Admission Requirements

Application Deadlines

FALL 2023 (September start)

  • March 29th, 2023: To be considered for departmental and entrance scholarships and awards
  • May 1st, 2023: To be considered for entrance scholarships
  • July 1st, 2023: Final deadline without scholarship consideration

WINTER 2024 (January start)

  • September 1st, 2023: Final Deadline for entrance scholarship consideration
  • November 1st, 2023: Final Deadline without scholarship consideration

NOTE: Applicants to the Creative Writing stream are strongly discouraged from beginning their program in the Winter semester. Since the Creative Writing seminars (ENGL-8910 & ENGL-8920) run consecutively in the Fall and Winter semesters, students who begin the program in the Winter are likely to experience an extended program timeline.


The minimum qualifications for admission to the Master of Arts programs in English are:

  1. an Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in English;

  2. a minimum 70% cumulative average in the last two years of study

  3. a B (75%) average in all undergraduate English courses;

  4. a B+ (77%) average in English courses in last two years of study.

In addition, the applicant for admission to the final or “candidate” year of the Master’s programs (M2) should have the following undergraduate preparation:

  • some courses, normally four, in the pre- and early-modern periods (from Old English through the Eighteenth-Century)

  • some courses, normally four, in the modern period (Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, including Canadian and American)

  • some courses, normally two, from the areas of Critical History, Theory and Approaches, Scholarship and Bibliography, and Language and Linguistics

  • additional courses from any of the above areas to make up the total number of courses required for an Honours English B.A.

NOTE: International students are strongly encouraged to evaluate their prospective candidacy before they inquire or apply; please note that applicants from many countries, including India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, must have the master's degree from their home countries before applying."