The graduate application process gives you the opportunity to tell us about your academic, personal, and professional accomplishments to date and what you hope to accomplish in the future with the help of a Mills education. We've laid out the deadlines and application requirements for each program below and made it easy for you to apply online.
Note: If you’re an international student, please visit our application requirements for international graduate students page to learn how to apply to Mills.
A Mills education will help you advance your career and better the world while connecting you with a supportive community of peers and mentors. We strongly encourage all students to apply for admission by their program's fall priority deadline to receive the earliest consideration for Mills merit and need-based scholarships.
| JANUARY 15 | FEBRUARY 1 | MARCH 1 |
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*Once the fall priority deadlines have passed, we conduct rolling admissions on a space-available basis. Be sure to visit the additional application requirements page for your program to see if there are preferred application deadlines after fall priority.
The following Mills graduate programs also accept applications for spring admission.
| OCTOBER 15 |
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*If you are interested in a program that allows spring admission on a space-available basis only, contact the Office of Graduate Admissions at 510.430.3309 or grad-admission@mills.edu to connect with your admission counselor before submitting your application materials.
To apply to Mills, submit the materials below along with any materials listed on the additional admission requirements page for your specific program. If you have any questions about the application requirements for your program, please reach out to us at 510.430.3309 or grad-admission@mills.edu to connect with your admission counselor.
It's easy to start your admission application process. Just complete the Mills application online and submit the $50 application fee.
All Mills graduate programs require a statement of purpose or artist's statement as part of the admission application. This is your opportunity to provide us with insight into who you are as a person and what you hope to gain from a Mills education. Follow the guidelines below and then add your statement of purpose to the Mills graduate application.
| Mills Graduate Program | Statement of Purpose Guidelines |
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Your concise statement of purpose should include a brief intellectual autobiography
describing:
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Visit the Book Art: Additional Application Information page for detailed guidelines. |
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Visit the Studio Art: Additional Application Information page for detailed guidelines. |
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Visit the School of Education: Additional Application Information page for detailed guidelines. |
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Visit the Infant Mental Health: Additional Application Information page for detailed guidelines. |
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Visit the Lokey School of Business & Public Policy: Additional Application Information page for detailed guidelines. |
We ask that you send us official transcripts (with grades) from the college or university from which you earned your bachelor's degree. You will also need to send us transcripts (official or unofficial) from all other colleges and universities that you've attended. If you’ve already taken graduate-level courses, please submit transcripts for that course work also. Your current name needs to appear on all transcripts.
Students who earned their bachelor's degree outside of the United States will need to have their transcript evaluated by a NACES member organization. If the transcript is written in a language other than English, it must be accompanied by a certified English translation.
If you are still in the process of completing your bachelor's degree when applying to Mills, send us official transcripts documenting your completed and in-progress undergraduate courses. Immediately upon completion of your bachelor's degree, you must send a final transcript to Mills to complete the admission application process.
Mail hard-copy school transcripts to Mills at:
Office of Graduate Admissions
Mills College
5000 MacArthur Blvd.
Oakland, CA 94613
Digital transcripts can be sent by a verified service to us at grad-admission@mills.edu.
For the majority of Mills graduate programs, you'll need to ask two academic instructors to complete and submit letters of recommendation on your behalf. You can easily send these requests to your instructors through the Mills online application. Please note the programs below that require (or prefer) three letters of recommendation instead of two.
| Computer Science |
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| School of Education (all programs including infant mental health) |
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| Lokey School of Business & Public Policy—joint MPP/MBA only |
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| Lokey School of Business & Public Policy—MPP only |
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| Pre-Med |
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If you hold a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university in the United States, Canada, Australia, or Great Britain, then you do not need to provide proof of your English proficiency. Otherwise, we ask non-native English speakers to submit scores from one of the following English proficiency exams:*
| Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) | Minimum of 550 on the paper-based TOEFL or 80 for the Internet-based TOEFL |
| International English Language Testing System (IELTS) | Overall band-score of 6.5 or higher |
| Duolingo English Test (DET) | 60 percent or higher |
| English Language School (ELS) | Level 112 Certificate |
*Graduate creative writing & literature programs at Mills have slightly higher proficiency requirements:
| Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) | Minimum of 660 on the paper-based TOEFL or 100 for the Internet-based TOEFL |
| International English Language Testing System (IELTS) | Overall band-score of 7.0 or higher |
| Duolingo English Test (DET) | 70 percent or higher |
| English Language School (ELS) | Level 112 Certificate |
Several Mills graduate programs require auditions, portfolios, or specific course work as part of the admission process. Consult the following links for program-specific application requirements and answers to frequently asked questions:
Mills College does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, marital status, age, religious creed, national origin, ancestry, sexual orientation, or disability in our admission policies, in our scholarship and loan programs, or in the educational programs, cocurricular activities, and residential facilities which we operate. Students of all genders are eligible for admission to our graduate programs. Self-identified women and people assigned female sex at birth who do not identify with the gender binary are eligible for admission to our undergraduate programs.