PhD Admissions

Applications are now open for admission for the Fall 2025 academic year. Apply now to receive early consideration for admission. Admissions are open until the program is filled.

Admission conditions: Students who lack sufficient background at the graduate level in international affairs will be required to take supplementary courses extra to degree prior to admission. For applicants who do not have any formal training in economics, they must complete introductory micro and macro economics plus one course at the senior undergraduate level to be considered for admission. For those who do not have any formal training in international relations, they must complete an IR course prior to admission.

International students: Carleton receives a large number of high quality applications from international students each year for a limited number of spaces. Funding from Carleton (including teaching and research assistantships) for international students is limited and is only available to a few outstanding international applicants. Therefore, international students must have sufficient funds to support their study in Canada. Successful applicants to NPSIA are notified towards the end of March. For information regarding applying for a study permit, please visit the Immigration and Citizenship Canada website at: IRCC.

To apply to the School and have your application package considered for review, you will need to complete the online application process:

Step 1. Sign up for a Carleton360 account.

Step 2. Complete your application by providing all of the required information and documents.

Note: When completing your application for admission, you must indicate your primary field of interest:

• International Conflict Management and Resolution (ICMR)
• Security, Intelligence and Defence (SID)
• International Development Policy (IDP)
• International Economic Policy (IEP)

Step 3.  Pay the application fee. The application fee is paid directly to Carleton University by Visa, MasterCard or INTERAC Online at the end of the application process.  You must submit and pay for your application in order for it to be processed further

• Statement of Intent (to be completed as a word document, and uploaded as a PDF file);
• One official or unofficial transcript from each educational institution attended (unofficial transcripts can be uploaded for assessment purposes and official transcripts will only be required if you are admitted to the program);
• Two Referee Appraisal Forms (will be uploaded by your referees, once the referees have completed their appraisal forms);
• Language Test Scores (if required);
• CV/Résumé;
• 1 Writing Sample (maximum 40 pages, 2MB limit)

Applicants to the School of International Affairs are expected to submit complete applications in order to be considered for of admissions.

Hard copies or emailed copies are not accepted. While late applications might be accepted, applicants should recognize that admission to the School of International Affairs is extremely competitive, and that all places for the next academic year might have been fully filled with first round offers. If you are applying after the January 31^st, please contact the School first.

All domestic applications for full-time study will automatically be considered for financial support, which will include a scholarship and a teaching assistantship (the Faculty of Graduate Studies at Carleton University offers a number of teaching assistantships under which students work as a teaching assistant during the school year). It is expected that students will seek additional external funding apart from any funding they may receive from the school during their study, such as Ontario Graduate Scholarship Program (OGS) or Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

Please view the FAQ for NPSIA PhD Admissions.