Graduate Program Application

This page provides details about the procedure for applying to the graduate Linguistics program at the University of Pennsylvania. Please read it thoroughly before submitting an application. If any questions remain unanswered, contact . Note that the term "graduate group" at Penn refers to an entity that administers graduate study, and may or may not be tightly connected to a specific academic "department". The Graduate Group in Linguistics includes all the faculty of the Linguistics Department as well as many faculty who conduct linguistic research but are affiliated with other departments (such as psychology and computer science).

• Degree Program
• Deadlines and fees
• Required Materials
• Financial Aid
• Timeline
• Campus visits
• Historical data
• Contact information

Degree Program

The Graduate Group in Linguistics normally admits only students intending to complete the requirements for the Ph.D. Strong applicants seeking an M.A. are sometimes considered when they bring outside funding for their studies. We are unable to accommodate part-time study in the regular degree program. Students are encouraged to complete the Ph.D. program in five years; for recent graduates, the time to completion generally ranges from five to seven years.

If your main research interest lies in applied linguistics, second language acquisition, or language teaching, contact the School of Education, especially under the category educational linguistics; the Graduate Group in Linguistics at Penn does not consider applications from students with a primary focus in these areas.

Deadlines and fees

The application deadline is December 15th, for admission in the fall semester of the following year. New students must ensure that their complete applications -- including transcripts, test scores, letters of recommendation, personal statement, and any supporting materials -- arrive by this date in order to be considered for financial aid from or through the university. You should call the graduate admissions office at (215) 898-7444 well in advance of this time to see whether the necessary materials have arrived, and take appropriate steps if any materials are missing. If documents are being sent in close to the deadline, email to let us know that they are on the way.

The application fee is $70.00. Payments must be made by credit card, check, or international postal money order written in U.S. currency and made payable to the "Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania."

We encourage all applicants to apply online, using Penn's web interface. Instructions, forms, and a link to the online application are located at http://www.sas.upenn.edu/GAS/home/apply/admissions.html, or follow this direct link.

If you need to submit any materials by mail, send them to:

Graduate Division
School of Arts and Sciences
University of Pennsylvania
3401 Walnut Street, Suite 322A
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6228

Please do not mail the application to the Linguistics Department. After an application is complete, the original remains on file in the Graduate Division, which forwards a copy to the Linguistics Department. The only exception is that your writing sample should be sent directly to the Linguistics Department, since the Graduate Division does not maintain copies of these.

Required Materials

The Graduate Group in Linguistics requires the following materials as part of the applications. Each is discussed in more detail below.

• Academic transcripts of undergraduate courses and grades, and any previous graduate work.
• GRE score for the general test of the Graduate Record Exam.
• TOEFL score for non-native speakers of English.
• A personal statement of your academic goals.
• Recommendations from at least three professors or others familiar with your academic abilities.
• A writing sample and other supporting materials.

The same application is used by applicants from either the U.S. or abroad. An admissions committee within the Graduate Group makes decisions regarding admission and financial aid, with the approval of the Graduate Dean. The Office of the Graduate Division of Arts and Sciences generates the official acceptance letter.

The application and all materials submitted to the Admission Office become the property of the University of Pennsylvania and cannot be returned under any circumstances.

Transcript

Your application must include two copies of an official transcript from the institution(s) where you did previous academic work at the undergraduate or graduate level. They must be in signed and sealed envelopes prepared by the original institution.

After a year in the program, students may be eligible to transfer up to eight semester credits completed prior to admission. Approval will be at the discretion of the Graduate Group.

GRE

We accept any valid set of scores for the general test of the GRE, as long as the test was taken no more than two years before the date the application is completed. This includes both the computer-based test and the paper-based test. For more information on taking the GRE, testing dates and locations, score reporting, and frequently asked questions, visit http://www.gre.org/.

The GRE is administered by the Educational Testing Service (ETS), telephone 609-921-9000. All scores must be officially submitted to the Graduate Division by the testing agency. The codes that you will need to know are University of Pennsylvania: 2926 and Linguistics: 2903.

Your chances for a fellowship will be much better if you score at least 700 on the verbal and (especially) the quantitative sections of the test; if you score lower than 600 on either section, your chances for a fellowship will not be good. The verbal scores of non-native speakers are judged somewhat differently from those of native speakers, but the quantitative scores are not.

TOEFL

The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) is required for non-native speakers of English. For details, see http://www.toefl.org. Anyone who has received a bachelor's degree or higher from an English-speaking university is exempt from this requirement.

The TOEFL is administered by the Educational Testing Service (ETS), telephone 609-921-9000. All scores must be officially submitted to the Graduate Division by the testing agency. The codes that you will need to know are University of Pennsylvania: 2926 and Linguistics: 2903. We do not accept scores older than two years.

Applicants are expected to have a score of at least 600 on the paper-based test (PBT), or 250 on the computer-based test (CBT) or 100 on the newer internet-based test (IBT). All these versions of the test are accepted, subject to the two-year limit.

Personal Statement

Your personal statement is an important part of your application. The admissions committee looks not only at the general background and qualifications of the applicants, but also at the fit between your specific goals and interests, and the kind of research conducted by the members of the graduate group.

The most successful statement will demonstrate that you understand the kinds of work conducted by members of the faculty with interests related to yours, and why Penn is a particularly appropriate place for you to study. You should be clear about your goals; it is acceptable to have wide interests or not to be entirely focused yet, but you should show that you understand what it means to pursue advanced study in the areas of interest that you identify. Personal anecdotes about how you got interested in linguistics, or childhood experiences with language, do not generally contribute to the effectiveness of the statement.

The personal statement is the place to describe your past training in linguistics or in related areas. We welcome applications from those with limited formal training in the field, but in such cases it is especially important to demonstrate your understanding of what graduate work in linguistics will entail, and to emphasize aspects of your educational background that will contribute to your success.

When you are asked to specify your area of concentration, please choose from among these categories: syntax, semantics, pragmatics, phonology, phonetics, sociolinguistics, historical linguistics. If you are interested in an interdisciplinary pursuit such as computational linguistics or psycholinguistics, specify that in addition to at least one core area of study, such as syntax, pragmatics, or phonetics.

Note that applicants are not expected to work out arrangements with individual faculty members before applying. The application is made to the graduate group as a whole, and students who matriculate in the program are assigned appropriate advisors after they arrive. Nevertheless, it is entirely sensible to identify how your research interests relate to those of the faculty at Penn.

Recommendations

You will need letters of recommendation from at least three professors or others who are qualified to comment on your academic ability and background. The most effective letters come from those who have worked with you closely, especially on independent research, and who are familiar enough with the field of linguistics to understand what abilities are most relevant.

When you include the email addresses of your recommenders in the online application, each will automatically receive an email with an attached recommendation form. This email will allow the recommender to submit a letter electronically. Once the recommender submits the letter, it will be attached to the online application.

Supporting materials

A writing sample, such as a substantial term paper or thesis from previous undergraduate or graduate work, is necessary for the faculty to assess your research experience. If you are submitting an online application, you can include a web address (in your personal statement) for a location where you have posted your work as a PDF file. Otherwise mail a paper copy to the Linguistics Department, or email a pdf file to .

When naming a file that will be sent to us, or provided for downloading, please use your last name and initials plus an appropriate term, as in SmithRJ_sample.pdf or LeeTK_thesis.pdf.

Financial Aid

Under normal circumstances, all students who are offered admission to the Ph.D. program are also offered a five-year Benjamin Franklin fellowship. For Fall 2008, the annual stipend for a 10-month period is $21,000. In addition, new students are provided with three summers of support in the amount of $3,500. Please see the Graduate Division for more details.

Timeline

As noted above, the deadline for applications is December 15th. Students to whom the graduate group decides to offer admission will be invited to visit the University on a day in late February; notifications of admission therefore can be expected by the middle of that month.

The Linguistics Ph.D. program begins in the Fall semester, the first full week of September. (See the academic calendar.) There is no provision for students to begin in the Spring semester.

The School of Arts and Sciences allows candidates to defer admission for up to one year. Fellowship awards may not, however, be deferred; the application must be reactivated the next year for new consideration for a fellowship.

Campus visits

We would be happy to arrange for your visit to the Linguistics Department. If you would like to come and sit in on classes or meet Linguistics graduate students or faculty, please contact .

For maps and directions to the University of Pennsylvania, please see http://www.facilities.upenn.edu/visitUs/.

Historical data

The following figures give an overview of our admissions in recent years. The average GRE scores are for all students to whom admisson was offered.

Year	Number of Applications	Admissions Offers	Total Matriculants	GRE Verbal	GRE Quantitative	GRE Writing
2008	104	20	12	678	755	5.0
2007	111	16	5	629	745	5.2
2006	95	14	5	677	721	5.4

Contact information

The Graduate Division oversees the application process:

Graduate Division
School of Arts and Sciences
University of Pennsylvania
3401 Walnut Street, Suite 322A
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6228

Telephone: 215-898-5720

The Linguistics Department administers the affairs of the Graduate Group in Linguistics:

Linguistics Department
University of Pennsylvania
619 Williams Hall
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Email: 

Telephone: 215-898-6046
Fax: 215-573-2091