Cornell University: New Graduate School program demystifies graduate study for diverse students

Applying to and attending graduate school can appear especially daunting to prospective students who don’t have role models with these experiences. To prepare and support these students, the Graduate School is expanding an existing student-led program to include all graduate fields starting in the summer of 2022.

The original program, Diversity Preview Weekend (DPW), was created by a group of Cornell life sciences doctoral students who hosted prospective students and ran workshops on what to expect and how to apply to graduate school. The program’s success encouraged additional graduate fields to host similar programs. With the goal of institutionalizing the program across the university, graduate students worked with the Graduate School to develop a proposal that includes all graduate fields by creating a centralized administrative structure. Deans from Cornell’s colleges approved the institutionalization proposal on Nov. 9, 2021.