Liaison CAS | Graduate Student Focus Groups

Insights to Increase Access to Graduate Education

Graduate education needs to reduce the friction experienced by applicants
attempting to access your institution. You can't risk losing qualified and interested students to a frustrating application experience.

So how do you make sure this doesn't happen?

Liaison conducted focus groups with the group most suited to answer that question: current graduate students. We asked them how the process could be easier, less stressful, and more beneficial for applicants and institutions alike.

Their answers may surprise you.

“Schools have so many different requirements that it's kind of hard to track all of them. Some schools want certain documents, and some schools want other things. It's pretty stressful keeping track of them all”

Deborah
Focus Group Participant

[Applying to grad school] is a very intimidating and stressful process for the students. By making it easier in any way or just less complicated, I think you would definitely have more people applying to your programs.

Joan
Focus Group Participant

"If you streamline it, you're going to have more applicants across the board. And people are going to apply to more [schools] to get more opportuni[ties]."

Willian
Focus Group Participant

More About This Project

To better understand potential student barriers in the graduate school application process, the research team conducted nine focus groups, gathering invaluable insights directly from current graduate students between 2024–2026. The study included students pursuing various disciplines of study at institutions of diverse types and sizes.

The facilitated discussions focused on the challenges students faced when applying to graduate school, how they decided which, and how many, programs to apply to, and their reaction to the prospect of a centralized application process, shedding light on what matters most to applicants. The team’s mission was to explore if, and how, a centralized application service can increase access to graduate education by simplifying the application process.

Multiple themes emerged through the discussions. Students reported that the graduate application process caused high levels of stress, particularly stemming from confusing instructions that vary per program and institution as well as the difficulty of finding accurate information on institution websites. Their reactions to seeing the GradCAS platform revealed that they recommend a streamlined, singular application for the graduate education. Several participants explicitly stated that they would have applied to more programs if they had access to a centralized application service. When given the opportunity to share advice to GEM leaders, participants had an overwhelming message: streamline and communicate to make the process more accessible to students.

Future directions for this project will examine the experience of graduate students once they enroll. After all, matriculation is not the singular goal—the true goal is student success.