Fifth Year B.A/M.A. Program

Undergraduate philosophy majors may opt to enter a five-year B.A./M.A. Program. Since application to the Program normally takes place during junior year, it is advisable to consult with the M.A. Coordinator or the Director of the Graduate Program in the fall semester of your junior year.

Interested undergraduate philosophy majors/minors must apply to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Expectations are that such applicants will have achieved an overall GPA of at least 3.33 and a major GPA of 3.5 or above.

For those applying, the application fee is waived and the GRE is not required; applicants need a statement of purpose, two letters of recommendation, and are required to submit a final undergraduate transcript after graduation.

Program Details

Students admitted to the B.A./M.A. Program will follow the curriculum for philosophy majors, with two specifications. First, two of the courses taken during junior and senior year must be eligible for graduate credit; these two graduate level courses count toward both the B.A. and the M.A. degrees. Second, two additional graduate level courses need to be taken during senior year that are beyond the 120 credit hours required for the B.A. and thus count only for the M.A. degree. These four courses will be listed in the Accelerated Degree Program Form, which the student will need to fill out by the end of senior year.

These four courses allow the student to take a normal graduate course load in the 5th year of three courses a semester. The M.A. may thus be completed by taking a total of ten graduate courses, two counting also for the BA and eight counting only for the M.A.. Additional requirements for the degree include writing a qualifying paper and satisfying the foreign language requirement (see the Graduate Studies Handbook for details).