Review

Applications are reviewed and ranked by the entire faculty. The faculty makes its selection on the basis of academic records and on whether or not the applicant's academic goals can be met by the department's programs. Those chosen are recommended to the Graduate Division, which sets the number of students the department can admit, makes a final review of the applications, and issues an official letter of admission to the student. The number of students the department can admit is usually very small and standards for admission are highly competitive. Students admitted with fellowship are notified by mid-February and those admitted for admission without fellowship by mid-March. Please direct inquiries about admission status to the Graduate Admissions office.

Three letters of recommendation are required. As part of the application you will have to submit the names and contact information for the letter writers. Letters in languages other than English should be translated into English, but the original letter, in the original language, must be included. The Department recommends that letters of recommendation come from faculty members who can comment on the applicant's intellectual capacity, analytical skills, ability to write English, and general aptitude for scholarly work. Letters from nonacademic referees are rarely helpful. All letters must be submitted on-line by the recommenders no later than two weeks after the application deadline to ensure that they are included in the review process.

Writing sample: A writing sample in English must be included with the on-line application. The writing sample is intended to gauge an applicant's academic writing ability, and should be a paper that the student feels best represents the quality of his/her work. An ideal writing sample will be 10-15 pages on a topic related to East Asian studies, but a paper on another topic or of a different length may be acceptable.

As noted on the previous page, the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) is once again required for this application cycle.