Specifically, what does your faculty look for most in an applicant? What part of the application do you consider the most telling?

All aspects of the application materials are important and all are taken into consideration when applicant pools are reviewed. There is no section of the application that is more telling than another, and every application is evaluated in its entirety. We do, however, look for ways in which the student matches with our existing expertise, and also how the applicant identifies his or her strengths in relation to the departmental offerings and expertise as a whole. Your best chance to make an argument for a good fit with our program strengths is through your personal statement, in which you should identify faculty with whom you would like to work. The committee’s deliberation involves an individual process of consideration for every applicant and our goal is to find the most productive potential for future scholars in the individual mix of qualifications, past academic and professional performance, liveliness of scholarly and self presentation, and commitment to the rigors of quality graduate-level work.