Information for Prospective Students
Application Deadlines | Required Application Materials | Criteria | Diversity | Financial Aid | Funding for Fieldwork | Student Satisfaction | Job Placement | Transfer Credits | Sub-field course requirements
The information below addresses some of the most frequently asked questions about the Program. Please consult Program Information which contains a fuller description of the doctoral program and the courses of study.
Application Deadlines
We accept applications only for courses of study beginning in a Fall Semester. The Anthropology Program does not accept students for the Spring Semester. Completed applications with all supporting materials, including test scores and recommendations, must be in the Office of Admissions at the CUNY Graduate Center by December 1.
Required Application Materials
Each applicant is required to provide the following materials:
- Application form. Please complete The Graduate Center's application form online and submit the application fee of $125. NYCEP applicants should also follow the special instructions on the NYCEP tracking form.
- An application essay (also called “Statement of Purpose”) of no more than 750 words in length. Members of the Admissions Committee will be keenly interested in your Statement of Purpose. This short essay should convey a clear sense of your academic background and preparation for doctoral study, as well as your intellectual direction and plans.
- Two letters of recommendation from persons familiar with your academic work and your capacity to do doctoral study in Anthropology.
- Official transcripts from each college or university you have attended.
- Official GRE General Test scores need to be sent by ETS to school code 2113. Consult the Educational Testing Service for more information.
- Test of English
as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) if necessary:
International students must present authoritative evidence of sufficient competence in the English language to pursue a regular course of doctoral study at the City University. It is required that students who have not studied and earned a degree in an English-speaking country take the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), administered internationally by the Educational Testing Service, and request ETS to report examination results directly to the Office of Admissions, CUNY Graduate Center-College Code 2113, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10016. Inquiries concerning this exam should be made directly to Test of English as a Foreign Language, Box 6151, Princeton NJ 08540, USA, or most American embassies and consulates in cities outside the United States. For additional information call 1-800-GO-TOEFL or on the Web at http://www.toefl.org or http://www.ets.org.
- For the cultural anthropology sub-field, a writing sample is required. Submit a writing sample of 8000 words or less, for example a research paper, reflecting your scholarly and critical abilities. It should show how you pose and resolve some kind of intellectual problem, using either your own data or other sources. Self-contained papers are usually more successful than selections from theses. Please use a font of 11 or 12, with 1.5 spacing.
- Because CUNY is unable to offer financial aid to all its students, those applying for admission are strongly encouraged to apply at the same time for external fellowships for which they might be eligible, including National Science Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Jacob Javits graduate fellowships, with deadlines in September and November; non-US applicants can apply for assistance from the Wenner-Gren Foundation and from their own government programs, where these exist.
None of these requirements can be waived.
Optional Application Materials
- For sub-fields other than cultural anthropology, a writing sample is optional. You may submit a writing sample, for example a research paper, reflecting your scholarly and critical abilities.
All required documents should be sent directly to the Office of Admissions at the CUNY Graduate Center. When all required items have been received, your file will be ready for review by the Anthropology Program's Admissions Committee. The Program cannot keep track of specific materials for individual applicants, so it is your responsibility to ensure that your materials reach the Office of Admissions before the deadline
Criteria
Admission to the PhD Program in Anthropology is very competitive. The Admissions Committee for each of the four sub-fields meets from mid-February until mid-May to review completed applications. Four essential factors are considered: a solid academic record and relevant professional and research experience; excellent references; strong test scores; and an articulate personal statement. No single item is considered in isolation.
You will be notified by the Office of Admissions as soon as the Committee reaches a decision about whether or not to admit you. Because of the number of applications requiring careful consideration, some are placed temporarily on hold and reviewed at subsequent meetings. If you have not heard from us, please contact the Office of Admissions to make sure that your application is complete before you contact the Anthropology Program. We regret that the large number of applications prevents us from explaining our decisions, given our small staff.
The PhD Program is committed to encouraging diversity among its students, and we strongly encourage applications from minorities. Our student cohorts over the years reflect a wide diversity of ethnicities and nationalities. The percentage of students of African and Hispanic/Latin descent remains well above the national average.
Financial Aid
Current Financial Assistance information is available here.
Beginning in Fall 2013, all entering doctoral students will be considered for one of the following new (or newly enhanced) 5-year awards.
Five-year Graduate Center Fellowship
The Graduate Center Fellowship provides full tuition and $25,000 each year for the first five years of study. The fellowship consists of a stipend in the Fall and Spring semesters, a summer research stipend, a graduate assistantship, a tuition award, and eligibility for low-cost individual or family NYSHIP health insurance. Support for the Fall and Spring semesters is $23,000 and the summer research stipend is $2,000.
The service assignments associated with the Graduate Center Fellowship are intended to develop scholarly and professional skills. In the first year, Graduate Center Fellows serve as research assistants or in another assignment determined by their doctoral program. In the second, third and fourth years, a Fellow teaches one undergraduate course each semester at a CUNY college. In the fifth year, a Fellow serves as a Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) Fellow, or in a similar assignment, at a CUNY college.
Five-year Presidential MAGNET Fellowship
The Presidential MAGNET Fellowship is a five-year fellowship for incoming students from underrepresented groups who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents. Please note that students must be nominated by their programs for this fellowship.
The fellowship covers full tuition and student fees and provides an annual stipend of $27,000 for the first five years of study. The award consists of a stipend, a graduate assistantship, a tuition award (including student fees) and eligibility for low-cost individual or family NYSHIP health insurance (NYSHIP). Fellows will receive a further $1,000 startup stipend in the first year to help with the costs of beginning doctoral studies. Additionally, during the third year the fellow receives a $1,500 research/travel stipend to help lay the ground work for a dissertation project.
Presidential Magnet Fellows are appointed as Graduate Assistants for five years. In years 1, 2, and 3 the Fellow serves as a graduate assistant assigned to mentoring undergraduates in the CUNY Pipeline Program. In the 4th and 5th year the Fellow has the option of either teaching one course each semester at a CUNY undergraduate college or of serving as a research assistant in the Office of Educational Opportunity and Diversity Programs.
Students who accept the Presidential MAGNET Fellowship are required to attend monthly colloquia at the Graduate Center, mentor undergraduate student who are pursuing a career in college teaching and participate in the administration of the CUNY Pipeline Program.
Tuition is covered for both in-state and out-of-state students (including international students) at all doctoral levels.
Five-year Tuition Fellowships
Most student who are not awarded one of the Fellowships described above will receive a Five-year Tuition Fellowship. These fellowships cover full tuition (up to 16 credits per semester) and are awarded in recognition of academic achievement and in expectation of scholarly success.
Tuition is covered for both in-state and out-of-state students (including international students) at all doctoral levels.
Funding for Fieldwork
Students have opportunities for early fieldwork experience through faculty directed practicums, summer field schools and field trips. The Program encourages students to make a preliminary reconnaissance trip to a potential fieldsite. Normally the Program holds an annual competition for summer research funds. With close faculty guidance students write proposals for their dissertation fieldwork and submit them to external funding agencies. Students in the Program receive outside funding for their research at an exceptionally high rate. Funding agencies have included: the National Science Foundation, Wenner-Gren Foundation, Fulbright-Hays, Social Science Research Council, L.S.B. Leakey Foundation, IREX, International Fund for Animal Welfare, The Open Society Institute, CARE Archaeology Foundation, Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation, Ford Foundation - US Community Forestry Research, Foreign Languages and Areas Studies (FLAS), American Museum of Natural History, Kellogg Foundation, Jewish Foundation for the Education of Women, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Canada), and the Smithsonian Institution.
Student Satisfaction
The results of the National Doctoral Program Survey (2000), funded by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, place our Program in the top five of forty-one Anthropology programs surveyed across the country. Altogether, over 32,000 doctoral students and recent Ph.D.'s evaluated their program's educational practices. The survey was specifically designed to assess student perceptions of the educational effectiveness of their doctoral programs based on the adoption of widely accepted best practices in doctoral education, as recommended by the Association of American Universities, National Research Council, and others.
Job Placement
Many factors determine success in academic and non-academic job placement. The Program's four-field requirement together with exceptional opportunities for fieldwork and teaching experience, provide CUNY anthropology graduates with credentials not commonly available from other doctoral programs. As noted above, most students acquire significant undergraduate teaching experience at the various colleges of the CUNY system and other colleges in the area while completing their degrees. Many students establish a track record of writing successful proposals and winning external funding for their research (Student News). The Program expects students to participate in professional meetings, and many organize sessions and present papers (Student News). It is not uncommon for our students to publish a paper while they are writing their dissertations. The Program's placement record varies from one year to the next and from graduate to graduate. We are proud of our placement record and of the achievements of many of our alumni (Alumni News). It is a source of pride that three alumni (one cultural, one physical, and one linguistic) have gone on to win distinguished MacArthur "genius" awards. CUNY anthropology counts more MacArthur winners among its alumni than any other anthropology department save the University of Chicago.
Transfer Credits
After a student has successfully completed the First Exam, it is possible to request the evaluation of transfer credits. Taking into account the advice of the student's sub-field coordinator, and the student's academic record in the doctoral program, the Executive Officer (chair) evaluates the courses the student would like to transfer. Normally this occurs after the student has passed the First Examination. Official Graduate Center policy allows for the transfer of a maximum of 30 credits. Students are sometimes confused when they read this and expect to receive more transfer credits than are approved. To obtain a doctoral degree from CUNY a student must complete a total of 60 credits, of which a minimum of 30 must be earned at CUNY. Thus, our policy allows for transfer of up to a maximum of 30 credits. In practice this is extremely rare.
Sub-field course requirements
Students are required to take one course in each of three sub-fields other than their own. This requirement is may be waived depending on a student's earlier course work. A request for a course waiver may be considered if the student has taken either one graduate level course or two undergraduate level courses in a sub-field. Taking into account the advice of the sub-field coordinator for the sub-field course in question, the Executive Officer (chair) evaluates the course(s) a student wishes to have considered to obtain a waiver.
Information about financial aid, housing, degree requirements and general course offerings may be found in the Prospective Student section of the Graduate School website. The Anthropology Program's Website contains schedules of recent and current course offerings and course descriptions, faculty members, and program events. The student news section is the place to look for information on our students' record of participation in conferences, publications, winning grants, and landing jobs. The faculty section contains a list of faculty and information on their research interest and publications. The faculty news section provides current information on their activities, publications, invited lectures, awards, and so forth.
Questions may be addressed to Anthropology student liaison – Ryan Mann-Hamilton
You may also contact:
Dr. Thomas McGovern - Archaelogy sub-field coordinator
Dr. Katherine Verdery - Cultural sub-field coordinator ()
Dr. Miki Makihara - Linguistics sub-field coordinator
Dr. Eric Delson - Physical sub-field coordinator ()
PhD Program in Anthropology - The CUNY Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016-4309
phone: 212.817.8005 fax: 212.817.1501 email:
This departmental publication supplements the official Bulletin of The Graduate School as well as the current Graduate Center Student Handbook and "Announcement of Courses."
Copyright 2012 PhD Program in Anthropology