The Field of Anthropology at Cornell combines humanistic and social scientific approaches in innovative ethnographic research, emphasizing culture as a productive process and anthropologists as engaged in understanding and defending cultural diversity. Geographically, our greatest depths are in Asia (East, South and Southeast), but the Americas , Europe , and Oceania all also figure importantly. The Field of Anthropology has strong ties with all the geographic area programs, as well as faculty active in many other interdisciplinary programs, including joint appointments with Asian American Studies, Latino Studies and Feminist/Gender/Sexuality Studies. Graduate training in the Field of Anthropology at Cornell, thus, clearly emphasizes sociocultural anthropology. Concentrations in archaeological anthropology are also possible, but biological anthropology is primarily an undergraduate program except under special circumstances, particularly in international nutrition.

The graduate program in anthropology at Cornell is highly individualized and interdisciplinary. Only four courses and a field research proposal are required of all students; thus, the bulk of students' work in language, area studies, or other training is individually designed in consultation with the Special Committee. Individually tailored examinations occur after approximately the first year of course work (the Qualifying Exam), the second or third year (the Admission to Candidacy, or A Exam), and after completion of the thesis (the Defense or B Exam). Most graduate students in the Field of Anthropology complete one to two years of intensive field research. All doctoral candidates are also expected to teach at some point: most students first get experience as assistants in both introductory and mid-level courses; later, many design and teach courses of their own in the Knight Writing Program. A vigorous weekly colloquium series enriches the intellectual environment for both students and faculty.

The Field of Anthropology primarily admits candidates seeking a Ph.D. because of the lack of funding for, or employment with, only an M.A. With very rare exceptions, every student admitted to the Ph.D. program receives full funding to support all the expected years of on-campus study. In recent years, all our graduate students have received additional funding, either from Cornell or from major external sources such as NSF, Fulbright, SSRC, and Wenner-Gren to conduct both preliminary and dissertation field research. Most students complete the Ph.D. within seven years and most have gone on to find academic employment at major colleges and universities in the U.S. or abroad.

The graduate program in anthropology at Cornell matriculates approximately 6-8 of the 100-140 applicants each year. Each application is read in its entirety by all the members of a four-person Admissions Committee, comprised of three faculty and one advanced graduate student. Applicants must submit GRE general test scores unless the director of graduate admissions waives the requirement. Applications should also include a writing sample such as a term paper, an honors thesis, or a research report. The deadline for receipt of completed applications is January 1. Further information can be obtained by contacting graduate_anthropology@cornell.edu.

Applicants' dossiers are carefully evaluated in terms of the quality of previous education, strong recommendations from former teachers/referees, evidence of promise, excellence of the writing sample/paper, and for the clarity and fit of the applicant's graduate study goals with the resources of the program at Cornell. Although the following numbers are only one component in admissions decisions, many applicants want to know that:

• Over the last five years of applications, the average undergraduate GPA of those admitted has been 3.62 and their average graduate study GPA (where relevant) has been 3.95.
• Since 1997, the average GRE scores of entering students (excluding the lowest non-native English-speaking applicants in each year) have been 652 (Verbal), 653 (Quantitative) and 682 (Analytical)

Prospective applicants are encouraged to communicate directly with the Director of Graduate Studies, relevant present faculty, and to visit Cornell in person, if at all possible.

A crucial hallmark of graduate study at Cornell University is that we fund 100% of regularly admitted graduate students. Of our current graduate students, 40% are begin supported by a fellowship, 43% by a teaching-research-lectureship, and 27% by a grant or other support for field research.

Cornell graduate students in anthropology are extremely successful in winning nationally competitive fellowships. The following lists the kinds of fellowships currently held by the 40% of our actively enrolled graduate students who are now on fellowships (and the percentage of that 40% on each).

• National Science Foundation/Jacob Javits (9%)
• Foreign Language Area Fellowship/NRC (25%
• Cornell University fellowship (41%)
• Fulbright/Fulbright-Hays (13%)
• Wenner-Gren (9%)
• Other fellowship/grant (3%)

Since many of our currently enrolled graduate students have held more than one fellowship, the list below shows the percentage of the 57 currently enrolled graduate students who have ever held one of the listed fellowships. The percentages do not add up to 100% because many of our students hold more than one fellowship over the course of their student career. Furthermore, since “current students” includes everyone in the program in September 2003–from the first to the last years of study--by the time all our current students have completed their degrees, they will undoubtedly have won more fellowships than this listing indicates.

• National Science Foundation/Jacob Javits (14%)
• Foreign Language Area Studies (or other NRC) fellowship (37%)
• Social Science Research Council (7%)
• Fulbright/Fulbright-Hays (25%)
• Wenner-Gren (11%)
• Ford (4%)
• Other (35%)
• Cornell University fellowship (72%)

The average length of doctoral study in anthropology at Cornell is slightly over seven years, with approximately 2-3 years spent in course work, 1-2 years in field research, and 1-2 years in writing the dissertation. Of our current graduate students, 39% are doing pre-fieldwork course work, 25% are in the field doing their dissertation research, and 37% are in the process of completing and defending their theses.

It is impossible to summarize the many diverse interests of current graduate students in any meaningful way. Overall, however, 93% of our current students work in sociocultural anthropology and 7% in archaeological anthropology. Our current students are interested in many different world areas: 25% work in Southeast Asia , 21% in East Asia , 19% in South and Himalayan Asia, 12% in Central and Latin American, 9% in the US/Caribbean, 9% in Africa , 3½ % in Europe and 2% in the Near East . To learn more about the specific interests of our current students, please look at the information each has given on the Departmental website (http://falcon.arts.cornell.edu/Anthro/).

The graduate student body in anthropology itself is extremely diverse at Cornell, both in terms of international student representation and domestic minority student representation. International students comprise 37% of our current graduate student population. Of the 63% who are from the US , 8 (or 29%) are designated US minorities: 4 are African-American Black; 3 are Hispanic or Mexican-American, and 1 is Native American Indian.

Most Cornell PhD's in anthropology go on to careers at colleges and universities. Many also find positions in national or international non-governmental organizations, within the private sector itself, or in governmental or public sector positions. Based on the current professional positions of 77 graduates of our program since 1980: 69% have gone on to academic faculty positions; 9% have research or program administration positions at universities; 14% work in the private sector primarily for non-governmental organizations; 4% work in the public sector. (The present positions of 2 could not be confirmed; 1 is completing an additional doctorate in linguistics.)

Of those graduates who went to professional positions at academic institutions, the largest proportion (40%) went to universities ranked in the top 50 of the 1995 NRC survey. It should be noted, too, that significant numbers went either to undergraduate (17%) or foreign institutions (17%), neither of which were ranked, but many of which are impressive institutions in their own right. It should, of course, be remembered that the NRC rankings for anthropology were found to have, by the NRC's own assessment, too close a correlation between institution size and ranking, as well as too little statistical differentiation to be meaningful among almost all the top 50.

Of those graduates (from 1980-2003) who went to positions at NRC top-ranked schools, 33% are at schools ranked in the top ten, 21% in the top twenty-five, and 46% at institutions in the top fifty. Once again, however, with all the limitations of that survey, it is good to look carefully at the full list of placements (below) to complement this view of ranking with a fuller understanding of where different schools fall within it.

The full listing of known placements of 77 Cornell graduates from the doctoral program in anthropology since 1980 includes the following:

• Academic faculty positions: Arizona State, Bard College , Cal State Humboldt, Cal State Long Beach, Colgate, Columbia, Cornell, Goucher, Hampshire College, Harvard, Kyoto Bunkyo Univ (Japan) , Lewis & Clark, Long Island University Brooklyn Campus, Malaspina Univ-Coll (BC), Michigan State U Flint, Mt Holyoke, North Carolina State Univ, Northern Illinois Univ, Portland State U, Rensselaer Inst of Tech, San Francisco State, Simon Fraser U, SUNY Albany, Trent U, Tribhuvan Univ (Nepal), Tufts, Tunghai U (Taiwan), U Alaska Fairbanks, U Alberta, U California Davis, U California San Diego, U Central Florida, U Chicago, U Hawaii Manoa, U Iowa, U Maryland, U Mass Amherst, U Michigan, U Montana, U Texas Austin, U Toronto, U Wash, U West Florida, Universidad de los Andes, Washington U, and William & Mary.
• Academic research and program administrative positions: Boston University, Harvard, Max Planck Inst ( Germany ), Northern Illinois Univ, U Michigan, Princeton , Stanford
• Non-governmental organizations and other private sector positions: Instituto Latinoamericano de Investigación ( Peru ), The Forsyth Institute ( Boston MA ),
• Governmental and public sector positions: Maryland Commission on Indian Affairs, Agricultural Research Center (Ministry of Agriculture, Pakistan ), DANIDA, Xerox Research Park ( Palo Alto CA ); Aguirre International ( Washington DC ), Prevention Research Center ( Berkeley CA ), The Philadelphia Folklore Project, US Census, Save the Children ( Kunming , China ), Center for Media, Culture and History