Qualifying Exam for Ph.D. candidacy (2003 and later)
The Department of Molecular Pharmaceutics administers two major exams required of all Ph.D. students, the Comprehensive Exam and the Qualifying Exam.
Students will be evaluated for their written performance and demonstrated advanced proficiency on questions relating to relevant topics in the field and core course content. For details on the Comprehensive Exam please refer to this page.
TO SCHEDULE YOUR QUALIFYING EXAM, PLEASE COMPLETE THIS FORM.
To advance to Ph.D. candidacy, all students must pass a qualifying examination that consists of both an original written research proposal and an oral examination by their supervisory committee. This must be completed within one year of passing the comprehensive exam. This deadline is generally not flexible but can be changed under extenuating circumstances with Department chair’s approval. Circumstances including a sudden radical change of research support or project theme could justify such a change. The student should consult first with their research advisor to confirm a suitable topic for their research proposal. The research proposal topic may be based on either (1) their own research but with new aims not proposed by or originating from their advisor (see below), or (2) new original pharmaceutically relevant research (not previously submitted for funding by anyone) that falls within the broad categories listed above (under comprehensive exam topics, see Section VII.B.).
The written research proposal will be evaluated for content, significance, accuracy, technical proficiency, and maturity by a qualifying exam committee comprising four faculty from the student’s supervisory committee, but not the student’s research advisor. The supervisory committee shall select one of these four as the chair of the qualifying exam committee at the time of the oral examination. Committee member substitutions are allowed at the discretion of the department chair.
The student’s research proposal should follow the NIH's current format for submitting an F31 grant application (See this link for F31 fellowship application instructions.).
You will need the following forms for your Written Research Proposal: RESEARCH & RELATED Senior/Key Person Profile, RESEARCH & RELATED Other Project Information, and the Fellowship Supplemental Form. You will fill in portions of each form and provide PDFs of additional documents. Each form and document should be combined into one PDF in the following order:
RESEARCH & RELATED Senior/Key Person Profile
Fill in your information as the Project Director/Principal Investigator.
Fill in your mentor's information as the Senior/Key Person.
Provide biosketches (following the NIH non-fellowship biosketch template) for yourself and your advisor(s).
RESEARCH & RELATED Other Project Information
Fill in questions 1 and 2. If you have human or animal subjects this should be explained in your Project Narrative.
Skip questions 3 – 6
Include PDFs for 7 – 9 (Project Summary/Abstract, Project Narrative, and Bibliography & References Cited)
Skip 10 – 12
Skip 1
For 2, include a PDF narrative about your background and goals
Include PDFs for 3 – 4 (Specific Aims and Research Strategy)
Skip 5 – 12
Fill in 13 – 14 if needed
Skip pages 2 – 3
Importantly, all students must receive pre-approval from their supervisory committee for all aims and their working hypothesis in the written proposal before proceeding to independently write their research proposal. Student-drafted aims and hypothesis (one page maximum, NIH format) must be submitted to their committee at least 10 days prior to a scheduled supervisory committee meeting seeking full committee approval to proceed to writing the proposal. The student must attempt to convene the entire committee for consensus and recommendations on hypothesis and aims for approval before writing their own original research proposal.
Any data or text material taken from another existing proposal or any other source must be clearly cited as such to avoid plagiarism issues. Proposals should be written for a 3-year timeline with the student as principal investigator (PI). The student’s advisor (or other committee members) may read the written proposal and provide limited and general recommendations and feedback once without explicitly altering or substantially re-writing the proposal for the student. However, the student must develop the entire proposal on their own without appropriating substantially from an existing proposal, as well as their original technical aims (as stated above) or the original research (as stated above on his/her own). Philosophically, the entire proposal should represent the student’s own original writing, technical analysis and ideas, not that of a faculty mentor. Copying text or materials from other proposals without formal citation or attribution is considered plagiarism and punishable under University guidelines.
The complete written research proposal is assembled according to the order listed above as a single .pdf file. This research proposal in electronic (single .pdf file) and (optional, by faculty agreement only) hard copy (printed) format should be distributed to the supervisory committee members at least two weeks before the scheduled oral exam meeting.
The student must orally defend their research proposal within a year from the date that the student was informed of his/her comprehensive exam grade. In the case of a conditional comprehensive exam pass, the oral exam deadline will not be extended to one year beyond the time required to comply with the comprehensive exam conditions. Students who do not comply with the deadline will have only one chance to pass their exam. The student should arrange a mutually acceptable oral exam date for the oral proposal defense with their committee and then schedule it through the department staff seminar coordinator. Additionally, an announcement of the oral exam should be posted to the department’s electronic seminar website and e-mailing list at least one week before the proposal defense. Please contact the department’s Graduate Program Coordinator about preparing this announcement with these timelines.
On the day of the oral proposal defense, the student will first provide a detailed oral technical presentation (approximately 45 minutes in duration) of the proposal. This presentation is open to the public. Following the presentation, the exam committee conducts the oral examination in a closed session with the student. Each committee member will question the student about the proposal and/or other scientific concepts and topics related to the broad categories listed above. The student’s research advisor may observe the closed portion of the oral examination, but may not actively participate. The research advisor may not ask questions during the closed session. There is no strict time limit on the exam, but a duration of 90 minutes in the closed session is often appropriate. Immediately after the oral examination, the committee will meet and evaluate the student’s performance. Three outcomes are possible – pass, conditional pass and fail. These outcomes are described below. The student must provide the official Department form (Supervisory Committee Report on the Ph.D. Qualifying Exam) to the committee to report the outcome of the qualifying examination. The chair of the qualifying examination committee will write a letter summarizing the consensus of the committee’s critique and informing the student of the outcome, and what revisions (if any) are required for any conditional pass. No critique from the research advisor may be included in this letter. This letter will also document specific reasons for a conditional pass or failure. The letter will be sent within one week of the examination to the student, advisor and department chair, and be filed in the student’s official dossier.
Students who receive a pass will advance to Ph.D. candidacy. No further work will be required – the student has completed the exam in full. The committee must unanimously agree upon a pass.
Students judged to be deficient in certain areas of the proposal and/or the oral examination committee will receive a conditional pass and will have 4 weeks from the date of issue of their committee’s proposal defense evaluation letter to correct deficiencies in the proposal and/or fulfill other requirements as stipulated by the committee. Students may solicit feedback from their committee members and advisor while revising their proposal. The revised proposal should include an introduction section that details specific changes made in the revised proposal (see https://grants.nih.gov/grants/policy/amendedapps.htm for detailed instructions). The revised proposal should be submitted to both committee members and the department office on or before the 4-week deadline. This submission will be final (i.e., subsequent revisions will not be considered). Committee members will then have 3 weeks to review and judge the revised proposal. Un-reviewed proposals will automatically receive a pass. The final decision (pass or fail) will be decided by a majority of the committee. In case of a split vote, the committee chair will make the final decision. In the event of failure, or if the student’s 4-week resubmission deadline is missed, the student will have one more opportunity to retake the exam.
Students who fail the qualifying exam will be required to submit and defend a new research proposal. The second submission will be final. The due date of the second submission is at the discretion of the committee, but no longer than 6 months from the date of the original proposal examination date