Doctor of Philosophy in History - United States

With more than twenty-five distinguished faculty members in the field of U.S. history, the UCLA Department of History offers one of the country's broadest, most diverse, and successful graduate programs in the subject. Faculty expertise ranges from the pre-colonial history of the Americas to the present. The faculty believes that students in our field should receive a common core education in U.S. history as well as having the opportunity to expand and rethink the field through further training and research that is individualized, specialized, and creative. We encourage interdisciplinary, transnational, and comparative study to take advantage of UCLA's renowned strengths, not just in the History Department, which is the largest and perhaps most comprehensive in the country, but also across the humanities, social sciences, arts, and, where appropriate, the sciences.

Resources for graduate study at UCLA are exceedingly rich. The Young Research Library is one of the five largest in the nation, and there are additional superb rare book collections in all periods of American history at the nearby Huntington and Clark libraries. Furthermore, UCLA is home to an array of interdisciplinary research centers and programs, many of which run lecture series, hold conferences, sponsor research programs, offer classes, and provide fellowships to graduate students in corresponding fields of study. US history graduate students have been especially active in the Center for the Study of Women, the Institute of Industrial Relations, and the four research centers for American ethnic studies (the Chicano Studies Research Center, Bunche Center for African American Studies, American Indian Studies Center, and Asian-American Studies Center). Students have also interacted with Area Studies research centers (Centers for African Studies, Southeast Asian Studies, Japanese Studies, etc), Environmental Studies, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Studies, and more that could not be listed comprehensively. These centers and their programs offer excellent opportunities for inter-disciplinary research and discussion.

Because the History Department has several different fields each with slightly different requirements the criteria for admissions are not rigidly standardized The admissions committee considers the following factors three letters of recommendation from the students former or current professors the applicants statement of purpose 1000 Words personal statement a writing sample of no longer than 10 pages double spaced not including bibliography foreign language training undergraduate or MA grade point average Unofficial transcript uploaded on the online application We may request official transcripts at a later time The general requirement for admission for a US student is a bachelors degree from a regionally accredited institution comparable in standard and content to a bachelors degree from the University of California An overall scholastic average of B 3.0 on a 4.0 scale or better is required or its equivalent if the letter grade system is not used and in any postbaccalaureate study Your IELTS Academic overall band score should be at least 7.0. 7.0 is the minimum required. Your TOEFL score on the paper and pencil test must be at least 560 or at least 87 on the internet-based test. For the internet based TOEFL TOEFL iBT the following are the expected scores for each section Writing - 25 Speaking - 24 Reading - 21 Listening - 17