Wayne State University

Wayne State University is one of several colleges located in Detroit, Michigan. The university considers its founding date as 1868, which is when the Detroit Medical School opened. This school is now the university's School of Medicine. The Detroit Normal Training School opened in 1881 and quickly became one of the main schools in the state for those who wanted to become teachers. That school is now the university's School of Education. Wayne State also evolved out of a small high school that opened in 1896 and then became Detroit Junior College in the early 1910s. Multiple schools came together in the 1930s to become Wayne State University.

This university is unique because its campus is in the Cultural Historic District in Detroit. Students can visit museums and other historic sites as well as dine and shop in between their classes. Its campus is home to both dormitories and residence halls that provide undergrad and graduate students with a safe place to live. U.S. News & World Report ranked its law school and nursing programs as the best in the nation and ranked its law school as the state's second best. Wayne State is a public university with a total enrollment of more than 27,000 students.

Wayne State University Accreditation Details

The institutional accreditation that Wayne State has comes from the Higher Learning Commission (HLC), which is one of the man organizations responsible for accrediting colleges across the country. This type of accreditation also meets one of the requirements necessary for getting federal financial aid. Depending on what you hope to study, you may want to find out if the university has accreditation for that specific program. It has accreditation from organizations like the American Bar Association, Accreditation Board for Engineering & Technology and American Library Association for its programs in law, engineering, computer science and library science. Wayen State University also has accreditation from groups like:

• American Occupational Therapy Association
• Council on Education for Public Health
• Liaison Committee on Medical Education
• Planning Accreditation Board
• Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education

Wayne State University Application Requirements

Before you apply to a Wayne State graduate program, you should really take a tour of the campus. Not only can you see professors in action and sit in on some of the classes you will later take, but you can also tour the residence halls and see what options are open to grad students. The only requirements for graduate students is that they fill out an application and have a bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university at the time that they start graduate classes.

WSU has an online application that lets you create your own individual account. This account lets you check on the status of your application once you complete and submit it. Wayne State will notify you online and send an email to the address you registered when it makes a decision on your application. Though the application lets you tell the university more about, you must also submit a transcript that shows the classes you took as an undergrad, your class ranking and your overall GPA. Some students enrolling in certain departments and programs will need to submit other information like a standardized test score from the GRE or a similar exam, one or more writing samples, a resume or letters of recommendation. If you do need to submit letters of recommendation, you should get letters from former professors or work supervisors.

Tuition and Financial Aid

As a full-time graduate student, Wayne State University expects you to take 16 credits of classes or more over the course of the year. Tuition for full-time students who are Michigan residents is around $10,700 a year. If you are not a Michigan resident, your tuition will climb to around $21,700 a year. Room and board for graduating students living on the WSU campus is close to $9,900 a year. The total cost that you spend to attend this public university also depends on the amount you spend on school supplies and miscellaneous expenses.

Though graduate students do not receive as much financial aid as undergrad students do, you will still want to submit the FAFSA to see what options are available to you. Once WSU processes your financial aid application, it will send you an award letter that details what types of aid you will get, how much you will get and the total remaining balance that you will need to pay. There are grant programs available for those who need help and grants for those planning to work in certain industries or fields. You can also get federal student loans that let you borrow more than $20,000 a year and alternative student loans that can help you cover the balance leftover.

Master of Science in Criminal Justice

The Master of Science in Criminal Justice program that Wayne State University offers, also called its CJS program, is available on its campus as well as online. Students take two classes each semester during each semester available and finish their studies in two years. Many of the courses you take focus on evidence and how professionals gather and use evidence. Though some of the graduates of this program work for government agencies and departments, others use the skills they develop to enroll in a PhD program.

This program is available in three different options. Though all students take 30 credits of CJ classes, they can do a thesis, capstone or essay. The thesis option requires that you do independent research under the supervision of a professor in the department and write a paper based on your research. If you select the essay route, you'll need to prepare and write a detailed essay based on a question or topic chosen by the department. With the capstone option, you will write multiple essays and shorter papers that address specific areas of criminal justice, including research methods, public policy and criminal analysis.

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Some courses are only available in the fall or spring, but other courses are available every semester. Courses include dispute resolution, child abuse and neglect, contemporary criminal justice, corrections and policing and society. Wayne State University offers a directed study class for students who want to study a subject not addressed in their classes too, which is worth up to three credits.