How selective is the process?
NCYC strives to select the most highly qualified applicants. This depends on the number of applicants, which varies from year to year. Some years it is quite competitive for women, especially sopranos, but generally over half or even over three-fourths of the applicants are able to be accepted. So far we have been able to accept most male applicants.
We are able to make only four or five offers from a pool of approximately 130 applications each year. All offers of admission include a five-year funding package. It is difficult to specify what factors contribute most to a successful application, but it is clear that the “statement of purpose” must be well written and must present an interesting and viable interdisciplinary focus. An applicant with superior grades and scores will not be considered seriously if the applicant’s academic goals are not truly interdisciplinary. This means that your research would be difficult to undertake in a “traditional” discipline because your objects of study and/or methodological approach depart from the norm. For example, you may find that an ethnographic approach lends new insights to a literary question.
