University of Minnesota
Cultural Studies & Comparative Literature
cscl@umn.edu
612-624-8099


Department of Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies

Graduate Studies

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Admissions

The B.A. and / or M.A. degree in a humanities or social science discipline, or other relevant field, is required for admission to our program. Students ordinarily are not admitted to work toward the masters degree. Once enrolled for the Ph.D. program, students may in some circumstances apply to pursue an M.A. program to earn that degree. All coursework is applicable to the Ph.D.

Since the program involves broad, often interdisciplinary, courses of study and a variety of emphases, the Graduate Admissions Committee will carefully judge each applicant's preparation in terms of communication skills, knowledge of subject matter, experience, and language preparation. In general, admissions decisions are based on four criteria:

  1. the quality of the applicant's previous work and training, as evidenced in the written materials submitted to us
  2. the relation between the applicant's stated interests and the particular strengths of our faculty
  3. the ways in which the applicant's work would bring strength and diversity to our program
  4. particularly for Comparative Literature, the applicant's language preparation and experience

Considerable emphasis, therefore, is placed on the applicant's statement of background and purpose and on samples of previous work, which we read quite carefully. Other criteria, such as grades and GRE scores, are also carefully considered but given less weight.

Students who seek to join either graduate program, including those who seek to by change status from another program at the University, must seek admission to the relevant program as part of the regular year's admissions process. That is, all must submit the basic materials to the Department, by the stated deadline, for consideration in relation to all other applicants.

The number of graduate students is limited in order to maintain an optimum number of students in residence, and normally a maximum of four students enter in any given year. Admission is therefore highly competitive, and not all applicants with good academic records can be accepted.