Apply to the M.Ed. in Teaching Students with Disabilities 4+1 Program

To apply to the 4+1 (K-12 or Autism/Severe Disabilities) you must complete an Abbreviated 4+1 Application.

Prior to starting the application, you should prepare the following documents to be uploaded.

• Copy of your unofficial UD transcript
• Essay: A personal statement (essay) for 4+1 applicants to any of the College of Education & Human Development graduate programs is required. In the essay, respond to prompts 1 and 2 below:
  • 1. Outline your educational plans and career goals and discuss how your proposed plan of graduate study relates to them. Some areas of discussion might include: Specific attributes of the program at UD that lead you to believe that this degree is appropriate to help you achieve your professional objectives. Within the area of study you have selected, are there areas of special interest to you?
  • 2.a. Select an important problem facing individuals with disabilities or the schools, teachers, or other people who work with them and propose a solution to this problem; or, 2.b. Describe an experience in your own life that influenced your decision to work with individuals with disabilities; or, 2.c. Upload a brief paper that you submitted in a recent education course to your application file.
• Resume: Add your resume to the essay document and upload both as a single file.
• Graduate Course Approval Form

Recommendations. After submitting the application, you must separately request two letters of recommendation.

• Please forward this link to your recommenders and ask them to complete the 4+1 Letter of Recommendation Submission Form. For any questions related to this requirement, please follow up with your program of interest directly at cehd-info@udel.edu.
• ONE of your recommendations comes from UD professors (i.e., School of Education for ETE, HDFS for ECE, and Arts and Sciences for Secondary Ed), who can speak to your academic abilities.
• The SECOND recommendation should be someone who has observed you teach or work with children. This could be your methods supervisor or from a part-time job with children (e.g., tutor, summer camp counselor, YMCA).
• When you ask your recommenders to provide a reference for the 4+1 application, you should email them your request and provide them with the link. Below is a suggested script to use that can be adapted to fit your situation.
  Dear xx,
  I am a junior in the xx major and am applying to a graduate program. Since you have observed my work in/at xx, I hope you can provide a recommendation for the 4+1 option in the M.Ed. in Teaching Students with Disabilities program at the University of Delaware. If you can provide the recommendation, please complete the recommendation form at the following link by December 15: https://www.cehd.udel.edu/41-letter-of-recommendation-submission/. Thank you for your consideration.
  Sincerely,
  Applicant’s Name