PhD: How to Apply

Stanford University’s Department of Sociology will not be accepting doctoral applications this year. The department had a nearly perfect record of admitted students accepting our offers last year, resulting in a much larger entering cohort for 2022-23 than projected. We will resume accepting graduate applications in Fall 2023 for matriculation in 2024-25.

Stanford Sociology is wholeheartedly committed to inclusion, diversity, and equal opportunity.

We welcome graduate students from a broad range of life experiences, perspectives, and backgrounds who foster the vibrant community of scholars that our department cultivates. We especially encourage applications from underrepresented minorities and from individuals who come from a broad range of life experiences, perspectives, and backgrounds.

Minimizing pre-admission communication with faculty: We appreciate that prospective graduate students are often instructed to reach out to faculty in advance of applying. However, our policy is to avoid any protracted discussions between faculty and candidates prior to admission since research shows that fair and transparent process can easily be clouded by back-channel communications.  We don’t mean to be off-putting! Instead, our goal is to ensure that everyone has equal opportunity and is considered fairly. For more information, you can review Stanford's Guide to Getting into Grad School.