PhD, Graduate, Department of French and Italian, Northwestern University

Application Process

We begin accepting applications for the 2009-2010 academic year on Monday, October 6, 2008.

The application deadline for the 2009-2010 academic year is Wednesday, December 31, 2008 5PM CST.

Application forms, including electronic transmissions, and all supporting documents must be received by the Department of French and Italian by December 31st, 5 P.M. (CST). You can apply on-line starting October 6, 2008. Due to possible delays in the mail, we suggest you send the supplementary materials well in advance of the deadline. The selection process usually lasts until mid-April. Offers of admission are made each spring.

All hard copies of the materials listed below* - with the exception of the application and fee, which are submitted online - must be sent to:

Graduate Program Assistant
Department of French and Italian
Northwestern University
1880 Campus Drive, Kresge 2-375
Evanston, IL 60208-2204

*As copies must be made, please do not staple or otherwise bind your supplementary materials.

Requirements for Admission

1. Application form - Application to The Graduate School at Northwestern University is now accepted online only. The online application is accessible via the Apply Yourself website. It includes the Statement of Purpose, which is an important document in your admission dossier. The Statement of Purpose can be as long as 750 words and should give a clear sense of your motivations, intellectual interests and goals in the most specific terms possible.

Note: Graduate applicants to the department of French and Italian may elect to participate in the Interdisciplinary Cluster Initiative, a program designed to help graduate students during their academic career at Northwestern by fostering connections with students and faculty in other programs with whom they might have natural intellectual affinities. Interdisciplinary clusters in different areas of intellectual inquiry have been developed by faculty across schools and programs and provide a second intellectual home for incoming and current graduate students. Clusters offer their own discrete courses as well as sponsor a number of activities and events for students and faculty. Students interested in pursuing dedicated interdisciplinary study should visit www.tgs.northwestern.edu/academics/interdisciplinary for more information about the intellectual activities of these programs. Prospective students have the opportunity to select on their application to graduate school a cluster with which they would like to affiliate, though choosing a cluster is not a requirement for admission. Students may affiliate with a cluster at any point during their study at Northwestern.

Current interdisciplinary clusters are:
African Studies
Asian Studies
Classical Traditions
Comparative and Historical Social Science
Critical Studies in Theatre and Performance
Critical Theory
Gender Studies
Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Medieval Studies
Rhetoric and Public Culture
Russian, East European and Jewish Studies

For further admissions information, please see The Graduate School website.

2. Application fee (nonrefundable) - All applicants are required to pay an application fee. The fee (subject to change) is $75 for both US citizens and international applicants, payable by credit card only during the online application process. Your application will NOT be processed without payment of the fee. The fee cannot be waived or postponed, and is not refundable.

3. Two, official, confidential transcripts - Enclose two (2) official transcripts (bearing the registrar's signature and/or the institution's seal) from each post-secondary institution attended, including records from courses in any university-level institution attended abroad.

4. Three letters of recommendation- Each may be sent as a hard or electronic copy to the department. Please note that recommenders can submit letters online via Apply Yourself. Letters submitted through mail should be printed on official letterhead and contain the original signatures of recommenders. The letters should be submitted unopened and signed across the envelope seal.

5. Test scores - Certification of proficiency in English. All applicants whose native language is not English must certify their proficiency in the English language. An applicant may certify proficiency the following ways:

Providing official scores for either the TOEFL or IELTS exam. The test must be taken no more than two years before the intended quarter of entry. For the TOEFL, an applicant must score 600 or higher on the paper-based test, 250 or higher on the computer-based test, or 100 or higher on the Internet-based test. For the IELTS, an applicant must score 7.0 or higher.
Earning an undergraduate degree from an accredited four-year institution or equivalent, where the language of instruction is English.
Earning a graduate degree from an accredited institution where the language of instruction is English.

The GRE is NOT required by the Department of French and Italian.

6. French writing sample - Submit a sample of your scholarly writing in French, preferably a recent, long research paper.

7. French cassette recording - Include a cassette recording in French, in which you speak freely about yourself in a conversational manner (do not read a prepared text), then read a paragraph from a French text of your choice. The entire recording should not exceed five minutes. Natives of French need not submit the cassette.

For Program Information

For more information about the Ph.D. program in French, please contact: french-italian@northwestern.edu