18 Hours of undergrad History credit for admission

Question: 

I am very interested in specializing in Modern Europe and minoring in Early Modern Europe or Britain and Ireland. My concern is that admission requires 18 hours of undergraduate coursework in History and also a sample of historical writing. I took 12 hours of History courses in college and none of those classes required any historical writing outside of exams. Does this make me unqualified for admissions? Is there something I could do, such as take another history course, to make up for this?

Answer:

The 18 credit hours is our rule.  But you can certainly take two more history courses to get to 18 credit hours.  Students do that all the time.  That would be fine.  You could even apply as a non-degree student and take our courses.  That way, you would develop a paper that could be used as a writing sample.  The writing sample is key.  If you do take two more courses, they should be at the 300 level or higher and include some kind of long (preferably research) paper.