Action Items for Units Mainly Using ILS for Recruitment

Units that have opted to funnel all PhD applications through ILS should make all appropriate individuals aware of the following action items (e.g. grad coordinator assistants, webmasters, graduate coordinators, etc.). Please contact the ILS Director if your unit wishes to changes its level of participation in ILS. To do so will require that the Department Head/Program Director contact both the Dean of their college (first) and the Graduate School (second, in letter form) notifying them of your decision to either opt in or out of ILS. When opting in, the notification letter to the Graduate School must include wording affirming that you are aware that by doing this, your program will no longer be eligible to participate in GSA, Presidential, or GRO competitions. Once these notifications have been sent and approved, please complete the action items below.

Action Items

  1. Please contact the Graduate School in writing/by email to request routing of all PhD applications to ILS. This routing change requires a physical change to the Graduate School application website. During the Application process, a prospective student will now see this note associated with your program: “NOTE: Applicants to this program are managed by Integrated Life Sciences”. Please inform your Grad Coordinator Assistants about this routing change so that they can properly respond to any student inquiries about this issue.
  2. Review your department’s website to ensure that the How-To-Apply information is correct. ILS highly recommends redirecting prospective PhD students to the ILS How-To-Apply page (http://integratedlife.wpengine.com/admissions/how-to-apply). To minimize student confusion, you may wish to clearly state on your website that all PhD applicants must apply to Integrated Life Sciences (note: MSc applicants should NOT be redirected to ILS).
    The ILS How-To-Apply page specifically states that we require the following application materials:

    • official Grad School application
    • transcripts/GPA
    • letters of recommendation (n=3)
    • Background & Interest form
    • TOEFL scores (international only)
  3. Review the information listed on the Graduate School’s page for your graduate program (http://www.grad.uga.edu/prospective_programs.html). The existing information could lead to confusion. Please relay all changes/updates to the Graduate School.
  4. Review any program propaganda that you send to prospective students for accuracy. If your unit receives a request for specific information about your unit’s PhD graduate program, please do not forward that request to ILS. We recommend that you continue to send whatever program-specific information you are currently sending. Students who specifically inquire about ILS, however, can be referred to ILS or given our contact information. These students will receive ILS-specific propaganda that at this time does not provide much detail about your graduate programs. ILS uses standard templates that it sends to prospective students depending on whether they are domestically or internationally trained. If you wish to review these templates, please contact us.
  5. ILS will receive application information for all PhD applicants, including those applying for direct admission (i.e. direct entry into a lab on an RA).  ILS should be notified by the appropriate unit when a direct admission applicant is in our system.  Once notified, ILS will surrender the direct admission application so that it can be processed per unit guidelines.
  6. ILS will not be handling MSc applications (any cycle).
  7. Please provide the name of your program’s graduate coordinator assistant (or a designated representative) to the ILS graduate coordinator.  It is expected that this individual will be available to provide timely assistance to the ILS graduate coordinator with regard to management of graduate student applications and the interview process.  For specific details about expected duties, contact the ILS graduate coordinator.