Application Procedures
Documents required for admission:
- Application for admission (Click here for the application and other forms from the College of Graduate Studies)
- $45 application fee or $55 international application fee
- Official transcripts from all colleges attended
- Official acceptable GRE scores
- Two letters of recommendation
- Brief cover letter outlining your graduate career goals
- Scholarly writing sample (minimum 6 pages)
- Military documents, if applicable
Under "Non-Degree Seeking" status, an applicant may be granted conditional admission status if he or she submits unofficial documents for review and meets the criteria for regular admission. The Graduate Bulletin offers a full explanation of requirements for "Non-Degree Seeking" status.
Non-degree seeking students and students from other graduate programs who would like to enroll in graduate-level courses must request the permission of the department. The graduate program in English is not required to allow non-degree seeking students or graduate students pursuing degrees in other graduate programs at Austin Peay State University to enroll in graduate seminars.
Austin Peay State University’s Department of Languages and Literature reserves the right to deny admissions to prospective graduate students on the basis of their academic performance, professional qualifications, and personal conduct.
Program-Wide Requirements
- All Programs of Study require 33 credit hours from course work at the 5000-level or above.
- English 5000 (Bibliography and Methods of Research), which should be taken as early as possible in your graduate career; it is offered each fall.
- All English M.A. candidates are required to pass a Comprehensive Exam taken towards
the end of the completion of course work.
- Reading and key term lists are available here.
- The exam is generally given late in the semester and lasts four hours.
- Failing candidates may be reexamined after a minimum of three months and before a maximum of twelve months. The result of the second examination is final.
Program Options
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Students selecting non-thesis will use Research Plan I.
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ENGLISH 5000 - Bibliography and Methods of Research (3 credit hours)
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10 Courses from the Graduate Offerings (30 credit hours)
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Students selecting thesis will use Research Plan III.
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ENGLISH 5000 - Bibliography and Methods of Research (3 credit hours)
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8 Courses from the Graduate Offerings (24 credit hours)
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ENGL 5990 Thesis (6 hours)
English 508A and 508B: Criticism and Theory. We encourage you to take one of these Criticism and Theory courses during your program of study. These courses either survey important critical approaches to the study of language and literature (508A) or examine in much greater depth one critical approach to the study of language and literature (508B). These courses are particularly important for students who intend to enroll in a doctoral program and aid students in passing the comprehensive examination, which requires one response to a theory question.