Graduate school

school that awards advanced academic degrees (i.e. master's and doctoral degrees) with the general requirement that students must have earned a previous undergraduate (bachelor's) degree

A graduate school (or grad school) is a school that gives advanced academic degrees, such as Master's degrees (M.S. or M.B.A.) and Doctoral degrees (Ph.D. or L.L.D. or D.D.S. etc.). A graduate student (or grad student) is a student who has earned a Bachelor's degree and is pursuing additional education in a specific field, though this is not always the case. In British English, the term "postgraduate student" is more common.

A graduate school is not always a separate school.

The term "graduate school" could be confusing because the verb "graduate" is also used to mean completing high school education or earning a Bachelor's degree. The verb is used for all those types of schools, but the meaning of the adjective "graduate" is changed to mean "postgraduate" in the term "graduate school". The small change in meaning can be viewed with an air of sophistication, where experienced students are often more aware of the issue, while novice students might not be aware, as being more naive.

Related pages change