Law students may apply to UCO at any time during the first two years of law school or before beginning law school. A full-time law student may begin M.P.A. coursework after the start of the third semester of law school. A part-time law student may begin M.P.A. coursework after the fifth semester of law school. Law students must complete the fixed required courses for the J.D. degree as scheduled.

Students who have been admitted to both degree programs should notify the OCU School of Law’s Registrar. Students may do this by checking the appropriate box on their work statements during any enrollment period. Students who have been admitted to both degree programs should also notify the UCO Jackson College of Graduate Studies and the UCO M.P.A. program.

Paired degree candidates may transfer six credit hours of their J.D. coursework to UCO for credit toward the M.P.A. degree’s required 36 credit hours. Only credit hours from the UCO list of accepted J.D. courses will transfer for this purpose. Paired degree candidates who complete UCO’s M.P.A. degree need to complete only 84 credit hours at OCU Law, including the six credit hours transferred to UCO, to earn the J.D. degree. Thus, participants may earn both degrees with the completion of 114 credit hours, rather than the usual 126 credit hours.

University of Central Oklahoma M.P.A. Requirements

• A bachelor’s degree from an appropriately accredited institution in any field
• Overall GPA of 2.75, or 3.0 in last 60 hours
• If the GPA criteria is not met, a student may be admitted via one of two qualifications:
  1. GRE with a minimum score of 160 Verbal and 145 Quantitative. The writing assessment portion must be at 4.0 or greater
  2. A master’s degree from an accredited university with an overall GPA of 3.0

Note: A student does not need to take the GRE or have a master’s degree if they meet the above GPA criteria. Students who do not meet the GPA requirement may be granted conditional admission. Following conditional admission, students must complete 9 hours in required graduate M.P.A. courses with a cumulative GPA of 3.5 or higher, as approved by the M.P.A. graduate director.

• Six required courses (18 hours): Public Administration Dynamics, Public Executive Leadership, Public Finance & Budgeting, Public Sector Human Resources, Public Policy Analysis, and Research Methods
• Five guided elective courses (15 hours)
• A capstone paper (3 hours)
• A comprehensive final exam