PhD Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies at Yale University

Programme overview

Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) is an interdisciplinary program that critically interrogates gender and sexuality as categories of inequality, difference, and identification. Gender (the social and historical meanings of distinctions across sexes) and sexuality (the domain of sexual practices, identities, discourses, and institutions) are studied as they intersect with class, race, indigeneity, nationality, religion, ability, and other axes of power, difference, and zones of experience. The introduction of these perspectives into all fields of knowledge necessitates new research paradigms, organizing concepts and analytics, and critique.

Faculty: Graduate School of Arts and Sciences | Department: Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies | Study mode: full-time | Location: New Haven, CT, United States

Official programme page

Application information

Entry requirements

Standardized tests: GRE is optional. English language: TOEFL iBT or IELTS Academic is required of most applicants whose native language is not English. You may be exempt from this requirement if you have received (or will receive) an undergraduate degree from a college or university where English is the primary language of instruction, and if you have s Application deadline: December 15* (11:59pm ET).

USD 52,400 a year (2026-27). Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 2026-2027 full-time tuition rate (applies to GSAS programmes). Excludes fees and living costs; PhD students typically receive funding, see the GSAS funding page. Source

PhD applicants at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences apply for fall 2027 entry; most offers of admission for fall 2027 have a reply deadline of April 15, 2027.

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences deadlines (all 11:59 pm Eastern) for fall 2027: December 1, 2026 (e.g. BBS, Chemistry, Economics, History, Linguistics, Psychology, Public Health, Statistics); December 15, 2026 (e.g. American Studies, Anthropology, Applied Physics, Biomedical Engineering, Computer Science PhD, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Law, Management, Mathematics, Mechanical Engineering, Physics, Political Science, Sociology); January 2, 2027 (e.g. African Studies, Applied and Computational Mathematics, Architecture, Computer Science MS, Earth and Planetary Sciences, East Asian Studies, Nursing, Philosophy). Combined programs follow the earlier deadline or December 15.

The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences application fee for all degree-seeking applicants is US $105, non-refundable, payable by Visa, Mastercard, Discover or American Express; fee waivers can be requested until January 2.

GRE General Test requirements vary by GSAS program (required, optional or not accepted) for the 2026-2027 cycle.

Apply through the official page: https://gsas.yale.edu/admissions/phdmasters-application-process

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