Prospective PhD Students

Minimum requirements:

1. A bachelor’s degree in physics or closely related discipline with a minimum of 3.00 GPA in undergraduate courses, and a minimum of 20 semester hours of undergraduate physics, including upper division mechanics, electricity and magnetism, introductory quantum mechanics, and thermal physics, and approved mathematics courses in calculus and differential equations.
2. International applicants are required to provide evidence of English Language Proficiency. Please see the “Language Proficiency Requirements” section at this Graduate School website.

(Meeting the minimum department standards does not entitle an applicant to admission. Meeting such standards only insures consideration of the application.)

Admission procedure:

Required Documents:

1. CV.
2. All undergraduate (and graduate, if any) transcripts.
3. Personal Statement.
4. (If English Proficiency Exam is needed): TOEFL or IELTS or Duolingo score.
5. (If GPA is not on 4.0 scale): Word Education Services (WES) transcript evaluation report or equivalent. (Reports from the free WES iGPA calculator are acceptable. To make such a report, please take screenshots showing the input of all courses and the final score, insert them into a document, and upload the document along with the original transcript.)

Recommendations:

Three letters of recommendation are required.

Deadlines

March 1 for Application for Fall Semesters,
October 1 for Application for Spring Semesters.

Timeline for Review

March 15 for Application for Fall Semesters,
October 15 for Application for Spring Semesters.

Please follow the instructions in the Graduate School website to submit your application.

Only completed applications will be considered for review.

Assistantship

The Department of Physics and Materials Science offers graduate assistantships to most students in Applied Physics PhD program. The assistantship includes stipend, tuition, and university service fees for the academic years.

For Ghanaian applicants:

The University of Memphis has an agreement with the Ghana Scholarships Secretariat (GSS). If you are admitted, there are two additional ways to get financial support: 

1. You can apply to GSS for the King Scholarship (at least 10 will be given at UofM), which will provide the stipend. The physics department will provide the tuition.  
2. You can apply to GSS for the Secretariat Scholarship, which will provide both stipend and tuition. 

The scholarship application can be completed at https://www.scholarshipgh.com.