Purpose
The National Name Exchange was established to help match graduate
schools with minority students interested in graduate education. The National Name
Exchange seeks to:
Increase the number of qualified minority students accepted into graduate school.
Improve student access to information on graduate school opportunities.
Work towards personalizing the recruitment effort by designating a National Name Exchange institutional representative to facilitate information exchange between the institution and prospective students.
Assist graduate schools in identifying qualified minority candidates for consideration for graduate study.
History The National Name Exchange, founded in 1976, is a consortium of twenty-seven nationally known universities which annually collect and exchange the names of their talented but underrepresented ethnic minority students who are in their sophomore, junior or senior year of undergraduate education. The purpose of the Exchange is to ensure that participating universities continue to identify a pool of qualified students who could be recruited to the graduate programs at these institutions. The consortium of universities conducts other activities consistent with the national efforts to increase the enrollment of traditionally underrepresented peoples in graduate education. The University of Washington has been providing institutional coordination and data distribution since 1986.
How does the program work?
The sequence of events is as follows:
Students contact the graduate school or division at a participating institution for information. They complete and return the consent form to the institution.
Sending institutions forward the compiled names of interested students to the University of Washington for dissemination.
The University of Washington collects and compiles names for distribution to participating institutions.
Receiving institutions disseminate names to specific graduate departments.
Graduate departments send specific information to prospective students.
Students apply to graduate programs of their choice.
Return to National Name Exchange Home Page
Last Modified:
April 22, 2008
Maintained by University of Washington, Graduate School,
gomap@u.washington.edu