1. Your application should provide evidence of academic excellence and suitable academic preparation, both indicating your ability to perform well in the PhD programme, including the required coursework (for details of the PhD coursework curriculum, please see here). This includes the relevance and quality of your undergraduate and graduate degrees. Please note that while GRE submission for PhD application is optional, providing evidence of strong quantitative, verbal, and analytical skills through GRE scores, along with indicators of research skills and experience will significantly strengthen your application. We strongly encourage you to submit a valid GRE score in your PhD application.
   


2. If your Bachelor or Master degree was not fully conducted in English*, and you do not submit a GRE score, you must provide a valid TOEFL or IELTS score.
   
   While the Admissions Committee does not have strict minimum score requirements, successful applicants generally achieve or exceed the following scores:
   • TOEFL iBT or TOEFL iBT Home Edition: Overall score of 100, with a minimum Writing subscore of 27.
   • IELTS Academic Test: Overall score of 7.0, with a minimum Writing subscore of 7.0.
   
   
3. You should apply if you are intending to pursue an academic career in a university or an institution where intensive research is a core function. We think of our PhD students as research and teaching apprentices who are in training for the academic profession. In your statement of purpose, the Admissions Committee will especially be looking out for evidence of passion for research and hunger for knowledge.


4. You should also provide evidence of your capacity to carry out independent research in public policy and present complex ideas in English. Please prepare a high-quality research proposal indicating a research topic that is aligned with a potential supervisor’s research interests and the overall research interests of the LKY School. We regard PhD students as junior research collaborators and, as such, they are an essential part of the School’s research community. You will be expected to contribute actively and productively to our research activities and publication output.
   
   The core research areas are:
   
   

• Policy Studies, Public Management and Governance
• Social Policy
• International Relations and Global Governance
• Economic Development and Competitiveness

You should therefore identify a potential supervisor from the LKY School faculty web page and state in your application with whom you would like to work and on what topic of research. Only full-time Professors, Associate Professors and Assistant Professors of the LKY School can be supervisors. Adjunct, Visiting and Joint Appointment Professors are not included.

Please note that getting a potential supervisor’s consent does not guarantee admission. Your application will need to be assessed by the Admissions Committee. You may be asked to appear for an interview and a written examination. The Admissions Committee will not entertain any correspondence on admissions issues while your application is under consideration, except for instances when the Committee has sought clarification or further information.

Applicants from the following disciplines are eligible to apply to the PhD programme:

• Public Policy
• Public Administration
• Economics
• Political Science
• Social Science