Graduate Admission

  • February 15th (to be considered for financial support)
  • May 1st: Preferred fall semester deadline
  • November 15th: Preferred spring semester deadline

**Complete applications that are received after the preferred fall and spring semester deadlines will be evaluated periodically on a space-available basis.

Application Procedures

If you are interested in applying to our graduate program, please complete the online application found on the Graduate School website. You will be required to pay a non-refundable $60 application fee.

As part of the application process, you will also be asked to submit the following items.  You will submit items 1-3 through the online application. Items 4-5 can be completed subsequent to submitting the online application.

  1. Statement of purpose. This should be a typed statement of approximately 250 words explaining your educational goals and why you wish to pursue them at University of Montana.
  2. Writing sample. This should be a sample of your academic writing, such as a term paper or a professional article, that exemplifies good grammar, sentence structure, organization and content.
  3. Email addresses for three references. You will need to provide email addresses for three individuals who have agreed to write letters of recommendation for you. Once you have submitted the email addresses through the online application, the Graduate School will provide your recommenders with instructions to submit their letters. Letters of recommendation should speak to your ability to complete a Master's Degree, so you should ask people to recommend you who can comment on your academic work and scholarly potential.
  4. Undergraduate Transcripts. You should request that official transcripts from all colleges and universities you have attended (excluding the University of Montana) be sent to the Department of Sociology attention Mark Heirigs. Transcripts may also be transmitted electronically through the National Student Clearinghouse. Please do not send transcripts to the Graduate School.

Admission Criteria

To be admitted to the graduate program you must have a bachelor's degree from an accredited institution, and meet each of the following criteria:

  1. A minimum grade point average of 3.3 during the last two years of undergraduate work.
  2. A combined score of at least 300 on the verbal and quantitative portions of the new Graduate Record Exam, or a combined score of at least 1000 on the old Graduate Record Exam and a minimum score of four (4) on the GRE writing component.

It is possible to be admitted even though you may not meet both criteria, but there must be compelling evidence of your ability to do graduate work. For example, if your GRE scores are somewhat lower than 1000/4 but your GPA is exemplary, the Department may recommend admission.

Occasionally, students are admitted provisionally and expected to take additional undergraduate Sociology courses to meet deficiencies in their undergraduate preparation. For example, if you lack training in research methods, you would be expected to take an undergraduate research course before enrolling in a graduate-level methodology class.

If you do not meet the requirements for admission, you may take courses as a graduate nondegree student. Should you be accepted at a later date, you may apply one semester's credits to the Master's degree. Please be aware that nondegree students are not eligible for financial aid.

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Sociology

Sociology