The application begins with just some basic information about you: name, address, birthdate, etc. None of this information has any bearing on your chances of admission. The Brown Graduate School does collect and track demographic information for the program and the university, but we do not factor in anything in this section when considering your admission to our program.

Provide information on all post-secondary institutions you've attended (your college, any additional university courses you've taken, study abroad, etc.).

You will need to request official transcripts from every post-secondary institution you've attended, even if you were enrolled briefly or for a single course. Be sure to allow plenty of lead time (ideally 6-8 weeks before our application deadline) for these requests. Brown's Graduate School strongly encourages applicants to submit a scanned image of the transcript at the time of application, which can speed processing. A final, official transcript will be required of all admitted students who matriculate. More info can be found on the Grad School's Apply for MFA or Doctoral Study at Brown page.

For more on the kinds of educational backgrounds we are seeking, please reference our Tips for a Successful Application.

GRE

The Joukowsky Institute no longer accepts GRE scores. Applicants to the doctoral program in Archaeology and the Ancient World are not required or permitted to provide GRE scores, including both official submissions and self-reporting.

TOEFL/IELTS

All international applicants whose native language is not English must submit an official Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) or International English Language Testing System (IELTS) score. Our TOEFL Institution code is 3094 Brown University, and the departmental code is 11 Archaeology.

More detailed information can be found on the Graduate School’s Language Proficiency page.

The application requires that you upload a resume, as well as providing your work experience on the online form.

Should you include fieldwork?

Yes, absolutely. Fieldwork is an extremely important part of our approach to archaeology. We are very interested in your experience, and what you hope to do in the future. 

Should you include volunteer positions?

Yes. Include all relevant experience, both paid and unpaid. If you've worked or volunteered with museums, or in labs, that's very useful for us to know.

Should you include publications, awards, languages, curated art exhibits, websites you've designed or edited, etc. on your resume?

Yes, of course. Some students also choose to include outside interests, such as music, art, knitting, etc. This probably won’t have much positive or negative impact on our assessment of your application, but it’s sometimes fun to see what all of you are doing when you’re not doing archaeology.

• Three letters of recommendation are required.
• Letters should be from persons well qualified to speak from first-hand knowledge about the applicant's potential for graduate study. All letters should comment on an applicant’s ability to do research and perform in the program’s required coursework. At least two of these letters should be from faculty at the institution of current study or, if the applicant is not in school at the time of application, at the institution most recently attended.
• Letters of recommendation must be submitted online.
• As a general rule, you should not submit more than three letters of recommendation unless there is a compelling reason why a fourth person’s voice is needed to explain your strengths. Additional letters look like padding and not following directions more than being helpful.

Don’t worry if you don’t have anything to include in this section. On the other hand, feel free to interpret these categories quite liberally. If there is something you would like to highlight for the admissions committee, include it here. Have you written a thesis? List it here. Did you win a non-academic award for volunteer work outside of the classroom? Why not include it?

Our strongest applicants are those with some knowledge of ancient and modern languages, but we don’t have specific requirements in place at the time of application. But we can assure you, the stronger your language skills are before you begin our program, the better able you will be to take advantage of the many opportunities we can offer. 

All applicants are required to submit a personal statement regarding their interests and/or intended areas of study. We don’t ask applicants to address specific questions in their personal statements, but we are hoping that this piece of writing will give us a sense of your educational background and your emerging research interests. 

How long should it be?

As professors so often tell students, “as long as it needs to be.” There isn’t a “correct” length for a personal statement. But, really, most statements are about 700-1000 words. 

Is this the same as your college essay when you applied to college?

Yes and no -- but mostly no. Choosing to begin a doctorate is very different from beginning an undergraduate degree. We want to get a good sense of who you are academically. Why are you choosing to get a doctoral degree? Why do you want to be a scholar, not just a student? ​Why now? Why Mediterranean archaeology? Why Brown? What have you learned or done that makes you think that a doctoral degree in Archaeology and the Ancient World from Brown will be an appropriate next step for you?

How can you make your personal statement stand out?

Don’t worry too much about making your statement “unique” or “special”. What makes a personal statement successful is that it is honest, and specific to you. Explaining why you are choosing to pursue a doctoral degree in archaeology right now, and describing your relevant interests and experiences may not seem flashy enough to you, but we assure you, it’s what we find most exciting. The more descriptive you can be about your interests and academic or professional background, the more we can ascertain whether Brown could be the right place for you to continue your education and professional development. You do not need anecdotes or journeys of discovery in your personal statement.

How “formal” should your writing style be in your personal statement?

As formal, or informal, as you’d like to be. We’ve read funny, sad, moving statements that were very effective, and we have read extremely successful statements written in a more professional, traditional, strictly academic style. Your personal statement is being read by 8-12 faculty members, so perhaps think of writing to a favorite professor. There is no “correct” answer to this question. It is more about what works best to convey the information about yourself and your academic approach and experiences. However, vulgarity and rudeness are unlikely to aid your cause.

Should you mention fieldwork?

Yes! Absolutely. Fieldwork is an extremely important part of our approach to archaeology. We are very interested in your experience, and what you hope to do in the future. 

Should you describe your plans for a dissertation project?

No. Many programs encourage, or even require, applicants to enter the program already having a dissertation project underway. We require our students to explore a broad range of classes and topics, geographically, temporally, and thematically. Students whose interests are extremely narrow at the time of application will not benefit from this flexibility and broad training.

However, we do expect students to have specific interests and topics they would like to explore in more depth. These interests would typically be evidenced throughout all aspects of the application, from your transcript and resume to your fieldwork experience and letters of reference. We fully expect that interests are likely to grow and change over the course of your doctoral studies, but you should already have some particular areas on which you’d like to build.

Should you mention a specific faculty member you’d like to work with?

Not necessarily. Many programs match applicants with a specific faculty member to oversee their work from their first day in the program. This is not our approach. Ours is an interdisciplinary and collaborative program, in which students work with all our faculty members throughout their time at Brown.

On the other hand, our faculty are leading experts in their respective corners of the field, and if you are not excited by their research then you also will not be likely to thrive at Brown. Focusing on one member of the faculty with whom you wish to work exclusively is a bad idea, but talking about a few faculty whose interests combined give definition to your own is very persuasive. One of the criteria we keep in mind when reading your statement is whether Brown, specifically, is a good fit for your interests. You might bear this in mind when writing your statement, and could choose to address this explicitly by mentioning faculty or resources that you think would be particularly helpful to you -- but only include these sorts of references if they are sincere and relevant. There is no need to shoehorn in a mention to Brown just because you feel that it will help your chances.

We require a substantial sample of written work totaling 20-30 pages, which may be from one or two essays, articles or other work; they should be single-authored and combined count 20-30 pages. Writing you've done for past classes, or an exerpt from a thesis, is perfectly fine and appropriate.

The Brown Graduate School requires that applicants respond to an additional prompt regarding how they will contribute to Brown’s inclusive academic community.  Our advice on this is that our favorite responses to this question are the most honest, most personal ones. Don't try to write what you think we want to hear. Please avoid political correctness. Instead, give some real thought to what you, perhaps even uniquely, could bring to our community, and how you could contribute to an increasingly diverse, inclusive and supportive place to learn.