Skip to main content

Admissions

Applications for admission to the Sociology PhD program in Fall 2024 are now closed.  The application deadline was December 1, 2023.  Many thanks to all of you who applied to our PhD program this year.  We expect admissions decisions to be issued via email during the third full week of February, sometime between Monday 2/19 and Friday 2/23.

Applications for admission to the Sociology PhD program in Fall 2025 will be available in early September 2024.  A notice will be posted on this page as soon as the application window opens.  The application deadline will be December 1, 2024, at 11:59pm Central US Time.  All application materials are submitted through the online application portal, and must be received by the December 1st deadline.  Information about required application materials can be found below.

 


 

Statement on Graduate Admissions and Diversity

The Northwestern Sociology Department Faculty considers the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision ending affirmative action in higher education admissions to be antithetical to our values as expressed in our Statements of Solidarity.  We remain steadfastly committed to recruiting and admitting a diverse graduate student body and will work to ensure that outcome while following university policies and the law.  We remain equally committed to promoting the sociological study of race and ethnicity, racism, and racialization as core aspects of our society (reflected in our requiring all graduate students to take a course on the Sociology of Race and Racism).

Northwestern asks applicants about their race and ethnicity for reporting purposes, but those fields are masked when applications are passed to admissions committees.  We encourage all applicants to use their Personal Statements to identify and comment on all aspects of their background and experiences that position them to contribute to a diverse intellectual community.  We also encourage applicants to find space in either the Personal Statement or the Academic Statement to reflect on how their background and experiences have positioned them to think sociologically about the world.  The admissions committee will review these statements closely, along with other application materials, as part of our holistic review and selection process.

 


 

Detailed information on Application Materials

Please note that the application deadline is December 1st, 11:59pm Central US Time.  All application materials are submitted through the online application portal, and must be received by the December 1st deadline.  Materials submitted after the deadline will not be reviewed by the admissions committee.  Please do not send any application materials once the deadline has passed, including newly updated transcripts, as they will not be included in our application review process.

GRE Policy:  We do not require or accept GRE scores as part of the application of admission to our PhD program.  Applicants will not have the option to submit GRE scores as part of their applications. 

 

Required Application Materials:
Optional Application Materials

Applicants may choose to submit the following optional statements as part of their application:

* Note on Supplemental Documents: No documents other than the Quantitative Fellowship statement should be uploaded in the Supplemental Document section. All other types of documents uploaded here will be removed from applications prior to review.