The Graduate School guarantees six years of funding to all students admitted for the PhD. The aid includes tuition, stipend, health insurance and health fee, as well as three years of summer support, if students remain in good standing.

Students generally serve as teaching or research assistants for between four and six semesters; teach their own courses for one semester; and receive the first and fifth year as fellowship years, without work responsibilities. 

The department does not require GRE scores for admission.

Your personal statement should be a short description of what you want to study in graduate school. You do not need to have a specific dissertation topic, but you should describe a general area of interest and a time frame ("I want to look at Latinos and African Americans in the twentieth century"). We'd like to know how you came to this area of interest and what reading has influenced you. You should also explain which American Studies faculty members you especially hope to work with, and why.

Please send a writing sample of between ten and twenty pages in your area of interest. We'd be most interested in a short academic essay but something written for a wider audience would also be fine, even if contained in fewer than ten pages.

Recommendations from faculty who have had you as a student in a class are the most useful. We find that employers and friends don't really understand how graduate school works and so are less able to predict your strengths as an applicant.