APPLY Admission to the Ph.D. Programs in Social Policy

The mechanics of applying

Application for admission to the joint Ph.D. Programs in Social Policy is made through the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS). Applicants should take care to use the GSAS application, not the Kennedy School of Government application form used for other Kennedy School degree programs.

• To obtain an application
  To obtain the GSAS application and related materials, please go to the links on our Application materials page.
  
  Most prospective applicants now take advantage of the online application option.
  
  
• Application deadline
  The application deadline for the joint Ph.D. Programs in Social Policy is January 2, 2008.
  
  This is the date by which the application and all supporting materials must be received in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Admissions Office.

Please note that Harvard University, including the Social Policy office, will be closed from December 24, 2007 through January 1, 2008. Staff coverage in Social Policy is likely to be minimal starting December 19th, and applicants with last minute questions are advised to plan accordingly.

• Program name|codes
  The program to which applicants apply is identified in the GSAS application materials as "Social Policy". Applicants then designate the subject name and number as either Government & Social Policy (8410) or Sociology & Social Policy (8420).
  
  For GRE score reports, there is no GRE department code that precisely corresponds to the Social Policy program. We generally recommend that applicants use "Social Sciences-other" (2299) code, although this is not critical. It is more important that applicants use the correct institution code: Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (3451).

The program admits students only for the Ph.D degree. There is no terminal Master's degree (AM) program in Social Policy, although students may receive the AM in the disciplinary field (Government or Sociology) en route to the Ph.D. Applicants need not hold a Master's degree to apply for admission to the Ph.D. Program.

Degree candidates in Social Policy enroll full-time. The Ph.D. Programs in Social Policy do not offer any part-time or distance-learning options. The financial aid package is designed to enable Ph.D. students to dedicate themselves full-time to their doctoral studies.

Applicants are notified of admissions decisions by mail from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences by mid-March. The Social Policy office cannot release admissions decisions to applicants who call or e-mail to inquire about their application status.

Those selected for admission are offered admission for the following fall term (September 2008). Given the way in which financial aid is budgeted for the Ph.D. programs, it is not generally possible to defer an offer of admission. Nor does an offer of admission in one year assure admission in a subsequent year. For this reason, applicants who may be uncertain about their plans to begin the Ph.D. program in the following fall are strongly advised to wait and apply only when they anticipate that they will be able to attend.

Admissions review process

The Ph.D. Programs in Social Policy admit approximately 4-6 students per year in the Government and Sociology tracks combined. In recent years, the applicant pool has ranged from roughly 140-180 applications per year.

Given the very small number of applicants the Social Policy program can admit, the admissions committee encourages prospective students to consider filing a separate application to a second Harvard Ph.D. program if appropriate. For example, some applicants to the joint Social Policy program might just as easily pursue their research interests within a single disciplinary department, such as a doctoral program in Government, Sociology, or Public Policy. Participation in the Harvard Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality & Social Policy, a National Science Foundation graduate training program to which students apply at the end of their first year of doctoral study, has permitted many Harvard doctoral students from these programs to acquire much of the same multidisciplinary training that Social Policy students receive, although not the formal joint degree. Applicants filing more than one application should be aware that GSAS limits applicants to no more than two applications in a given year (and no more than three in an academic career), and prospective applicants will want to weigh all relevant factors carefully. Nonetheless, prospective applicants should be aware that this is an option and that pursuing more than one avenue of admission will not raise any negative concerns within the Social Policy committee. Applicants should review the section "Consideration by more than one program" on the GSAS Application Instructions and Information page for the procedural details.

Applications for the Ph.D. Programs in Social Policy undergo a two-stage process of review once they reach the GSAS Admissions Office. The applications are first reviewed by a multidisciplinary committee in Social Policy, which is comprised of representatives from the Government and Sociology departments and the Social Policy faculty of the Kennedy School of Government. This committee looks carefully each applicant's qualifications for the overall program, but also at the applicant's fit and potential contributions to the disciplinary field (political science or sociology) as well.

Applications that are assessed favorably for admission are then forwarded to the admissions committee of relevant disciplinary department (Government or Sociology), where they are then evaluated alongside those of applicants to the single disciplinary program. Thus, all students admitted to the joint Social Policy program have been admitted by both admissions committees and enroll under the supervision of both the disciplinary department and the Social Policy faculty of the John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Application components

(Section under construction. Please check back soon).

Profile of admitted applicants

(Section under construction. Please check back soon).

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Photos ©2005 Pamela Metz.