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Admission
Secondary Education (MED/MS)
Share your love of learning and you expertise in your content area by becoming a high school teacher.
Inspire Future Generations
There is a growing need for well-educated teachers in Texas. Youth deserve excellence in education, whether in the private or public school setting. You can provide them with the best through our master's degree in secondary education. Become familiar with designing a curriculum that not only engages the mind but the person. Learn what it means to teach well and show others how to do the same. You'll not only educate students, but you'll also transform lives.

See Yourself Succeed With a Master’s Degree in Secondary Education


Career Readiness
Participate in excellence-driven programs that empower you with knowledge of curriculum content, pedagogy, instructional design and evidence-based assessments.

Accomplished Faculty
Take credit for what you already know. Our competency-based program lets you receive credit for skills developed through work and military experience. You deserve credit. We’re ready to give it to you.

Education Success
Study cutting-edge developments in law enforcement, like cryptocurrency and the problems it poses for policing. You’ll learn innovative strategies for monitoring an increasingly digitized world.

Mentor Students
Make a difference in the local middle and high school classroom by earning your master’s degree in Secondary Education.

Guidance You Need
Located in the Frank Young Education North Building, our Mentor Center provides the information and support you need to reach your career goals.
Focus Your Passion
Our department offers three different tracks for secondary education to meet your research interests and career goals.
Educator Certificated
Already have a Texas teaching certificate? We recommend our Master of Education, non-thesis program. Improve student engagement and retention by sharpening your classroom management and content delivery skills. Design an individualized degree plan that prepares you for developing classroom instruction and curriculum for at-risk learners.
New to Educating
Are you ready for a career change? Interested in becoming an educator but don’t have a teaching certificate yet? Our master of science, non-thesis program is designed for you. Earn your teaching certificate along the way through our post-baccalaureate certification program. Upon graduating, you’ll be well-prepared to improve student engagement, classroom management and teaching effectiveness.
Dual Credit Educator
Want to qualify to be a High School and a Community College Educator? Receive your Masters of Science or the Masters of Education degree as you take 18 hours of subject-specific courses to prepare you to teach students who are in high school taking college credit courses. This option coupled with your Master’s degree prepares you to teach at the Community College level in which you are interested.
- Political Science
- Art
- Theatre
- Music
- Computer Science
- Criminal Justice
- Biology
- Chemistry
- English
- Spanish
- Health and Human Performance
- Psychology
- Mathematics
Study What Interests You
Supplemental Certifications
Learn about specialized topics from our experienced faculty! Available courses include those that can help prepare you for supplemental certification exams. Once you hold a Texas Teaching Certificate, you may then take additional tests to add any of these supplements to your certificate.
Note: These supplemental certificates are optional.
What You Will Learn
A master’s degree in secondary education will offers the opportunity to:
- Teach young learners to think critically in the modern world
- Design specialized secondary education curriculum for a diverse community
- Address the needs of at-risk learners
- Incorporate current pedagogical principles to the middle and high school classroom
- Explore the philosophical and social forces that affect their development and understanding

Careers
Gain the recognition you deserve by earning your master's degree in secondary education. Many ISDs reward educators who pursue higher learning with salary increases and job openings. Our graduate program also opens opportunities to make a difference at the administrative level.
Career Possibilities and Current Median Salaries
US DOL Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2018
Potential Employers
Local ISDs often seek after our graduates. Job placement and satisfaction is ranked highly in our education program. These are just a few examples of districts where our students found employment. Now's your chance to discover where you belong.
Featured Courses

Course Delivery and Resources
Our flexible program is designed to meet the needs of working professionals. We offer fully online, face to face and hybrid courses at our main campus. Both of our degrees are offered at the Mesquite Metroplex Center. Design a degree that interests you with 18 hours of electives.
Graduate Program Cost
PROGRAM COSTS
Tuition and fees for graduate students taking nine credit hours are $3,669 for Texas residents and $7,341 for non-residents.
Admission
Your Path to Becoming a Lion
- Select “Create a new graduate school admissions application.”
- Select “Texas A&M University-Commerce (Commerce)” as your “Target University.”
- Select one of the following as your “Major”
- Secondary Education, MED for certified teachers
- Secondary Education, MS for those seeking initial teacher certification as part of the master's degree
- Pay the $50 application fee.
Wait to receive an application confirmation email before proceeding to the next step.
- After you submit your application, the Graduate School will send a confirmation email within two business days to the personal email account you used for ApplyTexas.
Provisional Status
After you submit your application, you may be granted provisional status, which means you can enroll in one semester of courses. You will not be eligible for financial aid until you submit all of your documents and are accepted into the program.
Submit the following documents after you receive an application confirmation email.
- Upload your documents at myLeo > Apps > Check Admissions Application Status & Test Scores or email your documents to [email protected], unless otherwise specified below.
Contact your previous institution(s) and request that they send your official transcripts to [email protected].
- We recommend that you request transcripts for all of your academic work.
All international transcripts must be evaluated and the evaluation submitted to the Graduate School.
We accept evaluations sent directly from the following Agencies.
- If a normal evaluation is submitted, official original transcripts with all marksheets will still need to be submitted.
- If a WES ICAP or equivalent is submitted, we will not need the official transcripts to be submitted separately.
If your institution is unable to submit a digital copy, hard copies may be mailed to:
Texas A&M University-Commerce
Attn: Graduate School
PO Box 3011
Commerce, Texas 75429-3011
We will need official/original documents. If those documents are the only copies you have, the Graduate School can mail them back to you upon request. Contact [email protected] for more information.
Submit a statement of educational and professional goals of 500 words or less on the following prompt:
- Discuss your educational and professional goals and how you believe this graduate degree will help you achieve them.
Submit a resume or curriculum vitae (CV) which includes your academic and professional history and achievements.
You do not need to submit test scores if you have a valid teaching certificate. Email a copy of your valid teaching certificate to [email protected]
If you do not have a teaching certificate, you may submit your scores for one of the following tests:
- PPR, ExCet or TExES
- MS and MA applicants can submit PACT or PRAXIS scores in place of GRE scores.
Submit official General Test GRE scores
- Request that your GRE®scores be sent to Texas A&M University-Commerce (6188) when you register for the test. If you have already taken the GRE®, you can order additional score reports.
Look for application updates in myLeo > Apps > Check Application Status
- Once an admission decision has been made, you will receive an email to your student email account at myLeo > Apps > Leomail.
Once your application to the Graduate School is complete, you can submit your Alternative Certification Program Application right away using TK20. If you have any questions, please email [email protected].
- Go to the Educator Certification page on MarketPlace
- Click PBTCC Application Fee
- Click the shopping cart plus icon
- Fill in your personal information to be associated with the fee and click “Continue”
- Go back to the Educator Certification page on MarketPlace
- Click TEA Assessment Fee
- Click the shopping cart plus icon
- Complete your payment
- Download and save your receipts to upload to TK20
You will need to have the following documents ready for upload in order to submit the application:
- Alternative Certification Application fee receipt
- TEA Assessment fee receipt
- TX PACT Scores
- You will upload a copy of your passing score report in TK20 as part of your admissions application
- Resume
- Statement of Qualification form
- Only submitted if applying for a Career and Technical Education Certification (Trades and Industry, Marketing or Health Science)
- Official transcripts from the Graduate Office will be reviewed by the certification office.
- Official transcripts from all institutions must be submitted to the Graduate School in order to satisfy TEA certification admission requirements.
- A minimum GPA of 2.75 on a conferred bachelor's degree or on the most recent 60 credit hours is required for certification admission. Please note that certification admission requirements may differ from those of the Graduate School and are separate requirements.
If applicable:
- TEA Transfers
- If you have previously been admitted to another educator preparation program for alternative certification.
- Request that a completed TEA transfer form be sent from your previous program to the A&M-Commerce certification office.
- Transcripts from outside the United States
- Contact the certification office for any questions about TEA requirements for transcripts from outside the United States.
- If you received a bachelor's degree from outside of the United States, then a Foreign Credential Evaluation with a course-by-course summary will be required. This is to remain in compliance with TEA to verify a bachelor's degree and to compute a core GPA.
- A course-by-course evaluation must be from a TEA-approved Foreign Credential Evaluation Service.
- English Proficiency
- Educators who apply for certification are required to demonstrate English language proficiency by fulfilling one of the following requirements:
- Completion of an undergraduate or graduate degree at an accredited institution of higher education in the United States, not including US territories.
- Completion of an undergraduate or graduate degree earned at an institution of higher education in a country outside of the United States approved by the State Board of Educator Certification (SBEC).
- If these requirements are not met, then a passing score on the TOEFL exam must be submitted. Minimum scores needed per TEA: Speaking 24, Listening 22, Reading 22, Writing 21. The score report must be within the past two years to be valid for TEA.
- Educators who apply for certification are required to demonstrate English language proficiency by fulfilling one of the following requirements:
- Military Personnel
- Military service members or military veteran candidates that have verified military service, training or education directly related to the certificate being sought may have that military service, training or education reviewed by an EPP to see if it satisfies any of the educator certification requirements.
- Go to tamuc.tk20.com
- Scroll down and click “Admissions”
- Select “Click here to create your account.”

- Complete the “Create Applicant Account” form.
- Note: You will be creating a password for this account.
- Store the password you create in a secure location so you can refer to it later.
- After completing the “Create Applicant Account” form, TK20 will provide your username.
- Store your TK20 username and password in a secure location so you can refer to them later.
- You will use the username to log in to review your admission application once submitted.

- Log into your TK20 account
- Click on the “back to login” link.
- Enter your username and password.
- Click the green “Log Into Your Account” button.

- Click on the “Create New Application” button.

- Select “Alternative Certification” application
- Click the “Next” button.

- Complete the application.

- Upload documents by clicking on the “+ Select File(s)” button for the item you are uploading.
- Once you have completed all fields in the application, click the “Submit” button.

- Look for an email from TK20 confirming your submission.

To check your application status:
- Log in to your TK20 Student Admissions account
- On the “Home” tab, locate your application under “Recent Messages”
- Click on the application.
- If you are admitted, the message will indicate your application was “Admitted”
- If you lack admission requirements, the message will indicate “Denied.”
- Click on “Review Document” to view your deficiencies and reason(s) for denial.
Once both the Graduate School and Certification Program Applications are complete, the Alternative Certification Program Coordinator will reach out to schedule an interview.
Once accepted, please sign and return the “letter of invitation” that will be sent to you via email from Tracey Stedman.
- Apply for scholarships and graduate assistantships once you are admitted.
- Apply for financial aid by submitting a FAFSA and sending it to school code 003565.
- Contact your financial aid advisor with any questions.
Once registration opens and you are eligible to enroll, your graduate enrollment specialist is here to help you complete registration.
- View your degree plan in DegreeWorks.
- View the Schedule of Classes.
- To register for classes, go to myLeo > Student Resources > Registration Menu.
Contact your graduate enrollment specialist if you have any questions regarding your degree plan and registration.
If you are an H1B or H4 applicant, please contact the Graduate School for details at [email protected].
Note: This program is not available to international students.
WE ARE HERE TO HELP!
Contact Us
- Department of Curriculum and Instruction
- 903.886.5537
- 903.886.5581
- Sowers Education South