10.6 Admission Eligibility
To be eligible for admission into the PhD program, the candidate must satisfy the following conditions:
- The applicant must hold a Master's degree (or equivalent) in a business-related field from a UAE-recognized university.
- The applicant must have a grade point average (GPA) of at least 3.0 out of 4.0 in the Master's degree.
- It is desirable for the applicant to have at least three years of teaching and/or working experience.
- The applicant must satisfy the English language requirement, holding a minimum score on one of the following tests: TOEFL PBT 550, TOEFL IBT 79, IELTS 6.0, Cambridge 52, IESOL/SESOL B2, PTE Academic 50-57, or a standardized equivalent test.
- The program shall not offer any conditional admission due to either low CGPA or English scores.
- An applicant who pursued his/her Master's degree in English language shall be exempted from submitting a new English language exam score if the Master’s program required a minimum score of 550 on the TOEFL, or its standardized equivalent. The English test score must be shown on the Master’s program transcript.
- A minimum score of 70% on UD’s PhD Entrance Exam is needed. The exam is intended to assess the applicant’s analytical and academic writing skills.
- Transfer Students – Credits & Criteria: An applicant enrolled in a doctoral program at other UAE-recognized universities who wishes to transfer to UD-PhD program should fulfill the above admission requirements. Up to 25% of equivalent credit hours may be transferred into UD’s program. An applicant dismissed from his/her program at the original institution for any reason, will not be accepted into UD. (See below C(iii), E(vi) and the UD Policy 5.3 on Transfer Policy).