How competitive is admission to CIR at the University of Chicago, and what are the admission criteria?
We expect to fill 40 places for each academic year. Historically, our class size has ranged between 30-50 per year, with an average of 50 students for the last four years. In our admissions process, the Committee considers many factors: the letters of recommendation, academic background, work experience, and the fit of the candidate with the strengths of the program. In addition to the University of Chicago’s standard application form, all applicants (including international students) must submit scores from the Graduate Record Exam (GRE). The GRE score is only one of a number of criteria that the Committee considers when evaluating applicants; we do not use strict score cutoffs in our evaluation. Applicants must also submit a 10-20-page writing sample, perhaps from a seminar paper or senior thesis. The content of the writing sample can be about any subject, though argumentative papers of interest to CIR members are certainly preferred. Please do not submit multiple short papers in lie
We expect to fill 50 places for each academic year. Historically, our class size has ranged between 30-50 per year, with an average of 50 students for the last four years. In our admissions process, the Committee considers many factors: the letters of recommendation, academic background, work experience, and the fit of the candidate with the strengths of the program. In addition to the University of Chicago’s standard application form, all applicants (including international students) must submit scores from the Graduate Record Exam (GRE). The GRE score is only one of a number of criteria that the Committee considers when evaluating applicants; we do not use strict score cutoffs in our evaluation. Applicants must also submit a 10-20-page writing sample, perhaps from a seminar paper or senior thesis. The content of the writing sample can be about any subject, though argumentative papers of interest to CIR members are certainly preferred. Please do not submit multiple short papers in lie
