Official rounds
Pick your intake
Planning tool only. Dates are official as of 21 September 2026 and labelled tentative. Confirm on the Admission Timeline.
Spring 2027 Ph.D. closes 27 September 2026
Ph.D. only. M.S. and M.S./Ph.D. cannot use Spring. Today is 21 September 2026 — the close is six days away on the official calendar.
Official page heading as of 21 September 2026: “Applications for Spring 2027 entry are now open.”
| Activity | Official date |
|---|---|
| Round 1 application deadline | 27 September 2026 |
| Round 1 decisions released | 8 November 2026 |
| Spring semester starts | 17 January 2027 |
Onboarding for Spring-entry students typically begins in November. International visa and attestation work can take 8–12 weeks — that clock starts after the offer.
Opens 28 September 2026
Fall 2027 — M.S., M.S./Ph.D., and Ph.D.
Main cycle. Official close 3 January 2027. This is a planning tool, not an official KAUST decision.
Official Study page lists Fall 2027 for every M.S. still open.
| Activity | Official date |
|---|---|
| Round 2 application open | 28 September 2026 |
| Round 2 application deadline | 3 January 2027 |
| Round 2 decisions released | 14 February 2027 |
| Fall semester starts | 29 August 2027 |
Fall onboarding typically begins in May. Degree attestation can take up to 60 days. Do not treat 3 January as a night-before deadline if your referees need the extra seven calendar days KAUST asks for after the close.
Working rules
What the dates do not say out loud
- Tentative. Official copy: dates may change with application volume. Recheck the timeline the week you submit.
- No rolling “we’ll tell you when.” There is no published decision-release schedule beyond the round dates. FAQs say they release as soon as a final decision is made and try to be timely. Wait until the published notification date before emailing.
- References after the deadline. Letters are expected within seven calendar days of the deadline. Enter referees early — requests fire immediately.
- One shot per year. One application at a time, one programme per year. A Spring Ph.D. denial does not unlock a second Fall application in the same cycle.
- Offer clock. Accepted applicants get a limited time to confirm. Miss it and the offer may be withdrawn.
- Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Official Study table marked this M.S. as “Applications Closed” when checked on 21 September 2026. Do not assume every row on a blog list is still open.
Source
Primary: https://admissions.kaust.edu.sa/how-to-apply/admission-timelines. The path /admission-timeline (singular) returned 404 on the day this page was written. Programme-level intake notes: Study.
Last updated 21 Sep 2026. If the official timeline later diverges from this page, trust KAUST.