The Kroc Institute welcomes applications from students of high academic ability who have demonstrated their long-term commitment to peace and global justice.
All applications must be submitted online by January 10. Applications missing required materials after the January 10 deadline may not receive full consideration. To ensure that all your materials, including recommendation letters, are received by the deadline, we suggest that you submit your online application as early as possible.
Men and women of all nationalities and diverse religious and philosophical traditions may apply.
Please note: If you are interested in a master’s degree, you should apply to the master's program, not to the Ph.D. program. If you wish to apply for admission to both the Kroc master’s program and the Ph.D. program, two online applications are required.
Application guidelines
You do not need to apply separately to any department in order to be admitted to the peace studies Ph.D. program. If you are already enrolled in a doctoral program and seek to enter the Ph.D. in peace studies program, you must submit a formal application, even if you are currently enrolled at Notre Dame.
You may simultaneously apply for admission to the peace studies doctoral program and to the separate doctoral program of one of the four departments (history, political science, psychology, or sociology), but this is not necessary. If you choose to do this, you must submit two applications — one for each program. If materials have already been submitted for admission to one of the collaborating departments and you decide to apply to the peace studies doctoral program, you may submit a second online application to the peace studies program. You may request that many materials for your departmental application, including letters of recommendation, be inserted in the new application to the peace studies program. However, you must submit a new “statement of intent” for the second online application, describing details of academic background and career interests relevant to advanced work in peace studies. Apply to Ph.D. program »
In addition:
- The Statement of Intent accompanying the application should describe your areas of interest and experience as explicitly as possible and should list the faculty with whom you wish to study. (You do not need advance approval from this faculty member.)
- For students for whom English is not their first language, TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) scores are required.
- Scores from the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) are required unless extremely difficult circumstances make this impossible.
- A writing sample, demonstrating skills in writing, analysis, and peace research, is required. If you send part of a longer work (for example, a senior or master’s thesis), please include an abstract of 250 words describing the whole piece and its argument.
