harvard philosophy phd application deadline

Doctor of Philosophy in Education

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The Harvard Ph.D. in Education trains cutting-edge researchers who work across disciplines to generate knowledge and translate discoveries into transformative policy and practice.

Offered jointly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the Ph.D. in Education provides you with full access to the extraordinary resources of Harvard University and prepares you to assume meaningful roles as university faculty, researchers, senior-level education leaders, and policymakers.

As a Ph.D. candidate, you will collaborate with scholars across all Harvard graduate schools on original interdisciplinary research. In the process, you will help forge new fields of inquiry that will impact the way we teach and learn. The program’s required coursework will develop your knowledge of education and your expertise in a range of quantitative and qualitative methods needed to conduct high-quality research. Guided by the goal of making a transformative impact on education research, policy, and practice, you will focus on independent research in various domains, including human development, learning and teaching, policy analysis and evaluation, institutions and society, and instructional practice.   

Curriculum Information

The Ph.D. in Education requires five years of full-time study to complete. You will choose your individual coursework and design your original research in close consultation with your HGSE faculty adviser and dissertation committee. The requirements listed below include the three Ph.D. concentrations: Culture, Institutions, and Society; Education Policy and Program Evaluation; and Human Development, Learning and Teaching . 

We invite you to review an example course list, which is provided in two formats — one as the full list by course number and one by broad course category . These lists are subject to modification. 

Ph.D. Concentrations and Examples

Summary of Ph.D. Program

Doctoral Colloquia  In year one and two you are required to attend. The colloquia convenes weekly and features presentations of work-in-progress and completed work by Harvard faculty, faculty and researchers from outside Harvard, and Harvard doctoral students. Ph.D. students present once in the colloquia over the course of their career.

Research Apprenticeship The Research Apprenticeship is designed to provide ongoing training and mentoring to develop your research skills throughout the entire program.

Teaching Fellowships The Teaching Fellowship is an opportunity to enhance students' teaching skills, promote learning consolidation, and provide opportunities to collaborate with faculty on pedagogical development.

Comprehensive Exams  The Written Exam (year 2, spring) tests you on both general and concentration-specific knowledge. The Oral Exam (year 3, fall/winter) tests your command of your chosen field of study and your ability to design, develop, and implement an original research project.

Dissertation  Based on your original research, the dissertation process consists of three parts: the Dissertation Proposal, the writing, and an oral defense before the members of your dissertation committee.

Culture, Institutions, and Society (CIS) Concentration

In CIS, you will examine the broader cultural, institutional, organizational, and social contexts relevant to education across the lifespan. What is the value and purpose of education? How do cultural, institutional, and social factors shape educational processes and outcomes? How effective are social movements and community action in education reform? How do we measure stratification and institutional inequality? In CIS, your work will be informed by theories and methods from sociology, history, political science, organizational behavior and management, philosophy, and anthropology. You can examine contexts as diverse as classrooms, families, neighborhoods, schools, colleges and universities, religious institutions, nonprofits, government agencies, and more.

Education Policy and Program Evaluation (EPPE) Concentration

In EPPE, you will research the design, implementation, and evaluation of education policy affecting early childhood, K–12, and postsecondary education in the U.S. and internationally. You will evaluate and assess individual programs and policies related to critical issues like access to education, teacher effectiveness, school finance, testing and accountability systems, school choice, financial aid, college enrollment and persistence, and more. Your work will be informed by theories and methods from economics, political science, public policy, and sociology, history, philosophy, and statistics. This concentration shares some themes with CIS, but your work with EPPE will focus on public policy and large-scale reforms.

Human Development, Learning and Teaching (HDLT) Concentration

In HDLT, you will work to advance the role of scientific research in education policy, reform, and practice. New discoveries in the science of learning and development — the integration of biological, cognitive, and social processes; the relationships between technology and learning; or the factors that influence individual variations in learning — are transforming the practice of teaching and learning in both formal and informal settings. Whether studying behavioral, cognitive, or social-emotional development in children or the design of learning technologies to maximize understanding, you will gain a strong background in human development, the science of learning, and sociocultural factors that explain variation in learning and developmental pathways. Your research will be informed by theories and methods from psychology, cognitive science, sociology and linguistics, philosophy, the biological sciences and mathematics, and organizational behavior.

Program Faculty

The most remarkable thing about the Ph.D. in Education is open access to faculty from all Harvard graduate and professional schools, including the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Harvard Kennedy School, the Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School, and the Harvard School of Public Health. Learn about the full Ph.D. Faculty.

Jarvis R. Givens

Jarvis Givens studies the history of American education, African American history, and the relationship between race and power in schools.

Paul L. Harris

Paul Harris is interested in the early development of cognition, emotion, and imagination in children.

Meira Levinson

Meira Levinson is a normative political philosopher who works at the intersection of civic education, youth empowerment, racial justice, and educational ethics. 

Luke W. Miratrix

Luke Miratrix is a statistician who explores how to best use modern statistical methods in applied social science contexts.

Eric Taylor

Eric Taylor studies the economics of education, with a particular interest in employer-employee interactions between schools and teachers — hiring and firing decisions, job design, training, and performance evaluation.

Paola Uccelli

Paola Ucelli studies socio-cultural and individual differences in the language development of multilingual and monolingual students.

View Ph.D. Faculty

Dissertations.

The following is a complete listing of successful Ph.D. in Education dissertations to-date. Dissertations from November 2014 onward are publicly available in the Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) , the online repository for Harvard scholarship.

• 2022 Graduate Dissertations (265 KB pdf)
• 2021 Graduate Dissertations (177 KB pdf)
• 2020 Graduate Dissertations (121 KB pdf)
• 2019 Graduate Dissertations (68.3 KB pdf)

Student Directory

An opt-in listing of current Ph.D. students with information about their interests, research, personal web pages, and contact information:

Doctor of Philosophy in Education Student Directory

Introduce Yourself

Tell us about yourself so that we can tailor our communication to best fit your interests and provide you with relevant information about our programs, events, and other opportunities to connect with us.

Program Highlights

Explore examples of the Doctor of Philosophy in Education experience and the impact its community is making on the field:

Reshaping Teacher Licensure: Lessons from the Pandemic

Olivia Chi, Ed.M.'17, Ph.D.'20, discusses the ongoing efforts to ensure the quality and stability of the teaching workforce

Lost in Translation

New comparative study from Ph.D. candidate Maya Alkateb-Chami finds strong correlation between low literacy outcomes for children and schools teaching in different language from home

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Upcoming events, action, reflection, and response: themes from the philosophy of richard moran, colloquium lecture: anna stilz (princeton university), the analytic tradition: a celebration of the work and teaching of warren goldfarb, minorities and philosophy (map) colloquium lecture: rima basu (claremont mckenna college).

Frequently Asked Questions

Degree programs.

• What degree programs does the Harvard Chan School offer?
• What are the differences between the various degrees offered?
• Does the Harvard Chan School offer any joint degree programs?
• Does the Harvard Chan School offer any distance or online degree programs?
• Can I take courses at other Harvard schools?

Eligibility

• I only have an undergraduate degree. Am I eligible for admission to the MPH program?
• Does the Harvard Chan School require work experience before applying?
• Can I take a course without enrolling in a degree program?

Application Components and Policies

• How do I apply to the Harvard Chan School?
• When is your application deadline? Is it flexible?
• What are the general application requirements?
• Where do I send my application materials?
• What are the GRE & TOEFL designation codes for the Harvard Chan School?

What test scores are required and what are the minimum test score requirements?

Are other test scores accepted in lieu of the GRE?

• Are there interviews as part of the application selection process?
• Are deferrals granted?
• How can I apply for a SOPHAS application fee waiver?
• Do you offer SOPHAS Coupon Codes?

International Applicants

• I am an international student. Are there different test score requirements?
• Can international medical graduates submit the results from the USMLE?
• Are there special considerations for international applicants taking the GRE?

Can Harvard provide a student visa if I am taking an ESL course prior to enrolling?

• What are the requirements for foreign transcripts?
• I am an international applicant who has been admitted. Will I need a visa to attend?
• What is your tuition?
• How will I finance my education at the Harvard Chan School?
• How do I apply for financial aid?

What degree programs does the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health offer? The School offers programs leading to the graduate degrees of Master of Public Health (MPH), Master in Health Care Management (MHCM), Master of Science (SM) in a public health discipline, and Doctor of Public Health (DrPH). In addition, the School offers a two-year, part-time MPH in Epidemiology with online and residential components as well as a two-year, part-time MPH Generalist that is fully online. The MHCM is a low-residency program. The school also participates in the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) programs, which are offered under the aegis of the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences . PhD programs are offered in the areas of Biological Sciences in Public Health, Biostatistics, Health Policy, and Population Health Sciences. back to top

What are the differences between the various degrees offered? Our MPH is generally practice oriented and is considered a professional degree program. The 80-credit, 60-credit, and 42.5-credit SM are research oriented and students must fulfill core requirements in Biostatistics and Epidemiology. The PhD is designed for students with interests in the scientific basis of public health and preventive medicine who wish to pursue academic or research careers. The DrPH is a leadership degree for those interested in leading organizations that will help people live longer, healthier lives. back to top

Does Harvard Chan School offer any joint degree programs? We offer joint MD/MPH, DMD/DDS/MPH, JD/MPH, and MUP/MPH degree programs. Please click here for details. The MD/MPH program is for students with a baccalaureate degree currently enrolled in a LCME-accredited medical school in the United States. Applicants apply at the beginning of their primary clinical year. Admitted students enroll between post-primary clinical year of medical school. The DMD/DDS/MPH is for students with a baccalaureate degree currently enrolled in an accredited U.S. LCME-accredited dental school only. The JD/MPH program is for students studying at Harvard Law School (HLS) only. Applicants may apply during the first year of Harvard Law School.  The MUP/MPH is offered with the Graduate School of Design (GSD). back to top

Does Harvard Chan School offer any distance or online degree programs? Yes, the School offers an MPH in Epidemiology in which one-third of the credits will be completed on campus, with the remaining two-thirds completed online and through field based experiences. Additionally, the MPH Generalist program is our fully online degree program. back to top

Can I take courses at other Harvard schools? Students in most residential degree programs may enroll in courses offered by one of the other Harvard faculties, MIT, or Tufts Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy or Friedman School of Nutrition. Obtaining credit for cross-registered courses is permissible only for graduate-level courses appropriate to the student’s degree program at the Harvard Chan School and if a similar course is not available at the School. back to top

I only have an undergraduate degree. Am I eligible for admission to the MPH program? Yes, applicants with a prior undergraduate degree and some work experience may apply to our MPH program. Please see our degree programs page  for details. back to top

Does Harvard Chan School require work experience before applying? Some departments require or prefer applicants to have relevant work experience. Applicants should refer to degree program pages for information regarding any such requirements. back to top

Can I take a course without enrolling in a degree program? Harvard faculty and staff, employees of Harvard-affiliated hospitals, Harvard Chan alumni and certain other Boston-area public health professionals may register for a maximum of 10 credits per semester as non-degree affiliates of the school. TAP/Affiliates must register in person at the Harvard Chan School  Registrar’s office .

Individuals who do not fall into one of the categories listed above may apply for special student status. Applicants for special student status are subject to the same admission and registration requirements, deadlines, and procedures as applicants for degree candidacy. back to top

How do I apply to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health? You can apply for the DrPH, MHCM, SM, and MPH via SOPHAS . Applicants to the PhD should apply through Harvard Griffin GSAS .

For non-degree studies apply via SOPHAS Express .

Applicants who apply through SOPHAS for select fall start programs may apply to begin studies in the summer by submitting an application through SOPHAS Express for one of the non-degree programs. Please contact Admissions to determine if summer non-degree is an option for you.

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When is your application deadline? Is it flexible? For most degree programs, applications should be submitted electronically and all application materials should be received by SOPHAS before December 01. (We encourage you to submit your application by mid-November.) The Occupational and Environmental Medicine Residency Program has a deadline of October 15. The low-residency Master in Health Care Management (MHCM) has a priority deadline of December 01 and a final deadline of February 15. All SOPHAS deadlines are by 11:59:59 p.m. Eastern Time on the application deadline date. You may submit all required components of your SOPHAS application and supporting documents (recommendations, official transcripts, WES evaluations) may follow within a few days of the deadline.

See Harvard Griffin GSAS for  PhD deadlines .

Click here for the SOPHAS Express summer non-degree application deadlines.

What are the general application requirements? In order for your application to be considered complete, you must submit the following through SOPHAS:

• Statement of Purpose and Objectives
• Test scores ( Click here for current policy for 2024 starting programs.)
• 3 Letters of Reference
• CV/Resume (Note that applicants should also complete the Experiences and Achievements sections of the SOPHAS application.)
• Official transcripts/mark sheets from all post-secondary institutions (non-US credentials must be evaluated by World Education Services )
• Completed SOPHAS application

Please see the Harvard Griffin GSAS Admissions site for details on the PhD application.

Where do I send my application materials? All applications should be submitted electronically through  SOPHAS . You can submit your application materials to the following address: SOPHAS P.O. Box 9111 Watertown, MA 02471-9111

Please see the Harvard Griffin GSAS Admissions  site for details on the PhD application. back to top

What are the GRE & TOEFL designation codes for Harvard Chan School? Click here for current policy for 2024 starting programs. Applicants should report their GRE general test and TOEFL scores to ETS designation code 3456.  We do not have any departmental codes.

Click here for current policy for 2024 starting programs. The below describes the typical test policy:

Harvard Chan School applicants are required to submit official  GRE  test scores. Because of the preferences of the admissions committees, we recommend that the GRE scores submitted are from an exam taken in the last five years. There is no minimum GRE score requirement.

The TOEFL, IELTS Academic, or Duolingo English Test is required for all applicants who have not received a degree from an institution where English was the language of instruction. The Harvard Chan School prefers a 104+  on the TOEFL IBT and  our minimum score requirement is 100 with sub-section scores of 25 or higher on the IBT . We do not accept the My Best score. We require a 7.5 minimum on IELTS Academic. For the Duolingo English Test, we require a minimum score of 140.

Click here for current policy for 2024 starting programs.

DAT:  Applicants may submit the DAT if they have been awarded a degree from (or are currently enrolled in) a graduate-level dental degree program at an accredited dental school in the United States. GMAT: Applicants with an MBA or DBA or who are currently enrolled in an MBA or DBA program at an accredited graduate school of management or business in the US or Canada may submit GMAT scores in lieu of the GRE. All applicants to the MPH in Health Management or Health Policy may submit GMAT scores. Send scores directly to the School with designation code HRLJ673. LSAT: Updated 10/26/2018: Health Policy applicants with a JD or who are enrolled in a graduate-level law degree program at an accredited law school in the US or Canada may submit LSAT scores in lieu of the GRE. JD/MPH applicants who are currently in their first year at Harvard Law School may also submit LSAT scores in lieu of the GRE. Have scores forwarded to you in a sealed envelope. You should send this unopened envelope directly to the Harvard Chan School Admissions Office. MCAT: Applicants with an MD or DO or who are enrolled in an MD or DO degree program at an accredited medical school in the United States or Canada may submit MCAT scores in lieu of the GRE. The USMLE is not accepted by Harvard Chan School as a substitute for the GRE. Applicants may designate SOPHAS as a recipient of MCAT scores. back to top

Are there interviews as part of the application selection process? Some degree programs may include interviews as part of the application process. back to top

Are deferrals granted? In general, deferrals will not be granted except for extremely rare circumstances. Note some departments do not grant deferrals.

How can I apply for a SOPHAS application fee waiver? SOPHAS applicants interested in application fee waivers should visit the SOPHAS Fees and Fee Waivers help page .

Do you offer SOPHAS Coupon Codes? Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health is pleased to offer a limited number of SOPHAS Coupon Codes in order to help applicants who do not receive a SOPHAS Application Fee Waiver. The SOPHAS Coupon Codes are available on a first come, first served basis to prospective students who qualify. To be eligible, prospective students must be a US citizen, US permanent resident, Asylee, DACA, Refugee, TPS, or Undocumented resident in the United States. Applicants who receive SOPHAS Coupon Codes must submit their SOPHAS application by November 15, 2023.

Prospective students interested in requesting a SOPHAS Coupon Code from the Harvard Chan School should complete and submit the  SOPHAS Coupon Code Request Form .

I am an international student. Are there different test score requirements? The TOEFL, IELTS, or Duolingo English Test is required for all applicants who have not received a degree from an institution where English was the language of instruction. back to top

Can international medical graduates submit the results from the USMLE? No, international applicants who have not taken the MCAT as a requirement for admission to a medical school may not submit results from the USMLE. Those applicants must submit GRE scores ( Click here for current policy updated for 2024 starting programs .) back to top

Are there special considerations for international applicants taking the GRE? Click here for current policy for 2024 starting programs. Many international test centers no longer offer the computer-based test. Applicants in affected countries should plan to take the paper-based test no later than October. This will allow the GRE scores to be reported by the December 01 application deadline. Please visit the  GRE Test Centers webpage  for more information and a listing of the test centers. back to top

Please note that Harvard University cannot provide F-1 or J-1 student visa sponsorship until and unless English language proficiency requirements are met.  If you are admitted to one of our programs and you choose to take ESL courses in the United States immediately before that academic program begins, you must obtain student visa sponsorship from the ESL school first.  Then, once you have completed your ESL program, you will work with the ESL school to transfer your SEVIS record and visa status to Harvard University. back to top

What are the requirements for foreign transcripts? SOPHAS Applicants who will be submitting documentation from post-secondary institutions outside of the United States and/or English-language institutions in Canada need to have their documents evaluated by World Education Services  (WES). Please note that evaluations from WES will allow our reviewers to better understand the educational system in which you studied, which may be beneficial for your application review.

I am an international applicant who has been admitted to a degree with on-campus components. Will I need a visa to attend? If you are not a citizen or permanent resident of the U.S., you can apply for either an F-1 or a J-1 visa through the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health by filling out our Financial Certification for International Students form. You must prove that you have the finances available to cover tuition, fees and living expenses for your first academic year. We will then issue you an I-20 or DS-2019 which you will take to the embassy in order to apply for a visa. The fully-remote Master of Public Health Generalist program is not eligible for a visa. The low-residency Master in Health Care Management program is eligible for a J-1 visa provided the requirements for J-1 visa sponsorship are met.

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU PLAN TO ARRIVE IN THE U.S. USING A B-1/B-2 VISITOR VISA OR ESTA IN LIEU OF AN F-1 VISA.

The VWP and the B-1/B-2 visa do not permit full-time or part-time study. To enter the U.S. using either the VWP or the B-1/B-2 visa, the purpose of your trip must be tourism.  If you intend to pursue full-time or part-time study at the Harvard Chan School, entering the U.S. using the VWP or the B-1/B-2 visa is not appropriate.  Attempting to enter the U.S. using the VWP or a B-1/B-2 visa for the purpose of studying is a violation of U.S. visa regulations and you may be denied entry to the U.S.  This is true for both non-degree and degree students.

Please also note that there is no visa status expressly dedicated to part-time study in the U.S.  The Harvard International Office (HIO) recommends the following enrollment and visa options:

• Enrolling full-time to qualify for an I-20 and F-1 status; or
• Enrolling part-time because you are in the U.S. and are maintaining an immigration status for part-time study incident to that status (such as H-1B, TN, J-1, etc.)

PhD applicants should contact Harvard Griffin GSAS Admissions for more information on the visa process. back to top

What is your tuition? A complete breakdown of our tuition and fees is available from our Student Billing page . Since the Tuition and Fee information is for a specific academic-year, we have also put together information on the total cost of our degree programs in the form of a Qualtrics survey. back to top

How will I finance my education at Harvard Chan School? Students finance their education through a combination of grants/scholarships , loans , external aid , sponsorship, and personal funds.

PhD applicants should contact Harvard Griffin GSAS Admissions for more information. back to top

How do I apply for financial aid? Please see our page on Funding Sources and How to Apply to view instructions on how to apply for Harvard Chan Grants/Scholarships.

PhD applicants should contact Harvard Griffin GSAS Admissions  for more information . back to top

How to I prevent Admissions emails from going to spam/junk?

When beginning the SOPHAS application process, it’s important to ensure that emails from the Admissions Office don’t end up in your spam folder. Important notifications or requests could be missed if the admissions emails are filtered as junk.

When beginning the application process for Harvard Chan, be sure to add [email protected] and [email protected] to your contact list or safe senders list. This will help ensure any important emails from the Harvard Chan Admissions Office regarding your application don’t end up in your spam folder.

Here are a few suggestions to help ensure our emails don’t end up in your spam or junk folders:

• Add us to your contacts list. Marking our emails as coming from a trusted contact helps email providers recognize that our messages are wanted, not spam.
• Create a filter for our domain. Filters allow you to set custom rules, like always marking emails from our domain as “not spam.” This helps email providers prioritize our messages in your main inbox where you’re most likely to see them.
• Check your spam folder occasionally. Even with whitelisting, the occasional message may get misfiled. Check your spam folder every few days in case a time-sensitive email has ended up there by mistake.

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Harvard University - The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Applicants to the PhD program must have completed a four-year Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science degree. A professional degree in architecture, landscape architecture, or urban planning is recommended but not necessary. For students planning to pursue the Architectural Technology track within the PhD program, a background in architecture and/or engineering is required. For more information, please contact  Professor Ali Malkawi .

To be eligible for admission, applicants must also show evidence of promising academic work in their field of interest or in closely related fields. Students from outside the United States must demonstrate an excellent command of spoken and written English. Applicants from underrepresented and historically marginalized communities are particularly welcome and highly encouraged to apply. To attend a virtual information session, click here .

All applicants must indicate a proposed major area of study at the time of their initial application. These proposed areas of study should be congruent with the interests and expertise of at least one Graduate School of Design faculty member associated with the PhD program.

While the GRE is not required for admission, applications must include the following:

• Unofficial transcript(s).
• Three letters of recommendation.
• A statement of purpose that gives the admissions committee a clear sense of the student’s intellectual interests and strengths and conveys their research interests and qualifications.
• A short personal statement.
• A writing sample or samples (totalling no more than 20 pages, not including references). This can be a paper written for a course, journal article, and/or thesis excerpt. The writing sample should preferably focus on a subject related to architecture, landscape architecture, or urban planning.
• Please note that unless a specific justification is provided by the applicant, design portfolios are not typically considered as part of the application.

Applications to the PhD program in Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning are received through the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. For more information on the application process, requirements, and its timeline, visit their website .

If you have additional questions, please contact Margaret Moore de Chicojay , the PhD program administrator and a key point of contact for incoming and current students.

Harvard Griffin GSAS and Harvard GSD do not discriminate against applicants or students on the basis of race, color, national origin, ancestry or any other protected classification.

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The Department of Psychology offers a PhD program in four areas: Clinical Science, Social, Developmental, and Cognition, Brain, and Behavior (CBB). Admissions information, program requirements, funding and financial aid details, and other resources for the graduate program are detailed on the   Psychology Graduate Program website  and on the Harvard Griffin GSAS website . 

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The online application is usually available starting in early September. But there's no strategic advantage to applying early; we review all our applications at the same time. Just make sure all your materials get to us by January 7 if you are applying for the PhD program.

The application is accessible online. The deadline for PhD admissions is January 7 (or the first business day after that), and the application must be submitted online . There is an application fee . (Some students in special circumstances are eligible for a fee waiver .)

One part of your application is the online form. In addition to the form, you will also submit several kinds of supporting material. 

You will be asked to provide:

A 1-2 page statement of academic purpose, describing past and present work as it relates to your intended field of study, and anything unusual we should know when evaluating your application.

The application will also prompt you to submit an optional personal history statement. The personal history statement is truly optional. If you do feel that there is information relevant to your application, a brief paragraph will normally suffice. It will not be held against you if you choose not to include a personal history statement.

A CV or resume

A writing sample

This should be an example of polished, substantive philosophical writing. It should display your philosophical abilities at their strongest, and will need to manifest analytical skills on a par with students already in our program. It may be the most important part of your application. A reasonable length for this is 20-25 double-spaced pages. Some applicants submit more than one writing sample; this is alright if, for example, they display very different aspects of your philosophical capacities (for example, a paper in philosophical logic and one in ancient philosophy). If they don't, we'll most likely only look at one of the papers submitted. Short 10-page papers of the sort written for a class or a tutorial rarely show us enough of a candidate's ability to be successful, and sending several of these is no better. Applications to our PhD program are intensely competitive. You're best off taking extra time to select your best philosophical work and develop it into a mature, interesting piece of writing.

Sometimes students send us sections of longer pieces of writing; this is ok in principle but what you submit should be self-contained and should be enough on its own for us to reliably evaluate you.

To enable anonymous review, author's name and other identifying information should not be included in the writing sample.

Transcripts

You are strongly encouraged to scan and submit these electronically when you submit your application (with English translations, if needed). Unofficial transcripts are acceptable but if you are admitted, you will have to submit final and official paper copies of your transcripts later.

If your school is in the US, and your GPA is not shown on the transcript, you'll need to calculate it and supply it in the application.

Here are further instructions and FAQs about transcripts.

We ask that you include all of these documents as part of your online application. 

The GRE general test is optional for the upcoming 2023-2024 cycle only. We will consider GRE test scores if they are submitted.

Either the TOEFL or the IELTS is required of all applicants who are not native English speakers or who do not have a bachelor's or master's degree from an institution where the language of instruction is English.

Finally, you'll need to ask several faculty who know you well to submit letters of recommendation to us. We ask for three letters; you can provide up to five if there are special reasons for doing so. Here are further details about letters.

In accordance with GSAS policy, we do not accept letters of recommendation from credentials services, such as Interfolio. Please have your references upload their letters directly to the online application. Additionally, we do not accept any other documents through Interfolio and other services. The statement of academic purpose should be included in your online application and not sent through them. Transcripts and translations should be uploaded to your online application, as well.

Weaker GREs or grades do not decisively exclude a candidate. Coming from a lesser-known school is not much of a handicap, if other parts of the application are strong. Letters from philosophers (or faculty in affiliated departments) are much more useful to us than any other sort of letter. Finally, the writing sample is what you have most control over.

As a matter of policy, we cannot go into further details about what makes an application successful, or how to improve your application.

In order to enroll in the Graduate School of Arts & Science (GSAS), you must have received a bachelor's degree or its equivalent from a college or university of acceptable standing. (In some countries, the equivalent degree is there called a "masters" degree.) It is not formally required that your bachelor's degree have been in philosophy. However, your application won't be successful unless we can see you have a comparable level of preparation.

There is no requirement to have done (what in the US we call) a master's degree—in some places, these are called "MPhil" or "BPhil" or "MLitt" degrees—before applying to our PhD program. You can apply directly to the PhD, and many of our applicants do. However many others, especially those with thinner undergraduate backgrounds in philosophy, have done some master's work.

If you think your background and preparation in philosophy aren't strong enough yet to get you into a competitive PhD program, doing a masters degree can help strengthen your application for the PhD. Not because we're impressed you've done the extra degree, but because it puts you in a position to give us a stronger writing sample, and gives more faculty the opportunity to see you doing advanced work, and write more useful letters of recommendation.

Some students without much formal training in philosophy have been extraordinarily talented at it and have been able to demonstrate this to admissions committees: for example, by writing papers of publishable quality. However, the overwhelming majority of untrained students aren't yet ready to enter competitive PhD programs.

Not at all. We often encourage our own students to do just this. It often gives people better lives, and makes them more ready for grad school when they get to it. At the same time, though, when you do apply we'll want to see that you've actively and recently been doing work of the sort our grad students do. If you've been outside of academia for a while, you'll need to find other ways to do that.

No, I'm sorry, we can't make specific such judgments until we formally review your application. And even if we could, we can't give feedback on the strengths and weaknesses of individual applications.

For these and other international student questions, view the FAQs for international student applicants .

The TOEFL or IELTS test is required of all applicants who are not native English speakers. The TOEFL/IELTS requirement is waived if you will have completed a bachelor or master's degree at an institution where the language of instruction is English. You don't need to do anything to inform the grad school that you're eligible for this waiver; they can determine that from your regular application materials.

For further details, review the GSAS Application Instructions  and the GSAS Testing Requirements FAQs .

The graduate school requires official test scores, sent to them directly from the GRE, TOEFL, or IELTS programs. Have them sent to New York University—GSAS, code 2596. The TOEFL requires you to list a department code; you should select the code that is most appropriate for your field of study. You may also use code 99. However, do not use code 00—we will not receive your test scores if you report 00 as the TOEFL department code. Also, do not leave the field blank. If you do, it will become code 00 and we will not receive your test scores. For IELTS scores, they must be sent directly to New York University, Graduate School of Arts and Science, New York ,NY. No code is needed for IELTS.

Often there are constraints on when you'll be able to take the GRE and TOEFL tests. You should schedule them early in the fall. Every year, some students end up scheduling them too late and then email us frantically asking what exceptions we can make for them. There's little we can do. If your test scores won't reach us until (shortly) after the application deadline, then self-report the scores on your application, or email them to us as soon as they are available. However, we may have already set your application aside as incomplete; and we make no promises to go back and reconsider it. Also, the grad school must receive your official test scores by the time we make our final decisions, or we won't be permitted to make you an offer.

We see all of your scores.

Please don't do this. It turns out to be a huge amount of work for us and for the grad school. These are things that DON'T justify sending us any update or new material:

• you accidentally sent us the statement of academic purpose that was addressed to Columbia
• your paper which was under consideration for ... has now been accepted, and you want to update your CV
• you have a newer draft of your writing sample, or you accidentally sent one that left out a few changes

If you have some more compelling reason to update your application, then you can email [email protected] .

GES gets applications to us, and we begin reviewing them, in mid-January. We make no promises whatsoever to include materials submitted late in our review.

Please review your Application Status Page which has a checklist of the various parts of the application and whether we have received them or not.

Philosophy gets over 300 PhD applications each year, and are typically permitted to make fewer than 10 first-round offers, plus a small number of second-round offers, aiming to get an entering class of 4-8 students. This means we accept around 3% or fewer of our applicants. For comparison, Yale Law School's acceptance rate is around 7%, and Harvard Law School's acceptance rate is around 11%.

We aim to make all our admissions decisions by the end of the second full week of March.  Our admissions decision must be finalized with the Graduate School before applicants are informed whether their application was successful, a process which may take up to another week after the decisions have been made.  Graduate School policy does not permit us to answer individual queries about decisions.

If you're worried that an announcement hasn't reached you, the best thing you can do is make sure you update us with changes to your email address. Do so by writing  [email protected] .

There are websites where applicants say what schools they've heard decisions from. Sometimes there are phony reports of NYU decisions on these sites. I don't know why. We will attempt to get our real decisions to you as soon as we can. Decisions are not available by phone.

As stated above, we get many excellent applications and can only extend offers to a small handful of them. Many strong applications are unsuccessful. As a matter of policy, we are not permitted to discuss details regarding individual decisions.

No. The application and all materials submitted to the Graduate School become the property of NYU and will not be returned under any circumstances.

Only your GRE scores (retained for five years) and TOEFL/IELTS scores (retained for two years). Review the FAQ for Re-applying for Admission .

If you are applying for the dual-degree JD/PhD program, you need to apply separately to both NYU Philosophy and NYU Law School. Each program's decisions are made independently, on the basis of their usual standards, and they do not share application materials. The cooperative nature of the program consists in your being able to use certain coursework to satisfy some requirements simultaneously. (Here are more details .) If you're accepted to both programs, we'll gladly discuss this all further, and put you in touch with some other students who have pursued this dual-degree program. As stated above, LSAT scores cannot be substituted for the graduate school's GRE requirement.

Admission to a dual-degree program is contingent on acceptance by both programs. If one does not accept you, the other may at its discretion consider you for admission to that individual program.

Apart from dual-degree programs, GSAS policy permits students to apply for only a single program and degree in a given year. Review the policy around multiple applications .

Exceptions: Students who apply to the Philosophy PhD program and are unsuccessful can ask to be considered for the MA programs in  Bioethics , or the interdisciplinary Center for Experimental Humanities . To arrange this, let Graduate Enrollment Services (GES, they are GSAS's admissions office) know as soon as possible after getting the PhD decision. They will instruct you how to proceed.

You are allowed to apply simultaneously to multiple programs at NYU if they are in different schools, such as GSAS and Steinhardt.

Students tend to take from 5 to 7 years.

All our PhD offers come with the same standard financial aid package. No separate application is required. We will discuss the details with you when we extend an offer.

If you've won an external fellowship, be sure to let us know; this will affect the details of your financial aid.

Typically our students are able to support themselves in modest shared housing on the fellowships we offer. They don't need to take out educational loans. Opportunities for teaching are available and compensation is in addition to the fellowship offer. The terms of the fellowship (as well as student visas for international students) severely constrain your eligibility for other employment.

The university has a subsidized student housing program for first-year PhD students. Details about this will be supplied in your offer letter.

Most US graduate programs, including NYU, have signed the Council of Graduate Schools Resolution.

This promises that admitted students with financial aid offers aren't required to accept the offer before April 15 (or a later date if specified in your offer letter). However, if you're able to make a decision earlier, you are encouraged to do so. This helps students on our waiting list, and helps us better create the incoming class. But it is your privilege to take until the deadline, if you need to.

If you do accept an offer before April 15, you are allowed to cancel the acceptance at any time until April 15.

After April 15, you cannot accept an offer from another school (school #2), without first obtaining a written release from the school you originally accepted (school #1). And school #2 cannot offer you financial aid except conditional on your supplying that written release from school #1.

You can notify us by email of your decision to accept or decline our offer, but you must also follow the instructions in your offer letter, and (if you're accepting) submit a tuition deposit. The details will be spelled out in your offer letter.

In some circumstances this is possible. You have to petition for it, and your reasons for deferring should be academic.

Here are the departmental rules .

We are willing to consider applications from students seeking to transfer from other PhD programs. However, we make offers only to the most exceptional of these; our expectations are much higher than for beginning students.

Our PhD students can get some course credit for graduate-level work done previously (whether in a degree program or not). Generally this will be for up to two courses, and will be subject to approval by the Director of Graduate Studies. Please wait until we've made our admissions offers before asking us to pronounce about your individual circumstances.

Even if you don't get course credit for work done previously, you are welcome to use that work as a seed for work you'd submit here, either for a seminar or for an independent study you arrange with a member of our faculty.

Other local philosophy departments: sure! Sometimes, someone at NYU will have to nominally oversee your participation in the outside course, and approve the grade. But in practice, this doesn't make much difference.

Other departments at NYU: sure, if it's relevant to your philosophical studies. (Otherwise, your fellowship doesn't pay the tuition, and we wouldn't count it towards your degree.) In recent years, our students have attended courses in the Law School, and the linguistics, psychology, math, and physics departments. There are also some programs for language study, in NY or abroad; though this also has to be relevant to your studies, and in practice our students don't have to satisfy a separate language requirement.

One of the requirements of our PhD program is that 9 out of the 11 required courses be taken in the NYU Philosophy department (courses cross-listed in other departments count for these purposes). It's common to audit courses at other departments, even when one doesn't take them for credit.

Our PhD students do coursework for two years and only decide on their dissertation topic during their third year. A dissertation committee is formed at that time. We assign supervisors during your first years in the program, but this is just someone who talks to you about program requirements, problems you're having, and so on. There's no reason for it to be someone who's directly related to your research interests.

There is no general language requirement for the Ph.D. Language proficiency may be required for specialized research in particular areas (e.g., ancient philosophy) or topics (e.g., Kant).

See our placement record .

See our course listings .

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University News | 5.14.2024

An Interfaith Answer to Campus Tensions

Discussing religious pluralism at harvard divinity school .

Hinduism scholar Diana Eck, who founded the Pluralism Project at Harvard | Photograph by Aleksey Klavsyuk

“I think we are facing an existential crisis as a University,” said Ali Asani during a panel discussion on religious pluralism last Friday afternoon at the Harvard Divinity School, during which the campus divides over Israel-Palestine were at times front and center. Part of a daylong event commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of College’s undergraduate program in comparative religion, the discussion was in part a celebration of the University’s Pluralism Project , which studies religious diversity and interfaith relations in the United States; and of its founder, Diana Eck , who is retiring this year as professor of comparative religion and Indian studies and Wertham professor of law and psychiatry in society.

The inescapable backdrop for the conversation, though, was the months-long unrest at Harvard and other campuses over the Israeli war in Gaza, and the religious and political tensions the conflict has inflamed across the country. More than one panelist argued that those problems make the Pluralism Project’s work more essential than ever. Eck, a scholar of Hinduism, opened the discussion with a recollection of the organization’s founding in 1991. She noted the racial and religious antipathies that have persisted even as the United States has become a more multi-religious and multicultural society. At the Pluralism Project, she said, “Our work is really about identifying that there are conflicts, of course, but then to study them and ask, ‘How are people coming together?’ Not so much, ‘How are they digging themselves in deeper on their own side of the tide?’”

Eck and Asani, the Albertson professor of Middle Eastern studies and professor of Indo-Muslim and Islamic religion and culture, reiterated some of the points they’d made earlier in the week at a Faculty of Arts and Sciences meeting . Both serve on Harvard’s task force on combating anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bias (Asani is its co-chair), and they advocated expanding case-method instruction at the University as a way to help resolve the kinds of painful and difficult disputes that have arisen on campus during this past school year. The case method is historically associated with law and business school pedagogy, but the Pluralism Project began experimenting with it in 2005, incorporating it into Eck’s course, “Religion in Multicultural America: Case Studies in Religious Pluralism.” In 2023, a compilation volume was published, Pluralism in Practice: Case Studies of Leadership in a Religiously Diverse America (written by Elinor J. Pierce, the Pluralism Project’s research director, with an afterword by Eck).

“The dream,” Asani said, “is to introduce a course, required of all Harvard students, regardless of the faculty, using the pluralism case method.” He said he envisions class sections that would mix together students from different parts of the University in the same classrooms. The course, he said, would give students “the tools and frameworks to engage with and understand difference. That should be one of the attributes of any graduate of Harvard.” When he said this, listeners in the room applauded.

This is a pitch he has made before. Asani recalled being in Pakistan on October 7, when Hamas attacked Israelis, setting off the current war. He was there that day to make a presentation to the Karachi-based Aga Khan University (an institution with roots at Harvard), promoting the idea of a required case-method course on pluralism. He returned to Cambridge afterward to find “everything here was a mess,” and in need of the same kind of pluralism instruction he’d been advocating abroad. “At this moment,” he said, “everyone’s seeing the world through binaries, and we know how dangerous binaries are.” He paraphrased Amartya Sen, Lamont University Professor and professor of economics and philosophy, who wrote that the impulse to categorize human beings into single categories leads to a “haziness of vision,” Asani said, which “the champions of violence will exploit.…That is exactly what’s happening here.” The question now, Asani continued, is “How to move from this binary world that we have been forced into, and go into a pluralist mode? How do we change the narrative? This is something that we have to struggle with.” The struggle, he argued, is not only urgent, but existential. “In Pakistan you quote the Koran, but here we have ‘ E pluribus unum .’ What happened to that?”

Later, in response to an audience questioner who expressed surprise that the two University task forces, on antisemitism and on anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bias, were established as separate groups, Asani explained that the current divisions on campus necessitated it: “If we just had a combined listening session, there were students who wouldn’t show up.” But a goal, he said, is for the two groups to begin to come together wherever possible, to “[build] community and pluralism.” He also noted that he was a member of the Harvard presidential committee that in 2018 released an updated statement of University values , which included “respect for the rights, differences, and dignity of others” and “responsibility for the bonds and bridges that enable all to grow with and learn from each other.” Looking back at the statement now, he said, “We’ve obviously veered off those values. Why and how did we do that? And how do we get back to those? …So, we’re using that [statement] as an anchor to work with both task forces, and I think that will bring us together.”

The other panelists, too, offered comments that gestured toward current tensions. Whittney Barth, M.Div. ’11, executive director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University, who was among the early students in Eck’s case-method course, spoke of the importance in the classroom not only of “deep listening and understanding” and the search for common ground, but also the need “to sit with those differences. Sometimes they can’t be reconciled. And so what do you do with that?”

Anant Rambachan, religion professor emeritus at Saint Olaf College in Minnesota, called pluralism a necessity “for building campus community and for overcoming ignorance and fear, which are the conditions for violence.” But he also spoke of it as a more celebratory necessity: “What is the religious value of having a world in which there are Muslims, there are Buddhists, Jews, Sikhs, Jains? …Do we have a religious need for each other?”

Susan Shumaker, M.T.S. ’91, a story producer for Florentine Films (Ken Burns’s documentary production company), talked about her most recent project, The American Buffalo , released last year. She described the near-extinction of the buffalo as a story of “religious difference,” between Native Americans’ and European settlers’ approaches to nature. “I often think that our films are sort of a morality tale,” she said, “a case study for how bad things can get if the Pluralism Project doesn’t work.”

Eck closed the discussion with a bit of inter-religious hopefulness: “In the Hindu calendar, this is the third day of the brightening fortnight of the month Vaisakha,” she said. “It is a day called Akshaya Tritiya, which is the one day in the year when anything you do becomes immortal. Thank you for all your words today.”

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