THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
Application Requirements
All supporting material – including letters of recommendation, transcripts, supplemental material, and writing samples – must be submitted electronically with your online application. The Division of the Social Sciences allows for a short grace period of about one week for receipt of recommendations and required test scores. Materials that arrive more than a week after the deadline may place your application at a significant disadvantage.
The Admissions Committee evaluates all official transcripts of academic work, candidate statements and essays, letters of recommendation, performance on any required standardized test, and any special factors brought to its attention. The committee considers each application on the basis of all materials submitted and does not automatically eliminate applications based on grade point averages or test scores. The GRE is not required for consideration into the MACSS program, except for applicants to MACSS-Economics. Please note, the committee will utilize other resources such as courses completed to assess applicants’ quantitative skill set.
Online Graduate Application
The application for admission opens mid-August 2024.
Unofficial transcripts are required from all prior post-secondary institutions attended. Transcripts are not required for an institution if all grades are reflected on the transcript for a different school (for example, when a student has transferred or participated in study abroad).
General Track: Your statement should outline your research interest, your relevant training, your prior academic accomplishments, as well as your career plans and why you think MACSS is the program that will best help you advance those.
Economics Track: Your statement should cover 1) any specific research experience you have in the context of your plans for our program; 2) any specific professional experience you have that would benefit the program and that our program would help enhance; 3) your planned research in MACSS Economics, explaining in detail any paper or project plans you might already have in mind.
No matter the track, the Candidate Statement as a whole should answer two main questions:
- Why are you interested in MACSS?
What kind of education and experience are you looking for and why? What do you plan to do after completing the program? How exactly will a degree in Computational Social Science more generally, and MACSS specifically, help you accomplish? If you are developing a specific research agenda, how will MACSS support you in this endeavor?
- Why are you confident that you’ll succeed in the program?
What kind of experiences and skills do you bring to the program? If there are aspects of your applications that might give us pause—e.g. limited quantitative background, some low grades, or lack of research experience— let us know how you plan to, or already have, overcome those to set yourself up for success.
Note: We do not expect you to answer these questions directly, we provide them to be clear about the implicit expectations of the statement that not all applicants might be aware of.
A writing sample helps us understand your abilities to develop and answer a research question. Please provide a single-authored, double-spaced writing sample of no more than 30 pages. This writing should ideally showcase your ability to a) develop a research question, b) connect it to relevant social scientific literature, and c) answer that question using computational methods. More than one document may be uploaded, if two or three shorter papers will best show your research abilities.
Upload a current resume, reflecting your work experience, education, community service, professional honors, and any other relevant information.
Recommenders must submit letters through the online application. To submit your application, you must provide the names and contact information for three recommenders in the application portal. The application will not allow you to submit without the contact information for three designated recommenders listed in the portal. You can submit your application prior to the actual letters being received, but you must list the names and contact information for three recommenders in order to submit. We allow a grace period of one week for receipt of recommendation letters after our deadline; applications incomplete after that grace period may be at a disadvantage in the review process.
Guidance for who to select as a recommender, as well as best practices for requesting letters, can be found on the Division of the Social Sciences website.
We ask you to answer in a few paragraphs, the following question: What are the most important challenges you have faced, as an individual, in your educational path to date? How have you tried to meet or overcome those challenges?
GRE scores are only required of applicants applying to Economics. GRE scores are not required for applicants to all other areas of study, and applicants who do not submit scores will receive equal consideration. If you submit scores, the University's institution code is 1832 (department code does not matter).
Applicants who do not qualify for a waiver of the University’s English proficiency requirement must submit official IELTS/TOEFL scores. Acceptable test variations, score requirements, and a detailed explanation of the waiver options can be found on the Division of the Social Sciences website.
A non-refundable application fee is required of all applicants. Application fee waivers are available; learn more about available application fee waivers on the Division of the Social Sciences website.