How to Apply
Fall 2025 Application Cycle
Now Open
Application Deadline
Fall 2025 Domestic Application Deadline:
10:00pm MST December 15, 2024
Fall 2025 International Application Deadline:
10:00pm MST December 1, 2024
Application Steps
Hold a baccalaureate degree and an undergraduate grade point average of at least 3.00.
Application Fee Waiver Information
Submit one transcript from each college or university attended. GRE test/scores not required.
List three references and their email addresses on your application. All three reference letters must be received by the deadline or your application will be disqualified.
Cultural Anthropology and Archaeology applicants should upload a writing sample with their application.
International students must meet the English proficiency requirement.
Application Process
We receive approximately 100 applications each year. Our target for each entering class is approximately 6 (two in each of the three Subdisciplines of Anthropology that our department supports). We reach this target by admitting some students and placing others on a waitlist; we admit students from the waitlist as other students decline the places we have offered them. On average, we offer admission to approximately 15 applicants per year. Although we train students at the MA level to take jobs in their fields, the standards we apply to all PhD applicants have to do with their potential to carry out research of the quality we would expect in doctoral-level research.
Prospective applicants generally have undergraduate degrees in Anthropology, with focused coursework in their chosen subdiscipline. We prefer that applicants with other kinds of backgrounds have sufficient coursework in Anthropology or other relevant background to demonstrate a basic familiarity with all three of the subdisciplines we support. Applications will be reviewed by subdisciplinary faculty (that is, applications in Archaeology will be reviewed by the archaeologists, etc.) before they are brought to the full faculty, so please indicate your subdiscipline clearly on your application. We evaluate prospective students holistically: grades matter, as do letters of recommendation, statements of purpose, and experience outside the classroom (field and laboratory experience can be particularly important). Applicants are permitted, but not required, to submit one (1) example of their best written work. If you choose to submit an example of your work, we cannot return it to you.
We also seek students whose interests are within our areas of expertise. You should look at the interests of our individual faculty members and contact the faculty you might want to work with.
Financial support for our PhD students primarily takes the form of teaching assistantships (TAs), which provide both a stipend and tuition remission. We also have limited fellowship money for PhD admits. There are additional funds available through university-wide competitions, but we nominate only one incoming PhD student for these competitions. Students are encouraged to apply for national fellowships such as NSF, Fulbright, SSRC, and Wenner Gren. PhD students will be given priority for all funding. There is no funding for MA students.
Graduate
- Before You Apply
- How to Apply
- Degree Programs
- Graduate Certificate Programs
- Graduate Student Fellowships & Grants
- Academic Integrity
- Graduate Teaching Assistant Expectations
- Graduate School Guidelines for Student Progress
- Anthropology Graduate Student Association
- Anthropology Organizational Chart
- Graduate Student Alumni Spotlights