Qualifying Exam

To qualify to continue in the PhD program, all students will be expected to write a proposal for their pre-qualification research by the end of the Autumn quarter in their second year. All students will also be expected to produce a “culminating product” that is a short summary of the student’s research and a presentation to their committee. The submission of the research summary and presenting and successfully completing an oral qualifying exam, typically taken during the spring quarter of the student’s second year, with the student’s MS committee, The Qualifying Exam is facilitated by one additional department faculty member appointed by the department chair and Graduate Program Coordinator (GPC), and qualifies students to continue in the PhD program.

Students may opt to take the qualifying exam earlier if they enter the program with an MS degree already. It is also possible that students may want to receive a thesis-based MS at some point after taking the qualifying exam. In this case, students can submit an MS thesis to the UW Graduate School. Note that under UW rules, material submitted as an MS thesis cannot be reused in a PhD thesis. (See the following link about policy 1.1.4.5 in the first paragraph for reference: https://grad.uw.edu/policies/1-1-graduate-degree-requirements/.)

Please see the Qualifying Exam Checklist for details.