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Graduate Student Requirements

2.6 The Qualifying Examination

Purpose. The purpose of the Qualifying Examination is to assess the student's preparedness to write a dissertation on the topic he or she has chosen. Additionally, the Qualifying Examination is intended to help the student in defining the direction, scope, and organization of the dissertation.

Scheduling. The Qualifying Examination must be successfully completed no later than the second week of the eleventh quarter of full-time graduate study (not including Summer Quarters),typically the Winter Quarter of the student's fourth year. The examination may be repeated if taken unsuccessfully, as described below, but students should note the time constraints on the awarding of financial aid and on the completion of degree requirements: see the Graduate School Handbook (Section 9-10-1).

The Qualifying Examination Committee. After passing the Candidacy Examination, the student will submit his or her choice of a dissertation Advisor to the Graduate Committee for approval. If the Graduate Committee approves, and the faculty member chosen as an Advisor by the student agrees as well, that faculty member will be the student's Advisor of record (see sec.1.4 above). If the Graduate Committee does not agree with the student's choice of Advisor, the Committee will convey this information to the student and ask the student to submit another choice of Advisor. The Advisor will also help the student in preparation for the Qualifying Examination. The other two members of a student's Qualifying Examination Committee and Dissertation Committee (if the Dissertation Committee members are different from those who serve on the Qualifying Examination, as sometimes happens) are also to be approved by the Graduate Committee and must agree to serve.

Structure and Procedure. The Qualifying Examination will consist in a written part and an oral part. The written part will consist of the student's dissertation prospectus and a substantive paper on the subject of the dissertation (perhaps a chapter of the dissertation).

  1. The prospectus is to include a chapter-by-chapter outline of the dissertation. The prospectus is supposed to give to the committee members a good idea of how the student intends to put the whole dissertation together. It is therefore best that the prospectus include an outline of each chapter in as much detail as the student can provide.
  2. The prospectus also includes a detailed bibliography of material relevant to the dissertation topic and upon which the student's knowledge of the field is based. This is typically more tightly focused and extensive than the Bibliography prepared for the Candidacy Examination (see sec.2.5 above).
  3. The substantive paper submitted for the Qualifying Examination should not be a mere introduction to the dissertation, nor a mere summary and exposition of some main ideas to be discussed in later parts of the dissertation. One or two ideas that are central to the dissertation should be developed at some length.
  4. The oral part of the Qualifying Examination is based upon the student's written work, and will include an examination of the student's knowledge of the specialized field of the proposed dissertation. More generally, the examination is also testing the student's knowledge of the broader field of philosophy of which the dissertation topic is a part.
  5. The oral part of the Qualifying Examination is a closed examination, i.e. other students and faculty not on the Qualifying Examination committee are not to attend the examination.
  6. Passing the Qualifying Examination requires a unanimous vote of the committee members.
  7. Student who fails the Qualifying Examination is entitled to repeat the Qualifying Examination once without petitioning the Graduate Committee. Students have up to one year from the time of their first failure to repeat a Qualifying Examination.

The student is responsible for submitting the appropriate Departmental form to schedule a Qualifying Examination, which must be signed by the Director of Graduate Studies, the Department Chair, and the student's Advisor. The form must be returned to the Director of Graduate Studies at least two weeks before the Qualifying Examination is to be held. When the examination is scheduled, the student's Advisor should obtain the Departmental form for recording the results of the Qualifying Examination. That form is to be completed and returned to the Director of Graduate Studies at the completion of the examination.

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