Hospitality Management, Ph.D.

Admission Requirements

Admission requirements conform with the general regulations of The Graduate School and regional and national accreditation standards. Admission to the Ph.D. program is voted on individually by the School of HRTM’s graduate faculty after consideration of a number of factors. These factors include the applicant’s academic record (especially work done at a Master’s level), promise of ability to adequately pursue advanced study and research, performance on the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) or Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT), sufficient preparation to enter graduate study, professional experience, willingness of HRTM faculty to work with the student, recommendations, the applicant’s personal statement outlining career objectives, research interests, and career aspirations and expectations, which all may be verified through a personal and/or phone interview. Admitted students must have a HRTM faculty member who is willing to serve as their dissertation committee chair. Therefore, some qualified students may not be admitted if a faculty member does not agree to be chair.

Applicants must submit to The Graduate School an application along with a $50 nonrefundable application fee; official transcripts (mailed to the USC Graduate School) showing their complete academic record; two letters of recommendation; personal statement of purpose; resume; records of immunization (if born after December 31, 1956); and reports and examination scores on the GRE or GMAT.

International applicants whose native language is not English are also required to submit a satisfactory score on the TOEFL or the IELTS Intl. Academic Course Type 2 exam. The minimum acceptable overall score on the IELTS Intl. Academic Course Type 2 exam is 6.5.

Degree Requirements (60 Post-Masters Hours)

Hospitality Core (6 Hours)

Course Title Credits
HTMT 850Scientific Foundations of Hospitality Management3
HTMT 888Advanced Research Seminar in Hospitality Management3
Total Credit Hours6

Research Core (15 Hours)

These core courses expose students to the critical methodological and topical foundation that is crucial for anyone engaging in top-level hospitality research. The Program will include strong elements of statistics and research design.

Course Title Credits
Select three courses in Statistics (two courses have to be in multivariate statistics)9
Select two Research Methods courses (one qualitative and one quantitative research)6
Total Credit Hours15

Concentration in Hotel, Restaurant, and Tourism Management (HRTM) (12 Hours)

Students will also be required to take 12 credit hours in their area of interest based on the list of graduate courses offered in the School of Hotel Restaurant and Tourism Management.

Cognates (12 Hours)

Each student will take 12 hours of graduate-level cognates offered by other programs within the College or other academic units within the University of South Carolina. This is intended to encourage interdisciplinary synergy between College and University academic units and will enhance the concentration area of the program.

Dissertation (15 Hours minimum)

A minimum of fifteen credit hours will constitute the dissertation, which provides students with the opportunity to identify and rigorously analyze a relevant issue within their specialized field, with an aim toward generation of original knowledge.