Eligibility and Overview

Applicants should follow and meet all eligibility requirements as stated by the UC Irvine Graduate Division. 

• Academic Qualifications (see "What is required to apply to UCI?")
• Additional Information for Prospective Students 
  

Applicants for admission must hold a Bachelor's degree or its equivalent from an accredited institution of higher

learning. While many of our applicants majored in Art History or Film Studies as undergraduates, we have also admitted students with majors ranging from Studio Art to Economics. In short, we are interested in students with a rich educational background, who have demonstrated an engagement with issues of vision and visuality as cultural processes. 

We also entertain applications from students holding Master's degrees, again from a variety of disciplines. When the application dossiers are evaluated, the faculty will consider the relevance of the Master's degree to the student's proposed course of study at UC Irvine. 

Students seeking to transfer out of a current graduate program into Visual Studies must follow the same application process as any only applicant. There is no transfer process. 

The Program in Visual Studies only admits students who intend to complete the Ph.D. through our program at UC Irvine.
Students seeking a terminal Master's degree should not apply.

What does the application require and how do I submit it? 

Applicants should fill out the online application through the UC Irvine Graduate Division and follow all application requirements.

• Application Checklist
• Apply Online

Beyond the requirements of the university's application, the Program in Visual Studies expects all applicants to upload into the application a sample of academic writing. For applicants who hold the B.A., this sample typically will take the form of a polished undergraduate research paper or senior thesis; for those with an M.A., a PDF selection of up to 25 pages of the Master's thesis, the limit does not include the bibliography and images.

Please address any questions about admissions to visualstudies@uci.edu.

Virtual Tour