• Summer Admission: April 15, March 15 for international applicants
• Fall Admission: August 1, July 1 for international applicants
• Spring Admission: November 15, November 1 for international applicants

* All application materials must be received in our office by the application deadline.

Application

Applications may only be submitted through our online application system. Click button to begin:

An application must contain all of the following in order to be considered complete:

• Completed application
• Current resume
• Application essays
• Official transcripts from each post-secondary school, sent directly to LPS address on bottom of page

* There is no application fee.

Application Essays

Please respond to each of the following questions. If you are submitting your essays online, please upload them together in one document. Responses should not exceed four pages in length for all the questions combined.

1. Have you ever been placed on probation, dismissed or suspended from any college or university for reasons pertaining to academic integrity? Yes/No

If yes, please include any facts that you believe bear on the significance of this circumstance.

1. During your Master’s program, you developed an interdisciplinary curriculum that explored one or more themes. lease describe your intellectual journey during your previous graduate studies and discuss, in detail, how your experience has prepared you to undertake further study in the MPhil program.
2. Describe the final research project you would pursue during your MPhil program. Be as specific as possible concerning the questions you would like to explore, the methodology you would employ, the kinds of sources you would consult, the courses you would take, and the faculty with whom you would like to work. You should also describe the relationship between your proposed MPhil program and your previous graduate research. If you propose to depart from your previous research, describe any coursework or experiences that have prepared you to undertake your proposed course of study.

Letters of Recommendation

Two Letters of Recommendations are required for the Master of Philosophy in the Liberal Arts program. These should be from Penn faculty with whom you propose to study in the M.Phil. program if you have already completed an MLA at Penn or from two of your advisors or instructors from a previous Master’s program. You may ask your recommenders to complete their letters online or to submit hard copy letters of recommendation. To submit online recommendations, follow the instructions in the Recommendations section of the online application. If your recommendations will not be submitted online, please complete the LPS cover sheet for letters of recommendation, give it to your references, and have them complete and attach the form to their letter. You can download the form here.

Standardized Test Scores

GRE and other standardized test scores are not required; however, applicants must submit TOEFL scores if English is not their primary language and they have not completed post-secondary work at a US institution or at an institution in which English is the language of instruction. Applicants may opt to submit standardized test scores such as the GRE.