Admission
The department only accepts fall admissions. The application deadline for admission in the fall semester is January 2nd.
To apply, prospective students must submit an electronic application. For details, please see the application instructions. About one week after the submission of the application, you can begin checking the status of your application in the online application system. Due to the high volume of applications, please refrain from calling or emailing the History department regarding the status of your application. Admissions statistics are available.
- Application Instructions
The Department of History requires the following materials in an application for admission into the graduate program:
- Your online application. All applications must be submitted online.
- A Career Statement of 2–4 double-spaced pages that describes the basis of your intellectual and professional interest in history, and the reasons for your application to our graduate program. What are the primary areas of your interest and competence within the field of history? Why does our program appeal to you, and how would it fit with your research interests and career goals? Who are the graduate faculty members you would like to work with, and why? Please include information about your reading proficiency in languages relevant to your proposed research, as well as any previous research experience. As the graduate faculty reviews your statement, they will also seek to gain a holistic sense of how your past experiences shape and motivate your plans for the PhD. Whether those experiences are academic or non-academic, tell us how you see them preparing you for success in our program and in your future career. The more specific your statement, and the closer the match between your intellectual interests and our areas of expertise, the higher the chances of being admitted into the program. We therefore strongly encourage you to contact individual faculty members directly to explore the feasibility of topics of interest.
- Three letters of recommendation from former teachers or others who can evaluate your past academic performance and qualifications for graduate study.
- An official academic transcript from the college/university at which you completed your work for a BA degree (for admissions into the program, a minimum undergraduate GPA of 3.0 is required); and if you have an MA, an official academic transcript covering your MA work.
- A sample of your written work (approximately 15-20 double-spaced pages), preferably on a historical subject: this could be a term paper, an excerpt from a senior or MA thesis, or a publication. Please choose a sample that showcases your writing skills as well as your ability to craft an argument and to work with secondary (and ideally primary) sources.
- Current CV/Resume. Please list colleges and universities you have attended, plus teaching and work experience, research, special programs, honors and awards, publications, and any other information you feel is applicable.
All documents must be uploaded via the online application system. A copy of all academic transcripts must also be uploaded. If you are admitted, you are then required to provide an official copy of the transcript(s). Until you provide the official transcript, you will be admitted with a contingency.
International applicants must also provide the following additional materials:
- International graduate applicants must possess proficiency in English at a level that enables them to succeed in graduate-level studies. Applicants in the following categories meet this requirement: citizens of a country whose official language is English; graduates of regionally accredited institutions in the U.S.; graduates of institutions whose language of instruction is English and located in countries whose official language is English. International applicants who do not fall into these categories must provide official results of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), the International English Language Testing System (IETLS), or the Duolingo English Test. For more information please see: https://www.asgraduate.pitt.edu/admissions/international-students
- For more information about the admissions process for graduate students, please visit the Office of International Services website.
The History department DOES NOT require or consider GRE test results in its assessment of graduate applications.
The deadline for all applications is January 2nd.
In an effort to reduce financial barriers to attending graduate school, the Kenneth P. Dietrich Graduate School of Arts and Sciences offers application fee waivers. Please note that fee waivers are approved on a case-by-case basis and not all fee waiver requests will be granted. All requests received will be reviewed and responded to within 48 hours during normal business hours: Monday - Friday 8:30a.m. to 5:00p.m. EST. To be considered for a fee waiver, please complete the following fee waiver survey for review: https://pitt.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cD38CmmjcOT3Tvw. For more information, please see: https://www.asgraduate.pitt.edu/admissions/application-fee-waivers.
The request form will be unavailable starting the morning of Tuesday, November 25, 2025 until Monday, December 1, for the Thanksgiving break.The form will be unavailable again starting the morning of Monday, December 22 until Monday, January 5, 2026, for the University’s Winter Recess.
We appreciate your patience and understanding.
Please refrain from calling or emailing regarding the status of your application, which can be checked via the online application system. If you do need to contact the department regarding your application, please e-mail the Graduate Administrator, LJ Srolovic.
Decisions on both admission and financial aid will be announced around March 15th.
If you are having issues with any part of your on-line application for the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences please reach out to the GradCas Applicant Help center: https://help.liaisonedu.com/GradCAS_Applicant_Help_Center. If you cannot find the answer to your question you can also contact them by phone 857-304-2086 or via email: gradcasinfo@liaisoncas.com. For the quickest response it is best to contact them via chat on the Applicant Help center page.
- Graduate Admission Statistics
Applications and Admissions, 2002–24
Year
Applicants
Admitted
%
Accepted
%
2002
75
18
24
5
28
2003
91
16
18
8
50
2004
91
12
13
8
67
2005
107
14
13
6
43
2006
97
17
18
9
53
2007
112
21
19
13
62
2008
105
15
14
8
53
2009
112
18
16
10
56
2010
151
16
11
8
50
2011
127
18
14
10
56
2012
126
15
12
8
53
2013
127
12
9
6
66
2014
113
13
12
5
42
2015 98 13 13 7 54 2016 56 9 16 4 44 2017 56 14 25 8 57 2018 45 13 29 6 46 2019 54 10 18 3 30 2020 67 12 18 8 67 2021 0 0 0 0 0 2022 76 13 17 6 46 2023 61 13 21 5 38 2024 77 9 12 5 56 Total
1,858
277
15
143
52
Financial Aid
All students who are admitted to our program receive a multi-year funding package in the form of teaching assistantships and non-teaching fellowships that include tuition remission, university-provided individual health insurance, and a stipend for living expenses in the range of $23-24,000 per year. Once they are in the program, students can apply for a variety of additional non-teaching fellowships, such as the Social Science Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, the World History Center Fellowship, the Andrew Mellon Predoctoral Fellowship, the Lilian B. Lawler Fellowship, and the Carolyn Chambers Memorial Fellowship. In addition, we provide generous summer research funding (averaging around $5,000 per person per year) to support students who need to travel to visit archives or acquire additional language skills.
Departmental Funding:
Some sources of financial support most commonly available to history graduate students are listed below. The sums awarded and other conditions of awards may change, so you should check with the graduate director (Niklas Frykman) or with the graduate administrator (LJ Srolovic) for updated details. Prospective students should also consult the list of non-departmental awards available.
- Teaching Assistantships and Teaching Fellowships
All students holding graduate teaching assistantships (TA) or teaching fellowships (TF) must register for nine credits of course work each semester during the fall and spring semesters. Under the terms of their appointment, they are expected to devote a maximum of 20 hours a week to their assigned duties. Problems arising with immediate supervisors should be brought to the attention of the graduate director.
Course instructors will meet regularly with TA/TFs and discuss examinations, grading, returning papers/examinations, and other pedagogical matters with them. At the end of the term, instructors must evaluate the TA/TF’s performance in a written report, which will be shown to the individual and incorporated into their academic file.
Obligations: TA/TFs must attend all of the lectures and class sessions of the course to which they are assigned. They must attend all of their own recitation sections, or arrange for a substitute in case of illness or other emergency. Changes in time/location of recitations must be approved by the instructor and communicated to the departmental staff.
TA/TFs must hold at least two hours of office hours per week and notify students and departmental staff of these hours.
Other types of TA/TF duties: TA/TFs who grade examinations but do not preside at recitations are obliged to perform all of the duties outlined above except for the meeting of recitations. The obligations of instructors toward these students remain as outlined above.
TFs who independently teach a course must meet the professional standards required of faculty teaching at the University. They should have their course syllabus approved by a faculty member teaching a similar course, and they should arrange to have their course evaluated.
Non-native English speakers must pass an English comprehensibility test before their first teaching appointment.
Value: Information on the value of stipends is available here: https://www.gradstudies.pitt.edu/funding/stipends
Assignments: Assignments are governed by a combination of seniority and teaching competence. The balance between the two is a matter of ongoing discussion, but the chair retains the right to step in on the side of teaching.
- Research Assistants
Obligations: Graduate student assistants should perform the duties assigned them by the department. An evaluation of their performance should be submitted at the end of the semester by the faculty person for whom they worked. This evaluation should be put into students' files after they have read it.
Value: Same as TA/TF (above).
Assignments: Students serving as research assistants are chosen from the TA/TF pool. They are part of the regular funding pool.
- Summer Teaching
Obligations: Teaching a summer course, usually a survey in the student's area.
Value: Pay is at the TA/TF rate.
Eligibility: Students who are in the funding stream and beyond their MA—preferably beyond their comps—are eligible to teach a summer course.
Assignments: The department makes an effort to match the pool of eligible teachers with courses that are likely to reach the enrollment minimum. There is no fixed number of courses, but we try to avoid scheduling courses that are unlikely to fill and therefore run.
- C.Y. Hsu Summer Research Fellowship
Description: The Hsu Graduate Fellowships support summer research in (by order of preference) Asian History, all other areas of history, Asian studies. Usually, up to two fellowships will be awarded. The standard fellowship award $3,500, and we will evaluate well-documented and justified requests for additional funding on a case-by-case basis.
Eligibility: PhD students in the Department of History, and PhD students in the Asian Studies Program outside the Department of History, are eligible to apply.
Requirements: Applicants should provide the following documentation to the Graduate Administrator, LJ Srolovic:
- Research proposal (no more than two, double-spaced pages)
- Budget
- CV
- Letter from the student's major advisor
- List of possible sources of funding for which the student has applied
Awards will be announced in early April.
- Summer Fellowships
Description: Each spring, our graduate students can apply for departmental summer fellowships, which may be used for language study; research for the MA essay; pre-dissertation field research; archival research; or a combination of these activities. Updated information about the application procedures will be circulated early in the spring semester.
- Arts and Sciences Social Science Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships (SSDD)
Each year the Department awards a limited number of SSDD fellowships on a competitive basis. These non-teaching fellowships are meant to support dissertation research or writing. The Graduate Administrator will provide detailed information on eligibility and application procedures early in the spring semester.
- Conference Travel Awards
The department awards up to $600 (one time per year) to be used to reimburse eligible costs for graduate students presenting papers at conferences. To apply for these funds, please submit electronically the following documentation to the Director of Graduate Studies (Niklas Frykman):
- Title and date of the conference
- Title of conference paper
- Evidence that the paper has been accepted (e.g. conference program, acceptance email, etc.)
- Estimated costs (Airfare, registration, lodging, food)
Non-Departmental Funding:
Some sources of financial support most commonly available to history graduate students are listed below. The sums awarded and conditions of awards may change, so you should check with the graduate director or with the graduate administrator for updated details. Prospective students should also consult the list of departmental awards available. In addition, students are strongly encouraged to familiarize themselves with the different research centers on campus that overlap with their interests, as many of them have additional sources of funding available.
- Arts & Sciences Fellowships
New students with outstanding academic records may be offered one of these fellowships which provide support for the first year of graduate training without teaching duties.
- Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships
Description: The fellowship is available to US citizens and permanent residents. The fellowship requires no teaching and usually assumes the student will take advanced language training during the tenure of the fellowship.
The fellowships are renewable for up to two years.
Decisions: The relevant area specialists nominate internal and external applicants. After that, committees in the Asian Studies Center, the Center for African Studies, the Center for Latin American Studies, the European Studies Center, the Global Studies Center, and the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies makes awards from an applicant pool that includes history and other disciplines. For details, visit the specific area program at the University Center for International Studies (UCIS) Web site.
- Carolyn Chambers Memorial Fellowship
Description: One year fellowship support without teaching obligations.
Decisions: The Chambers Fellowship alternates between the History and English departments, so history graduate students may compete every other year for this award. The graduate committee sends its recommendation to the dean's office. The award of this fellowship follows the same criteria as the Mellon Fellowship (see below).
- K. Leroy Irvis Fellowships
Description: In 1994, the University of Pittsburgh established the K. Leroy Irvis Fellowships to enhance the academic excellence and diversity of the university's graduate student body and prepare doctoral students for academic and research careers. Each year, schools select distinguished doctoral applicants who have demonstrated outstanding academic achievement to participate in this prestigious program, which provides a non-duty bearing fellowship for the student’s first year of doctoral study as well academic guidance and cohort-based mentoring throughout the student’s doctoral studies.
Decisions: The graduate committee makes nomination to the graduate dean. The committee looks for students for whom it can make a case of exceptional promise.
- Mitsubishi Graduate Fellowship in Japanese Studies
Description: This non-teaching fellowship is available to students specializing in Japanese studies.
Decisions: Awards are made within Asian studies. Information on application forms, etc. is available on the Asian Studies Program Web site.
- Latin American Social and Public Policy (LASPP) Fellowship
Description: This is a one-year research fellowship open to students of Latin American history whose work addresses public policy questions.
Decisions: The Center for Latin American Studies handles this award.
- Lillian B. Lawler Predoctoral Fellowship
Description: This non-teaching fellowship is available to advanced students. Applications are made and evaluated at the same time as the Mellon Fellowships (see below).
Decisions: Same as Mellon Fellowships (see below); however, for the Lawler Fellowship, the department and Dietrich School committees also look for evidence of excellence in teaching. Applicants should be sure to include teaching evaluations, materials, letters from students, and a statement about teaching in the application.
- Andrew W. Mellon Predoctoral Fellowship
Description: This is a research fellowship for advanced students undertaking dissertation research or writing. No teaching is required.
The Mellon fellowships are renewable for up to two years, although renewals are not guaranteed.
Decisions: Applications are due early in the spring semester. The graduate committee examines the applications, ranks them, and sends them, along with a cover letter, to the dean's office. A Dietrich School committee then determines who gets the awards. The department committee looks at the coherence of the proposal (Is it clear? Does it spell out the significance of the research? Would it be compelling to non-historians? Is the project well designed?), progress through the program (the School committee is often impressed by speed, so slower progress must be explained), and the student's record (grades, exam results, publications).
Our criteria are inter-related: A good proposal must be well written and argued and must be the result of mastering the requirements of graduate education. We usually favor those students who are well advanced in the program and can use time and financial support to complete the research and writing of their dissertation. Our selection committee also reviews letters of recommendation, graduate and undergraduate grades, and GPA. The letters help the committee identify the candidate's strengths and weaknesses while the graduate record indicates the mastery of a professional program.
- Provost's Dissertation Completion Fellowship
Description: The goal of the Provost’s Dissertation Completion Fellowship is to support doctoral students who have exhausted existing sources of funding and anticipate completing their dissertation in the term in which they receive the fellowship. The fellowship provides dedicated time for research doctoral students to focus full-time on finishing their dissertation during their last term of doctoral studies. The fellowship includes Full-Time Dissertation Study (FTDS) tuition and fees (excluding the student activity fee), individual medical insurance coverage, and a stipend equal to the TA stipend for one term. Since the fellowship is designed to allow students to focus exclusively on their research and writing, it cannot be used in combination with any other source of financial support (e.g., fellowship/scholarship, grant, graduate assistantship, job at another institution/employer) without prior approval.
For more information please Office of the Provost – Graduate Studies website
- World History Center Research and Travel Award
The World History Center offers research and travel funding support for graduate students and faculty each spring semester for activities that will take place prior to June of that year. The Center makes the funding application available in late January each year. Funding is available for expenses to participate in an academic conference or to conduct research in the field. The Center will also consider funding for services such as digitizing archival materials or paying reproduction rights for images or transcription and translation fees. Field of study is open; the applicant need only demonstrate that the proposed activity contributes to insight about the human past at the transregional or global scale. The Center entertains budgets for requests of up to $1,000.
For more information on these awards, please visit https://www.worldhistory.pitt.edu/funding-support-and-sponsorship or email whc@pitt.edu
- World History Center Graduate Student Assistant in Public History
The World History Center funds a one-semester Graduate Student Assistant (GSA) position in Public History each academic year. The program is open to any Pitt graduate student in the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences with an interest in world history and creating a public-facing project. The goal of the GSA program is to communicate with a non-academic audience about a topic in the transregional or global past. We take the term public history broadly. We require only that projects target audiences that extend beyond undergraduate majors or scholars in one particular discipline or field. The Center typically makes the application available in the fall semester for a GSA to being the following spring semester.
For more information and to see past GSA projects visit: https://www.worldhistory.pitt.edu/education/whc-graduate-student-assistants
- A&S PBC Conference Grants
This program helps cover the cost of student presenters’ participation in-person and online conferences. To be eligible, students must have completed 18 credit hours of graduate studies and be accepted as a presenter. The grant will cover up to $150 towards online conference registration fees or up to $600 toward eligible costs of participating as a presenter in an in-person conference. Each cycle will receive the same amount of travel grant funds, which is based on the yearly budget. Any funds not used in a cycle will be rolled over into the following cycle. Please review the table below for dates to apply for the grant based on your conference. Please note this is on a first come first serve basis and approval of funds is not guaranteed. Please submit proof of presenting along with your application for consideration.
For more information, please go here.
- A&S GSO
The A&S GSO allocates $18,000.00 of our annual budget for travel grants. In order to make grants available to the largest number of A&S grad students, travel grants are for $200.00. All A&S Grad Students who present at an academic conference or professional meeting may apply for a travel grant; eligibility requirements and additional information can be found here.
