Graduate School Application Process at Texas Tech University (Armando Maldonado)

The Graduate School application process to Texas Tech University (TTU) as any other college in the United States consists of the submission of letters of recommendation, official transcripts from previous higher degree institutions, and a personal statement. Since the 21^st century began, everything like cars, computers and internet access has been improved, making humans capable of doing more in a shorter period. Therefore, to reduce delays in the application process, TTU needs to improve their old fashioned way (sending all by mail) into a system in which all documents can be directed to each department by using a personalized web page.

Last year, when I applied to Graduate School, I got the chances to apply for six colleges in the United States. From those, the best options for me were TTU and North Carolina State University (NCSU). At NCSU all the process to apply was done through the Civil Engineering Department web page, and all my application documents were in less than three days under review by the Graduate Faculty. On the other hand, at TTU, my experience with the Graduate School admission office was not even close to the NCSU application experience. However, it is my aim to push the faculty members of the Graduate Admission office to improve their system into one similar to NCSU or any other college in the U.S. that uses the technology to reduce delays and to loss of documents during the process. So, this improvement not only will make everyone’s life easier; it also will provide that more students get the chance to keep track of where their admission documents are, and they will know if their respective departments received their entry papers on time without delay.

Therefore, after being awarded this year as one of the top ten research institutions in the United States, Texas Tech University needs at least be able to figure out how to have a clearer, more user-friendly computerized process, making TTU able to compete with those top universities like NCSU. So, this recognition will bring more students around the world that want to be part of the Texas Tech community, even though improving the application process will lessen the larger number of students who leave the application process due to the inefficiency of the system. All the effort of this essay is to tell the TTU Graduate School Admission Office about this issue. When I applied to Tech to get my entry papers on time, I sent an email to my advisor with all my admission papers, because most of the entry papers got lost before I got into the Civil Engineering Department. For this reason, I want to make the admission office aware of this issue, helping them to know about this, and then if they make the changes they will be mindful of the fact that most students will keep choosing Texas Tech. They will do this because the college they want to study offers them the tools they need to successfully and quickly apply to Graduate School.