For Prospective Students
Admission information
Princeton admits students to the Ph.D. program once each year for enrollment in September. Students apply for admission and financial aid by December 15th. This deadline is for the receipt of applications and all supporting materials. Decisions are announced in March, and each admitted student has until April 15 to respond. The Politics Department does not have an M.A. program and makes no provision for part-time students.
Applications are available from the Graduate School -- not the department. We encourage you to use the Princeton Graduate School Online Application Form. You can also print the paper application from the Graduate School website and mail it in to the following address:
Princeton University
Graduate Admission Office
One Clio Hall
Princeton, NJ 08544
Fax 609-258-7262
For questions regarding uploading materials, please call or write the Graduate Admissions Office at:
Manager: Michelle Carman, (609) 258-4880
Admissions Specialist: Michelle L. Johnson, (609) 258-3034
Admissions Specialist: Melanie Heaney-Scott, (609) 258-3034
Admissions Specialist: Shelly Redfern, (609) 258-3034
Applications are usually available in September.
Along with your application, you must submit a writing sample and a personal statement. The writing sample should be a seminar paper or a couple of chapters of a senior thesis (along with a thesis summary). Ideally, the sample would move beyond a literature review to display research abilities and capacity for original thought. The personal statement should describe your academic and career plans. In addition, it must indicate your intended major field of research:
• American politics
• Comparative politics
• Formal and quantitative analysis
• International relations
• Political economy (first read the requirements of the Political Economy program)
• Political theory
• Public law
Before choosing one of these fields, please read the department's field descriptions and familiarize yourself with the relevant faculty interests. Please indicate your field at the top of your essay’s first page, in capital letters.
Students may also apply to the Joint Degree Program in Politics and Social Policy, which is run by the Woodrow Wilson School and the Department of Politics. Students who complete the program will be awarded a doctoral degree in Politics and Social Policy. Students interested in the program should make "Social Policy" on their applications to the Ph.D. program in the Department of Politics. In order to participate in the Joint Degree Program, students must be admitted by both the Department of Politics and the interdisciplinary social policy faculty.