GARDS

Information on GARDS

GARDS is a web-based tool that provides graduate admission information for Urbana graduate and professional applicants, including:

Lists of applicants
- General - provides basic applicant information for all programs
- Departmental - provides additional information for a department's applicants
Profiles of individual applicants
Export files of applicant information

Lists of applicants can be sorted by applicant name, UIN, department/program, decision code, and application date. Using filters, applicant list displays can be restricted by application date range, UIN, name, department, program, term, applicant level, and/or decision.

Profiles of individual applicants include the applicant's demographic data, name, program, checklist items, latest decision, address, phone, email, visa, test scores, prior college/degree/major data as well as the answers to open ended questions. Access to profile information is restricted by department, and the applicant profile is printable.

Five export files are available for download as comma-separated variable (csv) files. The five files are the applicant profile, address list, prior college, test scores, and demographics. Documentation within GARDS identifies the fields included in each export file.

GARDS only imports data associated with Urbana graduate applications, but it includes data for all terms of application, beginning with Fall 2004. Data is downloaded to the GARDS database each morning at 5:00 a.m. from Decision Support's Electronic Data Warehouse (EDW). Open-ended questions are also downloaded from a copy of Banner data at 7:00 a.m. each morning. This means that applicant information is day-old data, and all Urbana graduate applicant information available through the EDW/EDDIE is available in GARDS.

Users will log in and authenticate to GARDS using bluestem. Once a user is logged into GARDS, internal security restricts user access by department. All users can view every applicant in the general applicant list, but users can only view departmental applicant lists, applicant profiles and export files associated with their department.

How to Procure a GARDS Account

To obtain a GARDS account, send an email to smikel@illinois.edu with the following information:

User (Your) Name
Your NetID
Your department name & department code
Your e-mail address
Does your department have any joint programs with other departments?

You will be notified by e-mail when your GARDS account becomes active.

All GARDS users are automatically added to a GARDS user electronic mailing list. GARDS technical staff use this list infrequently to notify GARDS users of any problems or updates to the GARDS system.

GARDS access is limited to departmental and administrative staff and faculty who process graduate applicants at the Urbana campus.

A Powerpoint presentation used for GARDS training is available online at www.grad.illinois.edu/general/GARDSTraining/.