Graduate Planning

Start Your Application Today!

Applications for the 2024-2025 academic year are now open! Submit your application for the MSc. Planning and  PhD Planning programs via the SGS Online Admissions Application Portal.

Review all admission requirements for your programs of interest. Application Deadline: January 10th 2024 11:59pm EST.

IMPORTANT: As a graduate student at the University of Toronto, you must be available to attend campus in person. 

We are here to support you throughout your application journey.

About Graduate Planning

The Planning Program at the University of Toronto is an internationally recognized, dynamic unit within the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Toronto. As a community of scholars, practitioners, activists and students, the Program is engaged in research and teaching across the sub-fields of planning, and committed to fostering city-regions that are sustainable, accessible, beautiful and just. The Program offers a Ph.D. in Planning and a professionally accredited Masters of Science in Planning.

Program Mission

We believe at the heart of planning lies a commitment to humane city-regions, healthy environments and social well-being for everyone (especially, for those who have been historically marginalized through traditional development practices); we strive to foster places that are livable, equitable, and sustainable.

Located within a large Geography Department, our approach to planning is interdisciplinary, critical and engaged, where students can pursue their interests in planning theory and history, political economy and public finance, social planning and policy analysis, urban design, environmental studies, and international development.

We are a community of scholars, practitioners and activists engaged in studying the dynamics of city-regions and committed to fostering places that are sustainable, accessible, beautiful and just. Our distinguished faculty bring an unusually wide variety of perspectives to bear on planning education – based on extensive research and outreach projects across the economic, social, urban, environmental and design dimensions of planning.

In all our programs, we welcome students with diverse educational backgrounds and work experiences aligned with planning; especially those who belong to groups that are currently underrepresented in planning academia and practice, from either domestic or international arenas. 

We take pride in our efforts to bring a true diversity of perspectives on planning into our classrooms, in order to create an intellectual environment where diverse opinions about what planning is and should be may thrive. We especially welcome applications from racialized persons / persons of colour, women, Indigenous / Aboriginal People of North America, persons with disabilities, LGBTQ persons, and others who may contribute to the further diversification of ideas.

We aim to:

  • Emphasize issues of social justice, racism and environmental sustainability across all specializations of planning.

  • Bridge the imagined gap between theory and practice.

  • Advocate an interdisciplinary, critical and engaged approach to planning.

  • Attract a varied, representative, experienced, creative and critical student body every year.