Specialist in Education GRE Waiver Criteria and Process

The Department of Educational Leadership, Research and Technology at Western Michigan University currently requires that all applicants for a specialist in education degree to submit their scores from the general GRE exam as part of their application materials. A potential waiver from the dean of the Graduate College is a possibility for some applicants.

First, candidates must receive a recommendation for a waiver from the faculty within the Department of Educational Leadership, Research and Technology associated with the specialist in education degree. To seek such a recommendation, the candidate must submit the following:

1. A resume or vitae that clearly depicts at least five years of formal or informal leadership experience.
2. A copy of your transcripts from your master's degree (note: You will eventually need to provide official transcript(s), but for the purpose of seeking a recommendation for a waiver, an unofficial copy is fine). Please note that all applicants must have a master’s degree from an accredited institution with a grade point average of 3.0 or better, as indicated on your transcript.
3. An enhanced career and professional goals narrative and current issue writing sample, which has two parts:
   1. First, the applicant should clearly describe his or her professional goals, and how this specialist in education program fits with those goals.
   2. Second, the applicant needs to write about a current educational issue of interest, either practice based or theoretical, analyzing what the issue is and some current research surrounding that issue (using at least eight references). Note: this overall narrative writing sample should be eight to ten double-spaced pages and attempt to follow American Psychological Association 6th edition for formatting a paper, which includes a title and reference page.

All materials required to seek a recommendation for a waiver must be submitted to Diane Bourgeois at least four weeks prior to each deadline for specialist in education admissions:

• By Oct. 1 for the Nov. 1 deadline.
• By March 1 for the April 1 deadline.
• By June 1 for the July 1 deadline.

Based upon a review of these materials, the ed specialist associated faculty may submit a GRE waiver request to the dean of the Graduate College.

Within two weeks of receiving all materials for a GRE wavier recommendation, the department will notify the applicant if such a recommendation has been granted. Once hearing from the graduate dean the applicant will be notified of the decision.