Entry Requirements

Entry requirements for postgraduate studies

We are looking for strong potential students. The main measures of strength we will use are:

1. What your referees say about you
2. Your writing sample
3. Your record of academic achievement

Where 3 is concerned, you will ordinarily need to have (or be expected by your university soon to obtain) a good undergraduate degree. A good undergraduate degree ordinarily means, if you attended a UK university, a first or a strong 2.1; otherwise an equivalent grade from an overseas institution.

For admission to any programme other than our taught Masters either your undergraduate degree should be in philosophy (or a joint programme of philosophy with something else) or you should have a suitable postgraduate degree qualification in philosophy.

If you have a good undergraduate degree that is not in philosophy but would now as a postgraduate like to switch or broaden your focus to the study of philosophy, the Taught MA programme is the programme we would recommend.

If you have only an undergraduate degree in philosophy but it is your aim ultimately to study for a PhD in Philosophy, the programme for you is our Research Training MA. This is designed specifically to provide philosophy graduates with the training and support they will need to bridge the gap between finishing a Bachelors degree and starting a doctorate.

For admission to a PhD we ordinarily require that you have studied philosophy to Master's degree level. In British applicants we would ordinary be looking for a distinction in your Masters degree. In overseas applicants we would ordinarily be looking for the equivalent of that.

Language Requirements

You should either be a native speaker of English or be able (preferably by a ILTS qualification) to document the fact that your spoken and written English is of a very high standard.

Other Qualifications

For certain areas of doctoral research, we might also expect further qualifications. For example, if you wanted to do scholarly research focused on specific historical texts, we might want to satisfy ourselves that you are competent in original language in which those texts are written. Please consult the Director of Graduate Admissions Jimmy Lenman if you are uncertain whether this might apply to you.

email : Jimmy Lenman

Note:
By a Master's degree we mean an intermediate level postgraduate degree. We don't mean MA degrees from places like Oxford and some Scottish Universities where an MA is the title conferred by the standard undergraduate humanities degree.