Course descriptionThe Department of History offers graduate courses leading to the Master of Arts and the Doctor of Philosophy degrees, complete details of which may be found in the Graduate Studies section of the department's web site. Students are not normally admitted to a terminal master's degree program.
Applicants should have a minimum of 20 semester hours of undergraduate work in history and cognate disciplines with an overall GPA of 3.25 in the last two years. Applicants who have a master's degree should have a grade point average of 3.5 for previous graduate-level work. All applicants are required to submit Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores (verbal, analytical, and quantitative are mandatory; history is optional). All applicants are required to submit a writing sample. Language preparation may be weighted heavily, depending upon the field of specialization. Foreign students whose native language is not English need a paper-based Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) score of at least 600 (250 on the computer-based test). Most successful applicants have GRE verbal scores of over 80% and/or TOEFL scores of over 630 (260 computer). Only in exceptional circumstances are students admitted for the spring term. The department is not currently admitting to the Teaching of Social Studies program.