Yale Divinity School-admissions

prospective students

Welcome to Yale Divinity School!

Yale Divinity School is the only one of Yale's eleven graduate and professional schools carrying on a primary aim enunciated at the future university's 1701 founding: to be a school "wherein Youth may be instructed in the Arts and Sciences who through the blessing of Almighty God may be fitted for Publick employment both in Church and Civil State." Today, some three hundred years later, Yale Divinity School continues to shape such leaders, creating its own distinct community, varied each year as the mix of students changes.

Dedicated to the faithful and rigorous exploration of the relationship between the knowledge and love of God, the Divinity School has remained a community of study and research as well as worship and fellowship. Embodying the strengths of both a graduate program in religion and a seminary, Yale Divinity School offers students opportunities for serious academic inquiry and solid ministerial formation. Over the past several decades, this community has continually expanded to welcome faculty and students from an increasing diversity of cultural and religious traditions.

In the present day, a rich variety of approaches to faith, research, and worship co-exist to form a dynamic learning environment. Faculty and students engage in the challenges of the social and global concerns of the present without losing their consciousness of the roots of faith and the value of tradition. The people of Yale Divinity School remain grounded in the past, yet they continually foster an ever-deepening commitment to being the voice of progress in the Church, the academy, and society. Amid the plurality of perspectives represented on campus, members of the Divinity School community are united in their common goal of pursuing a fuller understanding of God through study, dialogue, and practice.

--Last updated: May 22, 2009