The decision to pursue a PhD is not one to be taken lightly, and it’s important that you fully consider the time and effort commitment required to complete.
The application process includes a number of steps with some preparation required for each.
If you have enquired about the programme, you will receive an email with a unique link to your personal application portal. Click on ‘start your application now’ in the email you have received to begin.
Alternatively you can start here.
The pre-application process will include the following:
Applicants for the UCT GSB PhD programme must ensure that they have secured a supervisor BEFORE completing the programme application. You will find the supervisor request form as a downloadable file in your unique personal application portal.
Your nominated PhD supervisor must be a full-time academic at the UCT GSB and must be actively publishing in the scholarly literature in the field in question.
UCT GSB faculty can discuss applicants' research ideas and preliminary proposal at their discretion, but we advise applicants not to contact potential supervisors without some preliminary research ideas.
Please note that without a supervisor your application will not be considered, and you will not be able to register for the PhD in Business Administration degree.
Once your supervisor has provisionally accepted your proposal, you will receive a link to your submit your UCT online application along with a series of supporting documents.
The following documents will be required:
Thereafter, you will be prompted to confirm these same documents by our admissions team so be sure to keep these files on hand.
To help you prepare, please see guidelines for your essays
Motivation Questions
Applicants to the PhD programme are usually expected to have graduated from a relevant Master’s programme. When you submit your programme application, please share your previous research with us.
The link to your Master’s Research Report dissertation and mark obtained (you need to have graduated at the time of registration) will be required.
Applicants to the UCT GSB PhD programme are required to prepare a preliminary research proposal.
Your preliminary proposal should be approximately 5 pages in length or 2 500 words.
The purpose of the proposal is to make a case for the research to be undertaken.
It will need to show that;
The proposal should include (not necessarily in the following order):
Before proceeding with your application submission, please ensure you have:
You may now complete and submit your UCT online application.
Please retain a copy of all submitted documents (they will be required for the next step).
When completing the "Programme of Study" section, please select the following:
Specialisation or Major: Business Administration
You should receive confirmation from the admissions team once your application has been received.
Please return to your personal application portal and proceed to the document upload step.
Due to operational disruptions caused by COVID-19, this step allows us to speed up the processing of your application.
South African and SADC applicants | R100 (One Hundred Rand) |
Applicants from all other countries | R300 (Three Hundred Rand) |
All documents submitted in support of your application must be verified for authenticity. This is done through the submission of your documents in hard copy.
Due to operational disruptions caused by COVID-19, we are not currently able to receive hard copies at campus. Please await communication form the admissions team with detail on how and when to submit your documents.