Applying for a postgraduate programme
You are welcome to contact the department to discuss your application, but for formal consideration, you must complete the University's application form.
Entry Requirements
Our decisions about whom to admit are based mainly on
- What your referees say about you
- Your writing sample
- Your record of academic achievement
For more information please visit the entry requirements page
The application
Your application must consist of:
- The completed application form.
- Reference letters from two referees, who should each send their references to the Department directly (philosophy@sheffield.ac.uk or by post). Your referees should be people able to address the issue of your academic abilities and performance. Ideally they should be professional academic philosophers with experience of teaching you and knowledge of your work. (If you are applying for the Diploma and you are not a philosophy graduate they might be academics in another discipline.) Other things being equal, the more they know about you the better.
- A writing sample in English of 3,500 - 5,000 words. You could send one longish essay or two short ones - though a single one is better. This can be on any philosophical topic. If you are a final-year philosophy undergraduate we recommend you simply use a recent coursework essay that obtained a good mark. If you are applying for the Diploma and have never studied philosophy before you might find it easier to produce such a sample if we set you a topic and suggest some reading. We will be happy to do this on request
- Academic transcripts of your academic performance at undergraduate and (for PhD applicants) Masters level.
- Documentation of English language qualifications if you are not a native speaker.
Deadlines
There are no deadlines as such, however there will be deadlines for the applications you will want to make to the various sources of funding available.
Please see our fees and funding page for more information: