The Department of History offers a PhD program centered on rigorous research within a vibrant and diverse intellectual community. While most of our students have a history degree (BA) or degrees (BA and MA), we accept students with a variety of backgrounds and interests. Your writing sample should be a complete self-contained work. The ideal sample should be in the field of history (or a closely related field) that you plan to pursue at Chicago. Include the class or publication for which the sample was written. For papers longer than twenty-five pages, please flag a section for the committee.
Your candidate statement should explore specific academic interests and explain how they fit with our faculty's research and teaching strengths. You should discuss your preparation for graduate study and, where applicable to your scholarly plan, your language training and preparation.
The most helpful letters of recommendation come from faculty members who can access your ability to work on your proposed historical topic.
The GRE requirement cannot be waived, the history subject test is not required, successful applicants generally have high GRE scores.
There is no minimum foreign language requirement to enter the program, but successful applicants should possess strong language skills in their proposed research language(s) and be aware of the language requirements for the various fields. All students are required to take a language exam in the first quarter of the program. The University of Chicago accepts either the internet-Based Test (iBT) of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) or the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) for the purpose of meeting the English language requirement. Minimum required scores in the IELTS are an overall score of 7, with sub scores of 7 in each section. The minimum required score for the TOEFL IBT is 104 overall, with 4 sub scores of 26 each.