PhD Degree Requirements

For an in-depth review of the PhD Program and its requirements, please read the Psychology Graduate Guide. This website and the Graduate Guide supplement the Psychology PhD requirements defined in the Stanford Bulletin and the policies for all Stanford graduate education as defined in the Graduate Academic Policies and Procedures Handbook. 

Graduate students in the Department of Psychology's PhD program conduct in-depth research in one of five areas of study: Affective, Cognitive, Developmental, Neuroscience, or Social Psychology. 

Course Requirements

Students must be enrolled in 8-10 units every quarter to be considered full-time until the student reaches TGR status upon completing 135 units, at which time enrollment must be 0-3 units. For pre-TGR students, we recommend that you enroll in exactly 10 units per quarter.

Students must receive a grade of B- or above in all coursework taken for a letter grade. Core Courses and Statistics Courses must be taken for a letter grade. If a passing grade is not obtained, a student may be asked to repeat the course or take a comparable course. On occasion, course scheduling will not allow this, in which case students must obtain approval from their advisor and communicate this with the Student Services Manager. Required coursework must be complete by the end of the 4th year.

Professional Seminar

In Autumn Quarter of the first year of the PhD program, students are required to take PSYCH 207, Professional Seminar. This is a course that introduces the first-year cohort to the Department. It is taught by the Department Chair, with guest lectures from across faculty across all areas of the Department.

Four Core Courses in Five Areas

Students are required to take 4 core courses, each course from a different area of the Psychology department:  Affective Science, Cognitive Science, Developmental Psychology, Neuroscience, and Social Psychology, as listed below. All core courses must be taken for a letter grade, for 3 units, and passed with a grade of B- or better. Students are expected to complete 4 core courses by the end of the 3rd year.

Consistent with our program's goal of fostering breadth and engagement across all areas of the department, students are encouraged to take all 5 core courses spanning all five areas of the department.  If a student takes 5 core courses, the units and grade of the fifth course will be counted towards the student's advanced units.

• PSYCH 202: Cognitive Neuroscience
• PSYCH 205: Foundations of Cognition
• PSYCH 211: Developmental Psychology
• PSYCH 213: Affective Science
• PSYCH 215: Mind, Culture, and Society

Two Statistics Courses

Students are required to complete two Statistics Courses: Psych 251 (Experimental Methods) and one of the following additional Statistics courses:

• PSYCH 252: Statistical Methods for Behavioral and Social Sciences
• PSYCH 253: High-Dimensional Methods for Behavioral and Neural Data

At least one of these courses must be taken in the first year, and both should be completed by the end of the 2nd year. Statistics courses must be taken for a letter grade and passed with a grade of B- or better. 

In the case that a student has already taken similar graduate-level coursework, with the permission of their advisor, they may petition to substitute an alternative course for one of the two required courses (for example, to take 252 and 253 but not 251, or to take 251 and another upper-division statistics course). Petitions need to be submitted to the Student Services Manager and approved by the department's DGS (Director of Graduate Studies).

Students who did not take an undergraduate course in statistics should take PSYCH 10 (STATS 60) in the earliest possible quarter within the first year, which is a prerequisite to any graduate statistics course.

Additional Courses

Students may be required to take up to 2 additional graduate courses in their area of specialization. In these cases, the additional courses are counted towards the Advanced Units requirement as described below. Please consult with your advisor about any additional requirements in your area of specialization.

Advanced Courses or PhD Minor Requirement

Students must complete 12 units of advanced graduate coursework (“Advanced Units”, or AU). Students earn AU by taking (a) non-core graduate psychology courses; and/or (b) graduate-level courses in other departments comparable in quality to graduate courses offered by the Psychology Department. If there is any question about the comparability of courses, the student should consult the advisor, student services, and, in some cases, the Director of Graduate Studies before taking the course.

Courses should be taken for a letter grade and must receive a B- or better grade to count towards the Advanced Units requirement. Students may request to count up to 3 units of undergraduate coursework towards the AU requirement. The advisor should support the request, and the undergraduate course must be substantive and relevant to the student's graduate research. These requests must be submitted to the Student Services Manager and may be adjudicated by the Director of Graduate Studies and/or the Graduate Program Committee.

A student may complete a PhD minor in another department instead of the Advanced Units requirement. Students pursuing a minor should register this decision with the Student Services Manager.

Advanced Units and/or PhD minors must be completed by the end of the 4th year. The Department expects that all decisions related to AUs or the PhD minor are made in close consultation with the student’s advisor. Before taking any courses, students should submit a list of possible outside courses to their advisor for approval using the Advanced Courses Form. This form must be signed by their advisor and the Director of Graduate Studies and returned to the Student Services Office by the first Monday of October of the 2nd year. See the Graduate Guide for additional information.

Terminal Graduate Registration (TGR)

Students must apply for Terminal Graduate Registration (TGR) when they have accumulated 135 units of residency and have filed a Dissertation Reading Committee form. Once the TGR is approved, students will register for the course PSYCH 802 TGR Dissertation for 0 units. Students in TGR status may take no more than 3 units of coursework per quarter. For more information, consult the Graduate Guide and the Stanford Graduate Academic Policies and Procedures Handbook.

Research and Program Requirements

Research

Students are expected to spend at least half of their time engaged in research from the beginning of the first year of graduate study to the completion of the PhD, taking no more than 10 units of coursework each quarter.  Although students will have 1-2 official advisor(s), they are encouraged to engage in research with other faculty with whom they have mutual interests. 

First Year Project (FYP)

At the end of their first year of graduate study, students must submit a written report of their first-year research activities, called the First Year Project (FYP). This report should resemble a journal article in their area. It is written in consultation with their advisor. The FYP proposal is due December 1 of the Autumn Quarter of the first year. The final FYP is due on June 1 of the first year. First-year students must also work with their advisor to identify a second FYP reader (another Psychology faculty member) by December 1 of the Autumn Quarter of the first year. Both the advisor and the second FYP reader are expected to read the FYP and provide the student with constructive feedback. It is recommended that students meet with their FYP readers in the summer of the first year to receive feedback.

Admission to Candidacy

Admission to a doctoral degree program is preliminary to and distinct from, admission to candidacy. Admission to candidacy for the doctoral degree is a judgment by the faculty of the student’s potential to complete the degree program's requirements successfully. Students are expected to apply for PhD candidacy by the end of their second year in the PhD program. Application for candidacy must be filed as soon as all first- and second-year requirements are completed and no later than the first day of Autumn Quarter of their third year. 

For more information on Candidacy, consult the Graduate Academic Policies and Procedures Handbook.

Master of Arts Degree in Psychology (Optional)

Graduate students in the Department of Psychology who have completed (a) the first-year and second-year course requirements and (b) at least 45 units of Psychology courses may apply for conferral of the MA degree. The application should be reviewed with the Student Services Manager. The application process typically occurs in 2nd or 3rd year.

Dissertation Reading Committee

Students are expected to form a research committee, including the dissertation reading committee, before initiating their dissertation research. The research committee includes the dissertation advisor and at least 2 additional faculty members, for a total of 3 members, at least two of whom should have primary appointments in the Psychology Department. Students are required to form the committee and submit the Dissertation Reading Committee form to the Student Services Manager by February 1 of 3rd year.

Students are required to meet with their committee annually beginning in their 3rd year. For the annual committee meetings, if a member of the student’s regular committee is unavailable (e.g. on sabbatical), the student should recruit another Department faculty member to attend instead.

3rd Year Committee Meeting and Research Plan

In the 3rd year, students are required to meet with their committee in Winter or Spring Quarter, no later than June 1. At least 2 weeks prior to this meeting, students must submit a 1-2 page Research Plan to the committee.

Research Plan 

The 3rd year Research Plan, which is submitted to the committee, is a short (1-2 page) document containing a brief overview of the experiments that have been completed and the planned experiments. The Research Plan is due in Winter or Spring Quarter of 3rd year and no later than 2 weeks before the committee meeting.

3rd Year Committee Meeting

The goal of the 3rd year committee meeting is for students to present their planned research and preliminary data and for the faculty to give students feedback on their research plan, feasibility, and progress. During the 3rd year committee meeting, students will present and discuss with the committee:

• Background and hypothesis being tested
• Experiments and methods
• Preliminary results
• Potential outcomes as well as pitfalls

After the committee meeting, students should submit the Research Plan to the Student Services Manager and report the date the meeting took place using the Committee Meeting Google Form.

4th Year Committee Meeting and Area Review and Research Roadmap (ARRR)

In the 4th year, students must meet with their committee in the autumn or winter quarter. At least 2 weeks before the meeting, they must submit their Area Review & Research Roadmap (ARRR) to their committee.

Area Review & Research Roadmap (ARRR) 

This document has 2 parts:

1. Area Review: A manuscript written in a format of a review paper that summarizes current theories, debates, and empirical work in the area of the dissertation, which ultimately leads to the open questions that will be answered in the dissertation. The goal of writing this document is to enable the students to organize and develop scholarly knowledge relevant to their dissertation research. This document could serve as the basis for the introduction to the dissertation and/or a basis for a review paper. We expect that this section will be the bulk of the ARRR. We expect students to consult with their advisor on this document's scope and receive feedback from their committee during the 4th year meeting.
2. Research Roadmap: This section is short (1-2 pages) and contains a brief overview of the experiments that will be part of the dissertation. Since this document is written during the 4th year, some experiments are expected to be completed, while others are planned or ongoing.

4th Year Committee Meeting

The goal of the 4th year committee meeting is for students to present their research progress and receive feedback from the committee members on the ARRR. We expect the presentation to start with a review of the relevant work but focus on the research progress. During the meeting, students will present and discuss with the committee:

• Background and hypothesis being tested
• Experiments and methods
• Current results
• Planned experiments toward dissertation completion

After the committee meeting, students should submit the ARRR to the Student Services Manager and report the date the meeting took place using the Committee Meeting Google Form.

Oral Examination and Committee

For the oral examination, the student should identify an outside Chair, typically someone who has not been a committee member until that point. The Chair must be a faculty member outside the Psychology Department and an Academic Council member. The oral exam committee comprises at least five faculty members, including the student's advisor. The typical makeup for this committee is:

1. Chair (external to the department)
2. Advisor
3. Member of the Dissertation Reading Committee
4. Member of the Dissertation Reading Committee
5. Another member of the faculty with Academic Council status, either within or outside the Psychology Department

Students must submit the Oral Exam Form to the Student Services Manager at least 2 weeks before the anticipated defense. Students are responsible for following standard Department protocol for reserving a room for their defense.

Dissertation

There are two ways to submit your dissertation:

In-Person Submission: A hard copy can be submitted by scheduling an appointment with the Registrar's Office. 

Electronic Submission (recommended): The Registrar's Office, in conjunction with the Stanford University Library, offers students the option to submit their dissertation electronically. This electronic submission process is free of charge to students. It allows them to log into Axess and check their pre-submission requirements in the eDissertation Center under the Academics tab. Once these requirements have been met, students will be given the option to upload a soft copy of their dissertation. 

Students must be enrolled for every quarter a milestone is completed, including passing the defense and submitting the dissertation. Please consult the Registrar's Academic Calendar for the quarterly deadlines for submitting dissertations. These deadlines are quite strict. If a student misses the deadline for submitting the dissertation for the intended graduation quarter, the student will need to enroll in the following quarter to submit the dissertation, which can have serious funding implications.

Research Timeline At-A-Glance

Individual Development Plan

Every year, each graduate student completes an Individual Development Plan (IDP) and has a meeting with their advisor to discuss the IDP and set an Action Plan for the coming year. The goal of the IDP is for the student to step back from their daily tasks, reflect on the larger picture, discuss these topics with their mentor, and make an action plan for achieving their goals going forward. The IDP meeting must occur by June 1 each year. 

The IDP process has 4 steps:

1. Before the meeting, the student fills out the IDP Self-Reflection form. This form is meant to provide the student with an opportunity for self-reflection. The student can choose to share the form with their advisor or keep it private. After completing the form, the student should focus on a few key topics to be discussed at the meeting. 

2. The student prepares the IDP Meeting and Action Plan form for a one-on-one meeting with the advisor. The student and advisor meet to discuss the action plan for the coming year. The meeting is also the student's opportunity to bring up anything from the self-reflection that they wish to discuss with their advisor. The IDP form offers some sample questions to facilitate this conversation.The Department encourages the student to set up meetings with other mentors as desired. 

3. The student and advisor complete the Action Plan (pages 3-4 of the IDP Meeting and Action Plan form). It is best practice that both the student and the advisor keep a copy of the Action Plan. Note that the Action Plan is not submitted to the Department and stays private between the student and advisor. 

4. The student reports the date of the meeting to Student Services using the IDP Meeting Google Form.

Teaching Requirements

The Department views experience in supervised teaching as an integral part of its Graduate Program. Regardless of the source of financial support, all students serve as teaching assistants for at least 5 Psychology courses during their graduate study.

Of these 5 TAships, students are required to apply for 2 of their TAships to be in one of two services courses:

• 2 quarters of PSYCH 1 ("Introduction to Psychology") OR
• 2 quarters of a core statistics course: PSYCH 10 ("Introduction to Statistical Methods"), PSYCH 251 ("Experimental Methods"), PSYCH 252 (“Statistical Methods for Behavioral and Social Sciences”), and/or PSYCH 253 (“High-Dimensional Methods for Behavioral and Neural Data”) .

The Student Services Manager will ask rising 2nd-year students to indicate their preferred path. Students can apply to PSYCH 1 and the stats courses if they wish; the requirement will be fulfilled after completing 2 quarters of either path. 

Students are prohibited from TAing in the first year. Students should begin TAing in 2nd year and complete the 5 required TAships by the end of the 5th year.

Psych One

For the PSYCH 1 path, students are required to apply for PSYCH 1. If not chosen for the course, the student must apply for PSYCH 1 the following year. If not chosen either year, the student's obligation is fulfilled.

STATS

Likewise, for the stats path, students must volunteer to TA for PSYCH 10 in Years 2-4 or until they have been selected for a stats course 2 times. Students who TA for the graduate statistics courses (PSYCH 251, 252, 253) also fulfill the statistics service course path, but volunteering for the advanced courses is optional and dependent on the student’s skills. The obligation is still met if the student volunteers for PSYCH 10 but is not assigned to 2 quarters of stats over Years 2-4.

Students can review the Department's complete TA policy for more details. Questions about TA assignments or TA policy should be directed to the Student Services Manager. 

Graduation Quarter

Registration is required for the term in which a student submits a dissertation or has a degree conferred. Students who meet all the following conditions are eligible to be assessed a special tuition rate for their Graduation Quarter:

• All coursework, degree requirements, and residency requirements for all graduate degree programs, including joint degree programs, have been completed.

• A graduate or professional student must have enrolled or have been on an approved leave of absence in the term immediately preceding the term chosen as the graduation quarter.

• The student has formally applied to graduate.

• The student has only to submit the dissertation and/or pass the oral examination by the deadline for submission in the term designated as the Graduation Quarter. 

• The student has filed all necessary forms regarding graduation quarter before the first day of the term chosen as Graduation Quarter.

Students enrolled in the graduation quarter are registered at Stanford and thus still retain the rights and privileges of registered students. Only one graduation quarter may be requested in the course of the student's PhD. There is a $150 tuition rate for Graduation Quarter. For more information about Graduation Quarter and other special tuition statuses, please refer to the Registrar's Office website.