Master of Science in Education - K 12 Teaching

Northwestern's School of Education and Social Policy (SESP) Teacher Education programs are committed to nurturing ways of learning and teaching that can help all students thrive by centering our work around four guiding commitments to: Advance Equity and Social Justice, Foster Subject Matter Sensemaking, Understand Learning and Human Development, and Engage Within and Across Community. In response to our current moment in history, we seek to develop educators who are prepared to form new social and cultural realities for all learners, and especially for those who have been underserved by various systems of education. Candidates in our programs will work towards a better understanding of self and system in service of collaborative change and improvement.

The size of the program allows for small, interactive courses where connections can grow between students and professors and within cohorts of teacher candidates. A combination of intensive coursework and deep clinical experiences are designed to develop strong understandings of the relationship between the skill of responsive practice and the explanatory power of theory. The teacher-candidate experience culminates in a capstone project that draws together clinical experience, action research, and the application of theoretical knowledge that allows students to understand the role of data and research in pursuit of transformative teaching and learning.

The GRE and GPA are important indicators of an applicant's academic capabilities. When reviewing an application, we are looking for candidates who:

have an undergraduate GPA of 3.0 or better (on a 4-point scale),
score in the mid-150s on the GRE Verbal and Quantitative sections (on a 170-point scale), and
score 4.0 or better on the GRE Analytical Writing section (on a 6-point scale).

Additionally, a competitive TOEFL score (100 or higher on the iBT) can help to mitigate a lower than average score on the verbal section of the GRE.