How to write a CV for a PhD application

First step: find out who will read your CV

Doctoral admission runs through three kinds of door, and each one reads the CV for something slightly different. Work out which door you are knocking on before you decide what goes on page one.

• A graduate school or programme with a portal and a deadline, such as Manchester's PhD in Environmental Science or an LSE MPhil/PhD. An admissions panel reads the CV with your statement or proposal, and may interview you.
• A professor who recruits directly. ETH Zurich has no overarching doctoral school: each potential supervisor recruits their own doctoral students, and ETH says the way in is to contact the professorship.
• A funder. DAAD's Doctoral Programmes in Germany scholarship has its own selection committee and its own CV rule.

When the first reader is a professor

An email to a supervisor is read in a minute or two, so the CV attached to it has to show fit on page one: the methods you have used, the topic of your master's thesis, and anything you have produced. A long list of courses will not survive that first read.

What a doctoral reader looks for in the CV

The University of Manchester asks for a CV summarising your academic record and highlighting experience that demonstrates your potential to conduct research. That sentence is a good test for every line you write.

Research experience: focus and outcome, not just a title

Cambridge University Careers Service advises describing research experience by its focus and key outcomes rather than by the project title alone. A thesis title tells the reader your topic; a line with the question, the method and the result tells them what you can do.

Grades a reader abroad can interpret

The same Cambridge guide asks applicants with degrees from outside the UK to give enough detail for the selector to understand the achievement, for example the scale or the class rank. DAAD's doctoral call lists the grade point average and the development of grades among its selection criteria, so a grade without its scale wastes the reader's attention.

Outputs, including work in progress

Few applicants have journal articles. Conference posters, a published dataset, a preprint or a manuscript under review all count, as long as the status is stated honestly. Harvard's graduate CV samples label items as under review, in press or in progress rather than mixing them with published work.

Section order for a PhD applicant

1. Header with name, email and, if you have one, an ORCID iD or a research profile link.
2. Education, newest first: master's and bachelor's with grade and scale, thesis title, supervisor.
3. Research experience: each project or assistantship with dates, question, method and outcome.
4. Publications, posters and talks, each with its status.
5. Awards, scholarships and grants, with the year and, if known, how competitive they were.
6. Teaching or tutoring, then relevant work outside academia.
7. Methods, software and languages, with test scores where required.
8. Referees, if the programme asks for names on the CV.

Harvard's Mignone Center puts the most important information on the first page and lists items in reverse chronological order within each heading; most graduate student CVs run two to five pages. For a PhD applicant two or three pages is usually enough, and DAAD's doctoral call sets three as its maximum.

Sample: research experience written two ways

The applicant below is invented: a molecular biology master's student applying for a doctorate in plant stress physiology. The left column is the line many applicants write; the right column is the same fact rewritten for a doctoral reader.

A complete education block

The rank and the "1 of 3 awarded" note are there because they let a reader outside Türkiye judge the result. Write them only if you can prove them with a document.

What named programmes and funders ask for

Each row is taken from the institution's own page, read on 13 October 2026. Programmes inside the same university can differ.

Two numbers worth knowing before you apply

• DAAD's doctoral scholarship pays 1,400 euros a month, and as a rule your most recent degree should be no more than six years old at the deadline.
• Sabancı requires a 3.00/4.00 GPA from applicants who apply to a PhD with only a bachelor's degree.

Limits of this guide

Fields differ. In some disciplines publications come straight after education, in others teaching or fieldwork matters more, and Harvard's advisers tell graduate students to check CVs of recent graduates in their own department. This page does not cover the research proposal itself, the statement of purpose, or how to cite publications in a given style.

Next steps

• Still choosing between a master's and a PhD route? The master's application CV page shows the education-first version.
• Already holding a doctorate and applying for a research post? The postdoc CV page covers fellowships and PI-led posts.
• Thinking about jobs outside academia as well? The academic CV vs job CV page shows how to cut the same facts to two pages.

CitedCV can lay out an academic CV in English, Turkish or German from the facts you enter and keeps each line tied to those facts, which helps when a committee compares the CV with your transcript. It does not write your research proposal.

Questions people ask

Sources

1. University of Manchester, PhD/MPhil Environmental Science: application and selectionwww.manchester.ac.uk/study/postgraduate-research/programmes/list/11063/phd-mphil-environmental-science/application-and-selection/
2. DAAD, Doctoral Programmes in Germany (scholarship database)www2.daad.de/deutschland/stipendium/datenbank/en/21148-scholarship-database/?status=4&origin=14&detail=57135739
3. ETH Zurich, Finding a doctoral positionethz.ch/en/doctorate/finding-a-place.html
4. LSE, Supporting documentswww.lse.ac.uk/study-at-lse/Graduate/Prospective-students/Supporting-documents
5. Sabancı University, Graduate application requirements 2026-2027www.sabanciuniv.edu/en/academic/university-registration-scholarships-and-fees/graduate-applications-requirements-2026-2027
6. Cambridge University Careers Service, CVs and cover letters for PhDs and postdocswww.careers.cam.ac.uk/files/phdpostdoccvbook.pdf
7. Harvard Mignone Center for Career Success, GSAS CVs and cover letters (2025)cdn-careerservices.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/161/2025/08/gsas-cvs-and-cover-letters-2025.pdf