Joint PhD Program

The Rackham One-term fellowship is given to students in the semester they plan to defend their dissertation. The Joint PhD Program reviews all applications for one-term dissertations in the spring for the next academic year. One-term Fellowships are given in order of priority, and no guarantee is made to a student requesting the fellowship. Once the fellowship has been awarded, it can't be given to the same student again. If defense is not completed during time of award, the student will be responsible for funding in the term of defense.

Joint PhD students must submit a "Dissertation Committee Form" to their department or program at least six months prior to the defense. If committee membership changes, the student must submit a revised form to Rackham OARD prior to the oral defense. http://www.rackham.umich.edu/downloads/oard/forms/disscommittee.pdf

Students will register for DOC 990 when they are taking their social work or social science prelims. They will register for 1-8 credit hours, depending on their need. DOC 995 is specifically for registration during the term the student plans to defend their dissertation, and they must register for 8 hours.

Students can apply to Rackham for a leave of absence for specific reasons defined in their guidelines. "A leave will be granted to students for illness or injury, to provide care or assistance for family and dependents, to meet military service obligations, or for other personal reasons." Specific information regarding the leave of absence policies can be found on their website.

Students must have completed their coursework in both social work and their social science, including cognate courses, completed their research internship, passed their social science prelim and defended their social work prelim proposal. The dates for requirements to be completed can be found on the Rackham website. Additional forms to be completed are listed below:

Students must read the Guidelines for the Social Work Preliminary Examination, found in the Doctoral Guidelines and submit the following forms: Social Work Preliminary Examination Proposal Approval Form, Social Work Preliminary Examination Checklist, and Social Work Preliminary Confirmation Form. All forms can be found on the School of Social Work website under the Doctoral Guidelines page and the specific forms from your entry year should be the ones to be submitted to the Doctoral Office.

A student may change their advisor at any time during their study in the program. The signature of the new advisor must be obtained and the following form must be completed and submitted to the Doctoral Office.

The most up to date Rackham requirements and forms can be found at the Rackham website.

• http://www.rackham.umich.edu/current-students/
• https://rackham.umich.edu/academic-policies/

Because of the quality and breadth of their training, graduates of the Joint PhD Program are heavily recruited nationally and internationally. In the past four years, the majority of graduates have secured tenure-track positions in colleges and universities. Recent graduates have also taken post-doctorate fellowships in leading universities, and have gone to work in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.

The best thing you can do is begin planning in advance to present a complete and high-quality application. This means doing research to find out who the faculty are in both the School of Social Work and the discipline in which you are interested, and thinking about how their interests line up with yours. Also, prepare well for the GRE and/or TOEFL tests and leave yourself enough time for a retest if you feel you have not done your very best.