Admissions FAQ

Applications for degree-seeking students must be submitted by the deadline to be considered (December 15 for PhD, February 15 for MA). No applications are accepted after that date. Applications that remain incomplete after the deadline are subject to cancellation. The degree-seeking graduate application usually opens sometime in late August or early September.

If you miss the deadline to apply for the MA or PhD, you may apply as a non-degree student instead. Note that non-degree students are not eligible for departmental financial aid such as Board of Trustees waivers.

You may log in to the application page via https://applygrad.uic.edu/apply/ to check the status of your application, including receipt of letters of recommendation and transcripts.

Students applying for the PhD program can expect to hear from us between late January and mid-February. Applicants to the MA program can expect a response anywhere from early March through April.

Please contact the Graduate Studies Program Coordinator with specific questions.

While all parts of the application are crucial, the strength of an application to our graduate program is determined by an applicant’s writing sample and statement of purpose. These parts of the application are scrutinized by the entire admissions review committee. The writing sample should represent your very best work; the statement of purpose should be as clear as possible, describing your writing vividly, while also discussing your intellectual interests and career goals.

Applicants for the PhD program do not need to hold an MA. The Department of English considers direct admission to the PhD program from an undergraduate track for those who are interested.

Most of our admitted PhD candidates, however, hold an MA or an MFA.

Generally, yes. We do accept applications from prospective students who have degrees in other fields, but we place all applications in equal competition, and students with English degrees are often better aligned with our program goals than those who have degrees in other fields.

Those applicants who have degrees in other fields should consider taking non-degree courses in English through UIC or an accredited college or university in order to better position themselves to apply; current undergraduates completing a degree in a field other than English should explore options for taking English electives through their current school.

Yes, with one big caveat: current MA students at UIC must submit all required materials by the regular PhD application deadline to be considered for the program, but the materials are submitted in a separate dossier directly to the Office of Graduate Studies rather than through the application portal. Interested students must contact the Graduate Studies Program Coordinator to arrange this, preferably well before the application deadline.

No. Neither the GRE general nor subject tests are required to apply.

Letters of recommendation are uploaded directly to the application portal by the recommender.  You will be prompted to provide email addresses for your recommenders during the application process. They will then receive an email with a link to upload their letter.

Annually, there are an average of 250 applicants to the PhD program and 100 to the MA program. We accept between six and eight new PhD students and ten to twenty new MA students each year.

The application fee waiver policy is set by UIC Admissions. Unfortunately, fee waivers are not granted based on financial hardship.

There is no “night school” option for graduate studies at UIC. Due to the fact that our classes are offered throughout the day, studying exclusively at night is not possible. Additionally, due to the intensity of study, a part-time approach to the PhD is strongly discouraged. Part-time study would also made an applicant ineligible for a teaching assistantship.

The program is not considered “low residency.”

If you have completed graduate level coursework that has not been counted towards another degree, you may petition the Graduate College to have that credit applied towards your degree at UIC. You must have earned a grade of B or better and you may not transfer more than 12 course hours (typically three courses).

Prospective students can find a wealth of information about degree requirements, including required courses and detailed descriptions of the dissertation, prospectus, and preliminary examination processes, on the Degree Requirements and Timelines pages.

You can see more about our placement record on our Outcomes & Careers page.

Tuition varies based on Illinois residency status and enrollment hours. You can find the latest information about tuition and fees for graduate study on the website of the Office of the Registrar.

All PhD students receive funding in the form of a teaching assistantship. MA students are eligible for teaching assistantships in their second year.

Many of our MA students find Graduate Assistantships within the university during the first year of the program that allow them to earn a stipend and receive a tuition and partial fee waiver. You can search for Graduate Hourly and Graduate Research positions on the UIC Job Board, and also subscribe to the Weekly Grad Newsletter to hear about more opportunities as they come up.

Our program offers Teaching Assistantships (TAships) to all accepted PhD applicants for six years and to second-year MA students for one year, assuming good academic standing and completion of pre-requirements. Many PhD students finish the degree in a shorter length of time; however, it’s generally best to anticipate spending at least four years on the degree.

The amount of support for a standard Teaching Assistantship (50% FTE) is set through negotiation between the university and the Graduate Employees Organization (GEO), and usually goes up slightly each year. The TAship also carries tuition and partial fee remission and a teaching load of three classes per year (2-1 load), except in the fall of the first year of the PhD program and in the spring after the prospectus is completed.

MA students are encouraged to seek employment on campus during the first year of the program as Graduate Assistants and in other part time roles in which they may have experience. Graduate Assistantships usually carry the same tuition waiver and stipend as a Teaching Assistantship.

Incoming students will be automatically considered for any applicable university fellowships.

Current students may browse the Graduate College fellowships and awards page to determine whether to apply to existing awards. Pay special attention to deadlines, since many applications require letters of recommendation from the DGS and/or your advisor.

Briefly, a non-degree student fills out an application (though not necessarily the same application that degree-seeking students fill out) and, once admitted, may enroll in certain courses in the department. These courses are taken for credit and may be transferred to a later degree program at UIC or elsewhere, depending on the program requirements and restrictions.

Someone who audits a course, by contrast, does not receive any credit for it. Official course auditors must be current faculty, staff, or students at UIC. You can read more about the process for auditing a course on the Registrar’s website.

Please visit our Non-Degree Students page to see what options are available for students under non-degree status; briefly, you may apply as a Non-Degree English student or a Non-Degree (Unassigned) student.

If you apply as non-degree English, yes; if you apply as non-degree (unassigned), no. Please visit our Non-Degree Students page for more information about non-degree requirements.