graduate school

American  

noun

• graduate schools
  plural

1. a school, usually a division of a university, offering courses leading to degrees more advanced than the bachelor's degree.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• graduate schools
  plural

Etymology

Origin of graduate school

An Americanism dating back to 1890–95

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

graduate school

The foundation’s board chair, Elizabeth Spalding, is a visiting fellow at a graduate school branch of Hillsdale College in Washington, D.C.;

From Salon ● Jul. 21, 2026

“You could be in graduate school getting a master’s degree in history and borrow $100,000 a year for three years and you were never going to pay that back,” she said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 6, 2026

Borrowing for graduate school is still limited to $20,500 a year, but now capped at a total of $100,000 over the course of the degree, down from the previous $138,500.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 1, 2026

But when Lee shared her frustrations with her graduate school adviser, noted author and avid gardener Jamaica Kincaid, she got the encouragement she needed.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 10, 2026

For years after graduate school, she wrote down poet under profession in questionnaires and income tax forms, and later amended it to writer-slash-teacher.

From "How the García Girls Lost Their Accents" by Julia Alvarez

Related Words

• university