Information for Prospective Students

This is the unofficial web page of the current coordinator of the PhD Program in Aerospace Engineering of Politecnico di Milano.

It contains tips about asking for information about the PhD in Aerospace Engineering.

The official webpage from the Department of Aerospace Science and Technology (https://www.aero.polimi.it/education/phd-in-aerospace-engineering/) reports the following line:

For further specific information on the Aerospace Course, visit the following web site: https://www.dottorato.polimi.it/en/phd-programmes/engineering/aerospace-engineering

or contact the PhD course in Aerospace Engineering at phd-daer@polimi.it.

What typically happens is that prospective students interested in a PhD skip the link to the webpage and jump to the email address, sending messages like

Hello;

i am very interested by your university, i have Master of XXX in YYY; i want to continue my studies for a PhD degree at your University could you please help me to do that.

You must realize that the only correct answer is:

NO, I’M AFRAID I CAN’T!

because, as explained in the webpage you were directed to:

PhDs in Italy are competitive; you need to wait for a call to open, then you need to apply, and only if you pass the selection – by an independent committee, I’m not involved in the selection process - and you’re high enough in the ranking you get into the program (which does not automatically mean you’ll have a grant: in most cases you’ll have to be very high in the ranking to qualify for the grant!). It’s not that I don’t want to help you; as a matter of fact, there’s nothing I can do to help you (or the hundreds and hundreds of people that every year ask me similar questions);
instructions to apply are not excessively simple, I admit, but not even that complicated. They are very well described in the websites you have been pointed to, so please tell me why would you want me to explain, in plain words and by heart, something that is not straightforward (I might forget one step, or mess up another, or enumerate them in the incorrect order; I’m getting old, you know, and already started losing memory, all in all), considering that everything is already explained in detail in dedicated websites?
By the way, I am in charge only of the PhD in Aerospace Engineering (and it’s not my only duty, by the way; it was supposed to take no more than 5% of my time). If you background is nuclear energy, or telecommunications, or geology, or reinforced concrete, then the one I coordinate might not be the most appropriate PhD program. You have done your homework, i.e. look up the most appropriate PhD program, haven’t you? Or are you just contacting all to see if you can slip through?

Please realize that in more than 99% of the cases my reply will likely be a link to this page.

If you’ve been patient enough to read until this point, the most “valuable” information I can give you is:

Dear prospective student,

PhD programs at Politecnico di Milano require prospective students to pass a competitive evaluation.

The regular enrolment takes place once a year, on November 1st, with the call for applications usually opening in April and closing in the second half of May, but there may be exceptions, discussed below.

You can find all the required info in the links reported below.

If you pass the selection, you can enrol, and if you are up enough in the enrolment list, you may be eligible for a grant.

Further information about the PhD program at large is available here http://www.dottorato.polimi.it/en.

Information specific for the Aerospace Engineering program is available here https://www.dottorato.polimi.it/en/phd-programmes/engineering/aerospace-engineering.

Additionally, optional calls – based on grant availability – may be out three times a year, should additional positions on specific projects become available:

the first one opens in August and closes at the beginning of September, with enrolment on November 1st;
the second one opens in November and closes at the beginning of December, with enrolment on February 1st of the following year;
the third one opens in February and closes at the beginning of March, with enrolment on May 1st.

For the calls, follow this link https://www.dottorato.polimi.it/en/prospective-phd-candidates/calls-and-regulations (for the regular call, follow the first link; for additional calls, follow the “ADDITIONAL CALLS” link).

For the sake of completeness, there is actually another possibility: if you received a scholarship of at least 3 years duration by another institution (e.g. your government) through a selective process (a competitive evaluation) and you want to spend it at Politecnico di Milano to earn a PhD, and according to the very same rules of the regular selection process you qualify as PhD student, then you might be accepted, pending verification that the project you propose is scientifically sound and pertinent with the PhD program you select.

The 3 key requirements thus are:

you already have a scholarship from an external institution, earned through a selection process
you meet the requirements for enrolment at Politecnico di Milano
the research you propose is pertinent

I hope these instructions help. Specifically, I hope they help me deal efficiently with most of the emails I receive on this topic.