A student who wishes to start his journey of PhD should be well aware of the eligibility criteria and admission process. Here are some guidelines and information for aspiring PhD students.
Master’s degree
Students who have completed Masters Degree are eligible to apply for PhD. Most of the colleges and universities will analyze your academic record. Some universities give a strong consideration to the academic score to take the admission of their candidates. The minimum cut off varies depending upon the eligibility criteria set up by universities. But 50% of marks in the related field of your topic is a must.
Submission of Topic
A detailed synopsis of your topic of research has to be written down and then get finalized with your guide. You can get the application form of the university you wish to apply in with this synopsis. When the institution will confirm your topic, then a written test or interview will take place in the university you have applied.
Entrance Exam
All potential PhD students will have to take an entrance examination before being admitted to doctoral degree. This is called as the National Eligibility Test (NET) which is managed by the University Grants Commission (UGC) for all the subjects. The only subjects which are not included by UGC are Science and Engineering which is covered by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
Some institutes also consider GATE (Graduate aptitude test in Engineering) and JRF (Junior Research Fellowship) scores.
Interview
After clearing the entrance exam, you have to appear for an interview at the university you will be associated with. Interview procedure is generally different for different universities. They may ask you to share your research work and give a presentation on the research topic proposed by you.