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Bachelor's - Accelerated Master's Program

The Philosophy Department offers a five-year Bachelor's–Accelerated Master's (BAM) program to highly qualified CU Boulder undergraduates that leads to the awarding of both the B.A. and M.A in Philosophy. The B.A. is awarded upon completion of the undergraduate requirements and the M.A. at the end of the program. For general information about the program, see /registrar/students/degree-planning/bam-program.

Department-specific requirements are as follows:

Requirements for Admission

Course Requirements
The applicant must have taken all of the following courses and received an A-minus or better in each of them:

• PHIL 2440: Symbolic Logic (or PHIL 4440, or PHIL 4460)
• PHIL 3000: History of Ancient Philosophy or PHIL 3010: History of Modern Philosophy
• PHIL 3100: Ethical Theory
• PHIL 3480: Critical Thinking and Writing in Philosophy

Additionally, the applicant must either have taken PHIL 4300: Philosophy of Mind; PHIL 4340: Epistemology; PHIL 4360: Metaphysics; PHIL 4400: Philosophy of Science; or PHIL 4490: Philosophy of Language, earning a grade of A-minus or better, or be enrolled in one of those courses during the semester in which the student applies for admission to the Bachelor's - Accelerated Master's program. In the latter case, admission to the program will not be decided until the student’s midterm grade for the 4000-level course in question has been furnished to the Graduate Admissions Committee; the midterm grade must be A-minus or better.

G.P.A.
The student must have an overall post-secondary G.P.A. of 3.0 or higher.

Enrollment Status
Only currently-enrolled University of Colorado Boulder students may be considered for admission to the program.

Transfer Students
Transfer students must complete at least twenty-four credit hours, with degree-seeking status, at CU Boulder before applying to the program.

MAPS
Applicants may not have any MAPS deficiencies.

Application Process

Application Form
To apply to the Bachelor's - Accelerated Master's program, apply online at the link given here: /registrar/students/degree-planning/bam-program#applying_to_a_bam_degree_program-881

Letters of Recommendation
In addition we require two letters of recommendation to support the application. Please ask each of your letter-writers to submit a letter of recommendation directly to the Philosophy Department’s Director of Graduate Studies (letters are not uploaded with the application).

G.R.E.
Scores on the Graduate Records Examination need not be submitted.

Deadlines
A student can apply to this program no earlier than the second semester of his/her junior year. Fall applications must be received before October 25. Spring applications must be received by the Friday before Spring Break.

Minimum Cumulative G.P.A.
All students enrolled in the Bachelor's - Accelerated Master's program must maintain a cumulative GPA of 3.0 throughout their time in the program. The time limit for the program is 5 years.

Graduate Status
Students in the Bachelor's - Accelerated Master's program will graduate with the bachelor's degree once all requirements for the bachelor's degree have been met, then will file a Master's Continuation Form to advance to the graduate section of the program. Transfer and advanced placement hours are included when determining the total credit hours completed.

Curriculum

To complete the Bachelor's - Accelerated Master's program, the student will fulfill separately all requirements for the B.A. and thesis-based M.A., with the exception that two 4000-level courses can satisfy requirements for both the B.A. and the M.A. In addition to these two overlapping 4000-level courses, the student must complete all of the remaining requirements for the General Major in Philosophy (see here), as well as all of the remaining requirements for the thesis-based M.A. in Philosophy (see ).

In order to make it possible for the student to finish both degrees in five years, the student will be required to take, during his/her fourth year, two graduate-level courses (5000-level or above), which will not count toward the student’s B.A. requirements. One of these two courses will be a three-credit version of PHIL 5840: Independent Study, to be taken in the second semester of the student’s fourth year. In this Independent Study, the student will work individually with his/her projected thesis advisor to identify a topic for the student’s M.A. thesis and will do research on that topic. This ensures that the student will enter his/her fifth year having done a significant amount of work on the master’s thesis project. During each semester of the student’s fifth year, s/he will typically take two 5000-level courses and three credits of master’s thesis hours. As indicated above, the two graduate-level courses taken during the student’s fourth year will not satisfy requirements for the B.A. Thus, the student must be in a position (perhaps as a result of having entered with AP credits or having taken summer courses at CU) to fit two demanding courses into his/her fourth-year schedule, in addition to whatever courses are needed to satisfy remaining B.A. requirements.

Note that beyond the required Independent Study course referred to above, no independent studies courses can be used to fulfill M.A. course requirements for students in the Bachelor's - Accelerated Master's program.

Click here for a checklist that summarizes the requirements of the program.

Sample Course of Study for 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th Years

Year 3, Semester 1

Courses                                                   Credits           Requirement(s) Satisfied

Year 3, Semester 2

Courses                                                  Credits           Requirement(s) Satisfied

Year 4, Semester 1

Courses                                                  Credits        Requirement(s) Satisfied

Year 4, Semester 2

Title                                                        Credits       Requirement(s) Satisfied

Year 5, Semester 1

  Course                                                   Credits           Requirement(s) Satisfied    

Year 5, Semester 2

  Course                                                   Credits           Requirement(s) Satisfied        

During the second semester of Year 5, the student must successfully defend his/her master’s thesis in an oral examination before a committee consisting of the student’s thesis advisor and two other regular faculty members.

Withdrawing from the Program
If a student chooses to withdraw from the Bachelor's - Accelerated Master's program, any graduate courses completed satisfactorily will count toward the undergraduate degree, as upper division electives or as replacements for the corresponding senior-level courses (5300 for 4300, 5110 for 4110, etc.). In order for those courses to count towards the B.A. degree, the student must file a Change of Major Requirement form with the Primary Advisor during the semester prior to the one in which the student expects to earn the B.A. Consult the Graduate Advisor for further information and advice.

Advising
Students accepted to the Bachelor's - Accelerated Master's program must consult initially with the Director of Graduate Studies in choosing courses. The student may later change to an advisor in his/her specific area of interest with the permission of the department chair or the graduate advisor.

Administering the Program
The program will be administered jointly by the Director of Graduate Studies and the Director of Undergraduate Studies, with assistance from the Graduate Program Assistant and the Graduate and Undergraduate Curriculum Committees. The Graduate Admissions Committee will review applications to the program.

Documentation of Progress
Students admitted to the program before July 2019 will be awarded the bachelor's and master's degrees at the same time. They will need to submit the supplement to the candidacy application, the candidacy application, and the certificate of undergraduate completion early in the semester that they intend to graduate (i.e., the semester in which the Master's degree requirements are finished). The supplement and the certificate of completion form are found at /graduateschool/legacy-content/academic-forms ; the candidacy application will be sent out via email at the beginning of the semester.

Students admitted to the program after July 2019 will receive the bachelor's degree once all the undergraduate requirements are met, instead of having to wait until the master's is complete as well. Early in the semester they intend to graduate with the B.A. they will fill out the , then after graduation proceed on to filling the requirements for the Master's degree. In the semester they intend to graduate with the M.A. they will follow normal Master's graduation procedures and fill out the candidacy application as per above.

Please note that deadlines for all these forms, for both pre- and post-July 2019 students, will fall quite early in the semester. You will be notified of deadlines via the phil-grad email list.