Joint PhD Program

All applications and supporting materials must be received by the application deadline of November 18th each year, for admission the following fall term. We admit students only once a year, and all applications are considered at the same time.

No. You must be registered as a full-time student studying on campus to receive our funding package. Students are expected to devote full time to their studies and are supported financially to enable them to do that.

No. You only need to go through the application process for admission to the Joint PhD Program. If you are accepted into the Joint Program, you are also accepted into the discipline you selected.

The Joint PhD program does not accept transfer students or credits to the program unless a student comes directly from one of the five departments aligned with the Social Work and Social Science PhD. Students wishing to join the Joint PhD program from one of the five social sciences must go through the application process just as any other student applying to the program.

Yes. If you are accepted into the Joint PhD Program, you will earn your MSW degree in the process of completing your PhD.

Yes, you are eligible for the funding package described here. You are not eligible for certain fellowships and scholarships offered at the University of Michigan, or for training grants supported by the federal government.

The Joint PhD Program in Social Work and Social Science provides all incoming doctoral students with a multi-year funding package that should fund most, if not all, of your of graduate career at the University of Michigan. We combine fellowship awards, graduate student research assistant positions, and graduate student instructorships to offer most students five years of full funding, which includes tuition, stipends, and health care. Students may also apply for other funding from sources within and outside of the University of Michigan.

Currently three social science departments are available for joint program students: Anthropology, Psychology, and Sociology.

If you are interested in pursuing a career that involves developing and using knowledge to contribute to the amelioration of social problems and to improvements in the quality of the lives of disadvantaged and vulnerable populations, it is hard to imagine a better choice than the Joint Program in Social Work and Social Science. You will be studying at one of the world's leading research universities with faculty located in the School of Social Work and social science departments that routinely are ranked as among the best in the United States.

The Joint Doctoral Program in Social Work and Social Science is an interdepartmental program in the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies at the University of Michigan. It awards a joint PhD in social work and one of three social sciences: anthropology, psychology, or sociology. This means that when students apply to and are accepted into the Joint Program, they take courses and complete requirements in social work as well as in the discipline in which they have decided to specialize. Further, when they graduate they are awarded a joint PhD in social work and social science.