Graduate Program Coordinator Job Description

What Does a Graduate Program Coordinator Do?

Graduate students juggling research, teaching and a thesis can lose a whole semester over one missed form. The graduate program coordinator in a university department is there to stop that, tracking every form and deadline from admission to graduation. Exams, thesis defenses, assistantship and stipend paperwork and the final degree audit all pass across the coordinator's desk, along with a steady stream of questions from students.

Also known as: Degree Program Assistant, Graduate Degree Professional, Graduate Program Administrator

Graduate Program Coordinator Duties and Responsibilities

The primary responsibilities of a graduate program coordinator include:

• Manage graduate admissions files and send complete applications to the faculty admissions committee.
• Track each student's milestones, including qualifying exams, committee forms and thesis defense dates.
• Schedule defenses and book rooms, video links and time on committee members' calendars.
• Process teaching and research assistantship appointments, tuition waivers and stipend paperwork.
• Audit degree requirements before graduation and send clearance forms to the graduate school.
• Answer prospective and current students' questions about deadlines, funding and program rules.
• Organize orientation, recruitment visits and the program's end-of-year events.
• Update the graduate handbook and program web pages when policies change.
• Pull enrollment, time-to-degree and placement data for program reviews and accreditation reports.
• Remind students and advisers about upcoming deadlines before registration holds are placed.

Required Skills and Qualifications

To succeed as a graduate program coordinator, you will need the following skills and qualifications:

• Slate, Banner or PeopleSoft Campus Solutions
• Excel for tracking student milestones
• Knowledge of graduate school policies and forms
• Calendar juggling across busy faculty schedules
• Friendly, steady support for stressed students
• Careful handling of FERPA-protected records
• Event planning on a small budget
• Clear email writing to students and faculty

Education and Training

Many graduate program coordinators learn the program's rules on the job, but some start out by working as department assistants or as graduate students themselves. Universities often prefer coordinators to be college graduates. For the wider group of administrative assistants these posts fall into, BLS lists a high school diploma as typical.

Salary and Job Outlook

BLS projects employment of secretaries and administrative assistants (outside legal, medical and executive work) to decline about 6 percent from 2025 to 2035. Even so, turnover in such a large group leaves roughly 163,900 openings a year. Coordinating a graduate program is often less exposed to that decline than general office work because it depends on knowing one program's rules, deadlines and people.

Outlook source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections, 2025 to 2035, Secretaries and administrative assistants, except legal, medical, and executive.