About PhD Program,
The Ph.D. program at CU Boulder Philosophy consists of approximately 2.5 years of coursework and 2.5 years of work on a dissertation, with 5 years of guaranteed funding (for details see Funding). We are both a research and a teaching department; teaching appointments are not only the principal means of supporting graduate students but are also the way that we train graduate students for a career of teaching as well as doing research in philosophy.
Ideally, Ph.D. students in their first two years will take and complete three courses per semester, for a total of 12 courses (36 credit hours) by the end of the second year. The minimum number of courses Ph.D. students can take to be making good progress in the first two years of the program is five courses per year. At the beginning of the third semester in the program, students turn in a Diagnostic Paper on which they get feedback from three faculty members. At the beginning of the fifth semester in the program, students turn in the Qualifying Paper, which will be evaluated anonymously; this is a qualifying event that the student must pass in order to be considered for advancement to candidacy in the Ph.D. program. In the fifth semester, students continue to take courses in order to complete the required 45 hours of coursework (typically 15 courses). Ideally, students should have completed coursework by the end of their fifth semester and should begin work on the Prospectus, defending it in a Prospectus Oral Exam some time in their sixth semester. (For more details, see Official Ph.D. Requirements.)
Over the years, we have had good success at placing Ph.D. students (see Ph.D. Placement). Recent graduates have received tenure-track jobs at both leading research universities and smaller colleges, and it has been rare for one of our students not to receive any offers (tenure-track or temporary) at all. Graduates have also gone on to successful professional careers outside academia.
PhD Program Degree Eligibility with GPA,
- Course Work:Students must take a minimum of 45 hours of approved graduate study, in addition to the 30 hours of dissertation credit hours required by the Graduate School.
- Distribution Requirements:27 hours must be devoted to satisfying specific distribution requirements.
- Language and Technical Requirement:Students must satisfy any language and/or technical requirements that the Department judges to be necessary given the area of the dissertation.
- Logic: Students must demonstrate proficiency in propositional and first-order logic.
- Diagnostic Paper: Students must submit a Diagnostic Paper, generally at the beginning of the third semester of graduate study.
- Qualifying Papers:Students must submit a Qualifying Paper, generally at the beginning of the fifth semester of graduate study. Students may advance in the program only if the qualifying paper is judged acceptable by the examining committee and approved by the Department.
- Prospectus and Oral Examination: After passing the Qualifying Paper, students must assemble a Prospectus Committee of five faculty members, including a Chair/Advisor and (typically) an outside member. Students must submit a written Prospectus to this Committee, who, after judging the Prospectus acceptable, will conduct an oral exam on the Prospectus and related topics.
- Dissertation and Oral Defense:Students must write a Dissertation that is acceptable to the Dissertation Committee, and defend the Dissertation in a public, oral defense at a time deemed appropriate by the Committee.
- Satisfactory Progress:Students are expected to make reasonable progress toward the Ph.D. and will be evaluated by the Department in this regard each spring.
PhD Funding Coverage,
Typically, Ph.D. students serve as Teaching Assistants (TAs) for their first three years in the program. For the 2023-24 academic year, TAs earned an annual stipend of $25,135. Starting in their fourth year, Ph.D. students typically start teaching their own courses with full responsibility, becoming Graduate Part-Time Instructors (GPTIs) and earning (in 2023-24) $29,051. All students on a TA or GPTI appointment also receive full tuition waivers and coverage of about 90% of the cost of health insurance. The Department has no control over any of these figures; they are set centrally by the University.
Support is guaranteed for five years, conditional upon satisfactory progress in the program. Some Philosophy Ph.D. students take longer than that to finish a Ph.D program, however; indeed our median time to graduation is about six years. Although funding into the sixth year is not officially guaranteed, we have almost always been able to provide such funding. We have even usually been able to offer funding into the 7th year; our current policy for 7th-year funding is to offer half-TA-ships (again this is not officially guaranteed).
TAs typically lead recitation sections, hold office hours, grade papers, exams, and quizzes, and assist the professor in the administration of the course (some TA-ships don’t involve recitation sections).
GPTIs teach their own introductory-level philosophy courses, in which they are fully responsible for all teaching and grading for the course. Teaching one’s own course is time-consuming, but also rewarding, and is important preparation for a career of teaching. As indicated above, GPTIs earn more than TAs; moreover, when students Advance to Candidacy (typically in their fourth year), their fees decrease as well.
PhD students receive a one-semester Research-Assistantship (RA-ship), typically taken in the 4th or 5th year, which frees students up from teaching in order to focus on the dissertation. The stipend for the RA-ship is the same as for a TA-ship. In addition, the Department awards a small number of Departmental Dissertation Fellowships (DDFs) each year, which pay the same stipend as a GPTI-ship and come with no teaching duties. The Grad Resources page contains a document that explains the selection criteria for DDFs.
The Department offers Summer RA-ships to a limited number of students each year. Students are invited to apply in the fall semester for the following summer; should combine this RA-ship with work-study funding; and, if awarded a Summer RA-ship, will work with a faculty member who will typically assign them a research project of interest to both parties. Summer RA-ships usually pay about $1,000 without work-study and about $2,500 with work-study. They do not come with any kind of tuition waiver.
Students are encouraged more generally to apply for work-study eligibility. Work-study students are then eligible to be hired into various positions: as paid research assistants for faculty members, as graduate student assistants in the Center for Values and Social Policy, or as graders for courses on an hourly basis.
In addition to internal Department funding for Ph.D. students, there are University-wide (and beyond) sources of funding available to incoming and current Ph.D. students. These fellowships are awarded through an open, campus-wide competition; some provide significantly more money than internal Department funding sources. Our Ph.D. students have often been successful in winning these fellowships. Visit the following pages for more information: Center for Humanities & the Arts (CHA) Dissertation Fellowships; Graduate School Awards and Grants;National Fellowship Opportunities. Also see some of the links provided below.
Funding a humanities Ph.D. with student loans should be approached with serious caution, but the Office of Financial Aid has information about this.
Finally, funds are available both within the Department and from the University for travel to present papers at conferences. See the “Graduate student travel reimbursement policy” document on the Grad Resources page.
Application Requirement,
The department invites and encourages applications from minority and women candidates. The department offers fall admission only into the graduate program. The deadline for domestic applications is January 3rd.
Each application requires the following elements:
- online application form (filled out and submitted online)
- a writing sample (a sample of your philosophical work) (submitted online); the writing sample should be no more than 5,000 words, excluding footnotes and bibliography.
- 1-2 page personal statement (submitted online) explaining your philosophical background, interests, and goals. We strive to have a diverse, equitable, and inclusive graduate program; thus, you may (but are not required to) also use your personal statement to describe how your educational, professional, or personal experiences have prepared you to contribute to this aim.
- three letters of reference (submitted online)
- scanned unofficial transcripts from each institution of higher learning that you have attended. Uploading Transcripts
- All applicants should use the online application portal.
- You will first need to register. If you have ever applied for a password-protected account at CU (e.g., you applied last year), you will need to use the same username and password associated with your social security number as before. Fill out the on-line application, and pay the $60 application fee on line. Have three (3) Letters of recommendation sent to us. There are two ways to have letters sent:
- Fill in the names of your recommenders; an email will be sent to them asking them to upload their letters of recommendation for you after you submit your application. For this reason, do not wait until the deadline to submit your application. It is HIGHLY recommended that letters be submitted online in this fashion in order to ensure proper processing.
- If recommenders wish to send their letters by email instead of by uploading their letters, please have them email them to gradprocessing@colorado.edu
- Transcripts should be scanned and uploaded or mailed as per above.
The department invites and encourages applications from minority and women candidates. The department only offers fall admission into the graduate program. The deadline for international applicants is December 15th.
Each application requires the following elements:
- online application form (filled out and submitted online)
- a writing sample (a sample of your philosophical work) (submitted online); the writing sample should be no more than 5,000 words, excluding footnotes and bibliography.
- 1-2 page personal statement (submitted online) explaining your philosophical background, interests, and goals. We strive to have a diverse, equitable, and inclusive graduate program; thus, you may (but are not required to) also use your personal statement to describe how your educational, professional, or personal experiences have prepared you to contribute to this aim.
- three letters of reference (submitted online)
- scanned unofficial transcripts from each institution of higher learning that you have attended. Uploading Transcripts
- All applicants should use the online application portal.
- International applicants should check the requirements for international applicants.
- Check here to see if you are required to supply proof of English proficiency, and how to do so if you are: https://www.colorado.edu/graduateschool/admissions/where-begin/international-students/english-proficiency-requirements
- International applicants have an early deadline of December 15th. This deadline is to ensure that application materials have time to be processed for the department. All applicants should use the online application portal.
You will first need to register. Fill out the on-line application, and pay the $80 application fee for international students on line. Have ETS send your TOEFL (if needed) score to CU Boulder. Upload your writing sample and statement of purpose to the online application website. If for some reason you cannot upload these documents, you must send them to the Office of Admissions (address below). Have three (3) letters of recommendation sent to us. There are two ways to have letters sent:
- Fill in the names of your recommenders; an email will be sent to them asking them to upload their letters of recommendation for you after you submit your application. It is HIGHLY recommended that letters be submitted online in this fashion in order to ensure proper processing.
- If recommenders wish to send their letters by email instead of by uploading their letters, please have them email them to gradprocessing@colorado.edu
Upload scans of unofficial transcripts or send your transcript(s) to the above address. The Office of Admissions will process the materials, and upload the documents for us to see online. If you send us any materials by mail, we will have to forward it to the Office of Admissions. To ensure that materials you send to the Office of Admissions are matched with your application file, print a copy of your application as a cover sheet for the items you mail to the Office of Admissions. Failure to do this can result in delays in processing. Allow sufficient time for mail to be delivered to the United States. Most items typically require 10 days to two weeks from within the United States and even more time when sent from other countries.
For further information or questions about the admissions process, contact:
Karen Sites
Graduate Program Coordinator
CU Boulder Philosophy
Muenzinger D110, 232 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309
karen.sites@colorado.edu
303-492-3172
Application Deadline,
Jan 03, 2025
Application Fee,
- $60 application fee (paid online)
- $80 application fee (paid online)
