Prospective Students - Graduate

Linguistics

Areas of Study and Research

The department offers graduate students an empirically based program of study and research focusing on ethnographic, cognitive, computational, and functional linguistics. Specializations include African linguistics, Native American languages, computational linguistics, conversation and discourse analysis, experimental phonetics, functional syntactic theory, historical linguistics, language acquisition, psycholinguistics, semantic theory, and sociolinguistics.

Degrees Offered

MA
Requires 30 hours of approved graduate study, including a thesis, or 30 hours of approved study without a thesis. Both plans require successful completion of a comprehensive examination.

MA for TESOL Professionals
Requires 30 hours of approved graduate study, including both Linguistics and the pedagogy of teaching English as a second language. Students prepare a professional portfolio and complete a modified comprehensive examination. Application procedures are the same as for the Linguistics MA, but please indicate "TESOL" as your proposed area of specialization

PhD
Requires 36 hours of approved graduate study, 30 hours of dissertation work, satisfactory completion of the preliminary examination, demonstration of reading knowledge of either linguistic literature in a language selected by the student and the student's advisory committee, satisfactory completion of a comprehensive examination, and successful preparation and defense of a dissertation.

Admission

Graduate School Minimum Admissions Standards
Individual graduate departments may have additional or more restrictive standards by which they evaluate graduate applicants. However, the Graduate School at CU-Boulder has established minimum standards for graduate admission. Applicants must:

1. Hold a baccalaureate degree from an accredited college or university, or have done work equivalent to that required for such a degree.
   
2. Show promise of ability to pursue advanced study and research, as judged by the student’s scholastic record.
   
3. Have adequate preparation to enter graduate study in the chosen field.
   
4. Have at least a 2.75 (2.00=C) undergraduate grade point average. Note: Applicants who cannot meet this undergraduate standard may still secure regular admission if they have completed 9 semester hours of relevant graduate course work with at least a 3.25 average.

Linguistics Admissions Requirements
Applicants must:

1. Hold a baccalaureate degree or its equivalent from an accredited college or university.
2. Have an undergraduate grade point average of at least 2.75.
3. Have the equivalent of 3 years of college-level study of a language other than English - required for the M.A. Program. Applicants who do not have this background will need to acquire it in addition to their linguistics training.
4. Provide GRE scores (for students whose language of education is English) or TOEFL score of 550 or higher (for students whose language of education is not English.)
5. Provide four letters of recommendation.
6. Provide a personal statement of purpose (application part II, #6).

Financial Support Available
Financial support and tuition waivers are offered to Ph.D. students, as available, in the form of teaching or research assistantships

Application Information and Deadlines   Fall admission Yes Application deadline January 15 International application deadline December 1 Financial assistance application deadline January 15   Spring admission No   Summer admission No

Contact Information

University of Colorado at Boulder
Department of Linguistics
Graduate Secretary
295 UCB - Hellems 290
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
Phone: 303-492-8456
Fax: 303-492-4416
e-mail: linguist@colorado.edu
web site: www.Colorado.EDU/linguistics/