Admission Requirements

The annual deadline to apply for admission to the MA in WRD with a financial award (GA or Partial Tuition Fellowship) is February 15.

Students with a bachelor's degree in any field are eligible to apply to the MA in WRD program. Applications also require the following materials, submitted through the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences:

• A graduate application
• Official transcript(s) from all previous schools attended
• Statement of Purpose (approximately 500 words): In your Statement of Purpose, specifically discuss the academic and professional experiences that helped shape your decision to pursue graduate work in Writing, Rhetoric, and Discourse (WRD). Explain your educational and career objectives and how these relate to the MA in WRD program. Please examine our departmental website to familiarize yourself with our curriculum and our faculty’s areas of expertise before you submit your application. One of our primary criteria for evaluating applicants is to make sure your interests are a good match with our department’s strengths.
• Current resume or CV
• 15 to 20 pages of your own written work. This writing sample may include academic writing or professional writing, one document or several. At the top of each document, provide several sentences that give context—including when the document was written and for what audience(s)—and that explain what the sample demonstrates about your academic or professional writing.
• Two letters of recommendation, which speak to your academic and professional abilities.

Application materials can be sent to the following address:

Graduate Admissions Office
College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
2400 N. Sheffield
Chicago, IL 60614-2215

Credentials (including official transcripts) also can be emailed to the Office of Graduate Admission at LASgrad@depaul.edu. Please make sure your name is on all documents.

Students may apply at any time of the year, as the program adopts rolling admissions. All application materials should be received eight weeks prior to the student's desired starting date.

TOEFL and IELTS

The MA in WRD welcomes international students to study in our program. The College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences requires that students educated in a country where the native language is not recognized as English must submit proof of English proficiency. Students may demonstrate proficiency in one of the following ways:

• An official TOEFL score report: the minimum TOEFL requirements are: 96 (Internet version), 243 (computer version), or 590 (paper version)
• An official IELTS score report: 7.5 or higher

Please have your TOEFL or IELTS score report sent to DePaul from the testing agency (institution code: 1165).

Learn more about Graduate Admission.

Ready to apply?

If you need assistance to complete your application ​and/or have questions, contact the LAS Graduate Admission office at (773) 325-7315 or LASgrad@depaul.edu.