English, M.A.

Yes, but only if they place their names on waitlists, which offer students a chance to enroll in a class if other students drop. Waitlists do not guarantee positions, but they do offer possibilities, so it is always wise to add your name to the waitlist of a course that you wish to take.

All students who apply to a graduate program at MSU follow the same procedure. Because the online MA is only a different delivery option, not a distinct program in and of itself, students do not have to specify “online MA” on their application form. All they need to do is apply to the MA in English program. Once they are admitted to the program, they will take all of their coursework online.

No. "On demand" is just the catch-all term for any course that does not neatly fit into a standard two-year rotation. Because many of our courses are on a 2.5 or 3-year rotation, we designate them as "on demand." Although we frequently recalibrate our course offerings by analyzing previous enrollment patterns and student requests, we do not have the staffing and resources necessary to meet individual students' requests for courses.

No. Open enrollment refers to the fact that there are no deadlines for application for graduate study. Acceptance to the program, though, does not necessarily equal open positions in upcoming classes. Our online offerings often fill up in the first days of advanced registration, so any student who is admitted after those dates (dates which can be found within the "Class Schedule" on the Registrar's site) must either place his/her name on a waitlist or plan to attend the following semester.

Although some students express concern that they cannot walk into a class the moment they have been admitted, they soon come to realize that the flexibility of our "open” program more than makes up for any initial inconvenience. Instead of micro-managing enrollment by forcing all prospective students to apply at a set time before pre-registration and requiring existing students to sign up for a prescribed number of hours each term to work their way through the program, we just let students know that they may encounter some registration difficulties their initial semester and encourage them to utilize early registration every subsequent term they choose to take classes.

UNCONDITIONAL ADMISSION

In order to be unconditionally admitted to the program, students must have: (a) general admission to graduate study, (b) an undergraduate major or minor in English, (c) a minimum GPA of 3.0 on all undergraduate English courses above a freshman level, (d) an accumulated (or a total of) 12 credits of upper-division English and American literature courses completed prior to admission, and (e) a minimum score of 146 on the verbal section and 140 on the quantitative section of the GRE.

CONDITIONAL ADMISSION

Students who lack the GRE and/or an undergraduate English major or minor will be unconditionally admitted if, after completing 12 credit hours at MSU in English, which must include a required major author course, they achieve an MSU GPA of 3.5 or higher, with no grade lower than "B."

Students who fail to maintain a 3.5 GPA or fail to take a major author course during their first 12 hours may still gain unconditional admission by achieving a minimum score of 146 on the verbal section and 140 quantitative section of the GRE.

Note that ENG 636 (Major American Author) and ENG 637 (Major British Author) are courses that may only be taken once for credit. If you enroll in either course a second time, your first grade will be canceled out, even if the author is different.

FALL SEMESTERS:

• ENG 636 (Major American Author)
• One British Literature course TBD
• One Linguistics course TBD

SPRING SEMESTERS:

• ENG 637 (Major British Author)
• One American Literature course TBD
  
• One Writing course TBD