtain.
- If the applicant completed the undergraduate degree work more than five years ago and is currently working in a criminal justice-related field, two letters may be obtained from the applicant's direct supervisor or co-workers. References from other sources will not be reviewed
2. If you are interested in the Graduate Assistantship, complete the graduate assistantship application on the “Financial Support Information” page of the Graduate College Online Application, or submit the graduate assistantship paper application (if applicable).
Contact Graduate Director, Professor Hong Lu, at hong.lu@unlv.edu if you have any questions.
After you have submitted your application, it is recommended that you send an email to Diana Morrison at diana.morrison@unlv.edu to notify her of your application. You will be contacted by the department of your application status within two weeks of your application admission.
Note: You may save your work in the application and then log back in using your user name & password, so you do not need to complete this application all at one time. Instead, you may log-in, work on your application, save, and exit as often as you need to do so, however, once you hit the final SUBMIT button at the end of the application you cannot re-enter or make any additional changes. So make sure that you have completed the application and uploaded all required documents before submitting the application.
