Waivers are possible, especially for students with a strong undergraduate record. The GRE may be needed if you wish to receive financial assistance and your undergraduate GPA is below a 3.0 average for your last 60 hours. ISU Graduate School policy prohibits providing graduate assistantships to anyone who has not achieved a 3.0 GPA for the last 60 hours of their undergraduate coursework OR received a combined score of less than 1,000 on the GRE verbal and quantitative sections. Once these hurdles have been cleared, prospective applicants must still be accepted by the Master s International Program to be eligible for available assistantships. These assistantships are then awarded on a competitive basis.
All eligible applicants compete for available assistantships and awards.
If you are not eligible for an assistantship but are nevertheless accepted by the Political Science Department or Economics Department and the Master s International Program, some assistantship awards may be available in the second or third semesters, provided that you show satisfactory progress in your coursework. Of course, all students accepted into a graduate degree program are eligible to apply for conventional student loans. Graduate Assistants are required to work up to 20 hours per week in exchange for these awards. Talk to the department graduate advisor or the Unit director about these. With or without financial assistance, students are responsible for payment of these fees and all other expenses, including books and photocopying, housing, food and other typical living expenses.