PhD in Geography, Planning, and Design

---

We admit around 3-5 students each year out of 60-70 applicants. 

Faculty members’ situations change annually. Feel free to contact individual faculty by sending them an email. Faculty members are normally less interested in your previous GPA, class ranking, or where your undergraduate university ranks in international tables. Instead, they appreciate discussing your specific research interests and how your existing background, skills, and knowledge can help you succeed in a research-intensive doctoral program like ours.

Our program has a centralized admissions process, which means we never admit students directly into research groups or labs. Therefore, any requests you make to “join a research team or research group” cannot be honored by individual faculty members. Instead, our entire Doctoral Admissions Committee (DAC) reviews all applications and then accepts a small set of exceptional students into the program. The DAC attempts to also match applicants with prospective faculty advisors and, if applicable, recommends a funding package for that student. 

Individual faculty members will never offer a funding package before a student is admitted; any funding will only be offered in a student’s acceptance letter.

Admissions letters are normally sent out from mid-February to early-March.  

To help the Doctoral Admissions Committee (DAC) identify prospective faculty advisor(s), please indicate in your Statement of Purpose at least one professor with whom your work has some synergy. Try to also emphasize why you are interested in CU Denver in particular and why the program is a good fit for your interests and expertise.

All students must have a master’s degree to be admitted. We do consider students for admission if they are currently completing a master’s degree and are on track to complete that degree before the semester in which they are admitted.

We consider students with master’s degrees in any field. 

For financial aid questions, applicants should reach out to the financial aid office. 

For technical application questions (e.g., transcripts, submission issues), please reach out to Jodi Stock, Manager of Graduate Admissions and Recruitment in the College of Architecture and Planning. Inquiries regarding international transcripts should be sent to our International Admissions office at [email protected].

You can request an application fee waiver by submitting this form.

We do not require GRE scores, although you can submit your scores if you wish.

If you have completed a post-secondary bachelor’s degree or higher degree in the United States, you may not need to submit English language proficiency results. For additional information, please visit our International Admissions website.

On average, students take 4-5 years to complete the program.

The Health Center at Auraria provides health services for all CU Denver students regardless of insurance status. The CU Denver campus does not currently offer health insurance coverage for domestic students. Options for such can be found here. International students, find more information about health insurance requirements and options.

International students must apply by December 15; international applicants must apply by January 15. All application materials must be submitted by the deadline.

Yes, all students from these 15 U.S. states and territories receive resident tuition with confirmation of residence (usually a Driver’s License) in: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Northern Mariana Islands, Oregon, South Dakota, or Utah.

Students are admitted annually in the Fall semester. In exceptional circumstances, we reserve the right to admit students in the Spring semester. 

See our list of all current students/candidates in the program. 

See an abbreviated/selected list of recent alumni. The program has nearly 100 alumni in total.