The UMBC Master of Arts degree program in Applied Sociology is designed for both full-time and part-time students. All courses are offered one evening a week at 4:30 or 7:00 pm at UMBC. Students may be admitted in both the fall and spring semesters. The fall admission deadline is the end of July and the spring admission deadline is the end of December. Students in the program come from many academic backgrounds and more than half have undergraduate majors in fields other than sociology.

The major foci of the MA program are health and aging, research methods, and selected areas of gender and diversity. The large majority of students focus on health and aging because of the growing importance of the fields and the many excellent job opportunities in health and aging in the Baltimore and Washington areas. Our graduates work at federal government agencies including the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Institute of Aging; state government agencies including the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene; universities; medical schools; and numerous research corporations including Westat.

The UMBC Applied Sociology MA program admits 25-35 students each year and awards up to 20 MA degrees annually. It awards more MA degrees in sociology than any other university in Maryland and is one of the largest MA-only sociology graduate programs in the country.

The Applied Sociology MA program has a community of at least 60 MA students at any time. They are all in the same stage of their educations and share many interests. They take courses together and learn from each other, which occurs much more often in a large graduate program. To enhance their educations, the department offers a number of courses only for MA students that are not open to undergraduates. Because the MA degree is the department's only graduate program, students do not have to share courses, faculty, and other resources with PhD students, who tend to be the first priority of MA/PhD programs.

Requirements for admission include a GPA of 3.0 or higher and an undergraduate course in statistics in any discipline. GRE scores are not required. Students who have not taken an undergraduate statistics course may be admitted pending completion of an undergraduate statistics course with a grade of C or better. The course should be completed before undertaking graduate course work and may be taken in any discipline at any institution of higher education, including community colleges. GPAs below 3.0 will be considered based on work and related experiences. Students with lower GPAs may be admitted as Special Advanced Students and can take up to 6 credits of graduate courses. If they receive grades of B or better in the courses, they are eligible for admission as regular students and, if admitted, receive graduate credit for the 6 credits.

The MA program consists of 10 courses (30 credits), including one 3 credit course in research methods, one 3 credit course in statistics, and a third 3 credit methods or statistics course from an approved list. Students have two options for the remaining 7 courses (21 credits). Close to 90 percent of the students choose the Analytical Paper option, which requires 7 courses plus a research paper approved by two faculty members. Many students take an independent study course to complete the paper. The thesis option requires 15 credits of courses plus 6 credits of thesis approved by a committee of three faculty members.

A normal full-time load is 9 credits per semester, which enables students to complete the program in 3 semesters plus a summer or winter session course. Part-time students can often complete the program in 2 to 2.5 years.

A Post-graduate Certificate in the Nonprofit Sector is offered as part of the MA and is offered jointly with the Maryland Association of Nonprofit Organizations. It consists of 4 courses, all of which count for the MA degree.

A small number of assistantships are available in the department and elsewhere, both on and off campus. Assistantships require 10 or 20 hours of work per week and provide tuition remission, health insurance, and a stipend. The department regularly informs all admitted students by email about assistantships and other employment opportunities. Only admitted students may apply for assistantships, so applicants who are interested in them should apply for admission as early as possible.

Persons who are interested in the MA program should email Professor William Rothstein, Graduate Program Director, at rothstei@umbc.edu. Professor Rothstein will arrange a meeting at UMBC if practical or otherwise a telephone conversation.