Doctor of Philosophy Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! === United States === {{Main|Graduate science education in the United States}} {{Further|Doctorate#United States}} In the [[United States]], the PhD degree is the [[terminal degree|highest academic degree]] awarded by universities in most fields of study. There are more than 282 universities in the United States that award the PhD degree, and those universities vary widely in their criteria for admission, as well as the rigor of their academic programs.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Listing of Research I Universities |url=http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/classifications/index.asp?key=63&search_flag=true&ref=783&start=783&BASIC2005=15 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090904034342/http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/classifications/index.asp?key=63&search_flag=true&ref=783&start=783&BASIC2005=15 |archive-date=4 September 2009 |access-date=26 January 2008 |website=[[Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching]] |quote=282 is the sum of all three categories of doctoral universities. Since some primarily undergraduate institutions also award the PhD, the number is greater than 282}}</ref> ==== Requirements ==== Typically, PhD programs require applicants to have a bachelor's degree in a relevant field, and, in many cases in the humanities, a master's degree, reasonably high grades, several letters of recommendation, relevant academic coursework, a cogent statement of interest in the field of study, and satisfactory performance on a graduate-level exam specified by the respective program (e.g., [[Graduate Record Exam|GRE]], [[Graduate Management Admission Test|GMAT]]).<ref>{{Cite web |date=2009-12-15 |title=Wharton Doctoral Programs: Application Requirements |url=http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/doctoral/admissions/apply/requirements.cfm#scores |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100413174951/http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/doctoral/admissions/apply/requirements.cfm#scores |archive-date=13 April 2010 |access-date=2010-04-28 |publisher=Wharton.upenn.edu}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Doctoral admissions |url=http://www2.gsb.columbia.edu/doctoral/admissions |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071019065016/http://www2.gsb.columbia.edu/doctoral/admissions |archive-date=19 October 2007 |website=Columbia University in the City of New York}}</ref> ==== Duration, age structure, statistics ==== Depending on the specific field of study, completion of a PhD program usually takes four to eight years of study after the [[bachelor's degree]]; those students who begin a PhD program with a master's degree may complete their PhD degree a year or two sooner.<ref name="usdoe">{{Cite news |date=2006-06-18 |title=Research Doctorate Programmes |publisher=US Department of Education |url=http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/edlite-research-doctorate.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070303214708/http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/edlite-research-doctorate.html |archive-date=2007-03-03}}</ref> As PhD programs typically lack the formal structure of undergraduate education, there are significant individual differences in the time taken to complete the degree. Overall, 57% of students who begin a PhD program in the US will complete their degree within ten years, approximately 30% will drop out or be dismissed, and the remaining 13% of students will continue on past ten years.<ref>{{Cite web |title=In humanities, ten years may not be enough to get a Ph.D. |url=https://www.chronicle.com/article/in-humanities-10-years-may-not-be-enough-to-get-a-ph-d/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201023010906/https://www.chronicle.com/article/in-humanities-10-years-may-not-be-enough-to-get-a-ph-d/ |archive-date=23 October 2020 |access-date=14 September 2020 |website=The Chronicle of Higher Education|date=27 July 2007 }}</ref> The median age of PhD recipients in the US is 32 years. While many candidates are awarded their degree in their 20s, 6% of PhD recipients in the US are older than 45 years.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Dance |first=Amber |title=Career change: It's never too late to switch |date=October 2017 |volume=550 |pages=289β291 |language=en |doi=10.1038/nj7675-289a |issue=7675 |journal=Nature|doi-access=free }}</ref> The '''number of PhD diplomas''' awarded by US universities has risen nearly every year since 1957, according to data compiled by the US National Science Foundation. In 1957, US universities awarded 8,611 PhD diplomas; 20,403 in 1967; 31,716 in 1977; 32,365 in 1987; 42,538 in 1997; 48,133 in 2007,<ref>National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. 2014. ''Doctoral Recipients from U.S. Universities, 2012. Survey of Earned Doctorates''. Washington, DC: National Science Foundation</ref> and 55,006 in 2015.<ref>{{Cite journal |title=PHD programmes: Doctorate deluge |year=2017 |volume=547 |pages=483 |doi=10.1038/nj7664-483b |doi-access=free |issue=7664 |journal=Nature}}</ref> ==== Funding ==== PhD students at US universities typically receive a tuition waiver and some form of annual stipend.{{Citation needed|date=May 2011}} Many US PhD students work as [[teaching assistant]]s or [[research assistant]]s. Graduate schools increasingly{{Citation needed|date=December 2008}} encourage their students to seek outside funding; many are supported by fellowships they obtain for themselves or by their advisers' research grants from government agencies such as the [[National Science Foundation]] and the [[National Institutes of Health]]. Many [[Ivy League]] and other well-endowed universities provide funding for the entire duration of the degree program (if it is short) or for most of it,{{Citation needed|date=May 2011}} especially in the forms of tuition waivers/stipends.<ref>{{Cite web |title=PhD Funding Opportunities |url=https://publichealth.yale.edu/admissions/programs/phd/funding.aspx |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180407154948/http://publichealth.yale.edu/admissions/programs/phd/funding.aspx |archive-date=7 April 2018 |access-date=9 August 2018 |website=Yale (Public Health |publisher=Yale}}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). 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