The admissions requirements listed below are particular to this Department and must be read in conjunction with the general requirements of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS). For more information, visit the GSAS website, where you can learn about the application process and file your application online. Please note that all applications must be filed online through the GSAS website.
For a list of required application materials and deadlines, see the Slavic Department page on the GSAS website.
For all Slavic graduate programs, an undergraduate major in the appropriate Slavic language and literature is desirable but not required. The department will also consider applicants with solid backgrounds in other literatures, history, philosophy, religion, or other disciplines in the humanities. Non-native speakers of English must demonstrate proficiency in English on the TOEFL examination.
No student is admitted directly to the Ph.D. program. Students who possess an M.A. degree from another institution and are potentially eligible for advanced standing will be admitted first to the M.A. program and then evaluated at the end of their first year of residence. Normally, the student will be required to submit a Master's Essay, whether or not advanced standing is eventually granted.
Admission into the programs in Russian Literature and Russian Translation normally presupposes four years of college-level Russian (or the equivalent). Graduate students in Russian Literature are expected to read both Russian literature and literary criticism in the original and to be able to participate in graduate classes offered in Russian. For admission into the Czech, Polish, South Slavic, or Ukrainian programs, two or three years of college-level instruction (or the equivalent) in the relevant language are required.