PhD in Civil & Environmental Engineering

To be considered for admission, applicants must hold a baccalaureate degree from a regionally accredited college or university in the United States, its equivalent from a foreign institution

Submit unofficial transcripts (PDF format) with the online application. Before uploading, please make sure your transcript is legible, otherwise the review committee will not be able to review your application. The file size limit is 2 megabytes. If you are offered admission by the department, the Graduate School will require an official final degree transcript prior to registration. The department does not require an official transcript.

Letters must be submitted via the online application system. After entering email addresses for your letter writers into the online form, an automatic email will direct them to a secure Web site to upload their letter. It is recommended to submit email addresses early, to give recommenders ample time to submit letters.

A resumé is required for Ph.D. applicants

Please answer each of the following questions in your statement of purpose. These responses can be broken out separately or addressed in a single essay. Please save and submit as a single document. 1) Why are you seeking a graduate degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Washington? What knowledge and skills do you hope to achieve from the graduate program that will be useful to your long-term career goals? We are looking for evidence that you are passionate about the field and also why a graduate degree from CEE will help you to achieve your goals. 2) The graduate student experience and life in general can involve a range of challenges. Describe an example of how you have shown resilience and/or perseverance in the pursuit of your academic goals or in your personal life and how you have grown as a result. 3) What do you expect to be challenging about graduate school? What strategies would you use to manage these challenges? 4) (research interest only) What research topics interest you, and why are you interested in completing a research project during your graduate studies? If you have research experience, tell us about your most successful or interesting research and which qualities helped facilitate this. If you have had limited research experience, please explain what has made you more interested in research. Which CEE faculty members’ research are you most interested in and why? Please indicate at least three CEE faculty you would be interested in doing research with. 5) (Optional) If you have a background that might particularly contribute to the enrichment of the program, please describe it. Examples include unique educational or cultural opportunities (or lack of them), social and economic disadvantages that you may have had to overcome, and interesting or unusual influences on your intellectual development. 6) (Optional) Please add anything you would like to say in support of your application or anything that puts your application in a broader context that is not addressed by the questions above.