Section 9: PhD Candidacy Examination: Overview, Committee, and Process

9.1 Candidacy Overview

Qualifying conditions and the candidacy examination, written and oral portions, must be passed prior to the student's admission to candidacy for the PhD degree (i.e., the part of the program dealing mainly with research and dissertation progress). The purpose of the Candidacy Examination is to assess the student’s knowledge base and thinking ability to make a determination of their suitability to continue towards independent research and a doctoral degree. The sequence and timing of the examination is at the discretion of the student's research advisor after all courses on the approved program of study have been taken. Exceptions typically can be made for required credit hours for seminar.

With advisor approval, requests to take the exam concurrent with a final course can be made to the BMEGSC. Students who pass candidacy should have no more classes to take, and are expected to register for no more than 3 credits per term unless approved by the student’s GRA or GTA supervisor or funding source.

A student must be registered for at least 3 credit hours in each term in which any part of the candidacy examination is taken. A unanimous vote of the committee members is required for the student to pass the exam. The student is admitted to candidacy at the end of the term in which the Candidacy Examination is passed. The examination can be taken only twice and the second time, only on recommendation of the Candidacy Examination Committee. For complete details, see the GSH.

9.2 Composition of the Candidacy Examination Committee

The candidacy examination committee will consist of at least 4 graduate faculty members, including at least one core BME departmental faculty member, and will be chaired by the research advisor, who must have level-P graduate faculty status in BME. The composition of the committee must be approved by the BMEGSC when the completed PhD program of study is submitted. Faculty signatures imply both approval of the program and membership on the student’s candidacy committee. The approved program and committee must be on file with the Graduate Studies Office before the end of the second Autumn semester (or the student’s third term of enrollment). Approval of the candidacy committee must be requested in the cover letter attached to the proposed program of study. Students should be sure to work closely with their candidacy committee to ensure satisfactory and efficient progress and preparation toward the dissertation topic.

9.3 Identifying Candidacy Committee Members

The student and research advisor are responsible for identifying faculty in areas related to the student’s program of study and research. The additional committee members must have M or P graduate faculty status. Questions about graduate faculty status may be directed to the Graduate Studies Coordinator. The student is responsible for carefully screening and asking faculty to serve on their committee and for obtaining their approvals to serve via the program of study.

Q: Can external non-voting members serve on the candidacy examination committee?

With BMEGSC permission, a petition can be made to the Graduate School to include additional members. In some cases, it may work well to add unofficial non-voting members to the dissertation committee instead. Clinical faculty and external researchers commonly serve on dissertation committees. See GSH for petition details.

9.4 Qualifying Conditions for Candidacy: Courses, Fundamental GPA, and Proposal

The purpose of qualifying conditions is to determine if a student’s academic record is strong enough to indicate a good chance of success towards a doctoral degree. Prior to taking the Candidacy Examination a student must:

1. Satisfactorily complete the approved program of study. (The BMEGSC will consider requests for students to take the exam prior to completing their entire course of study in unusual circumstances.)
2. Attain a GPA of ≥3.35 in the four courses used to satisfy the four BME fundamental graduate course requirements.
   1. Students achieving an average GPA between 3.00 and 3.35 on the four BME fundamental courses may petition the BMEGSC for permission to take a 5^th required BME fundamental course – selected with the help of their advisor – and have their average recomputed after dropping the lowest grade.
   2. Students achieving less than a 3.00 in the four required BME fundamental courses (or less than 3.35 after the recomputation above) will be allowed to continue towards an MS degree but will not be allowed to sit for their candidacy examination.
3. The student will prepare a research proposal in their chosen domain(s) which will include a clearly stated goal: either an original (i.e., distinct from the advisor’s current research) Hypothesis, or a Technology Development objective; Specific Aims; a review and analysis of the relevant literature; a series of proposed experiments; and a discussion of the data to be collected and the means by which it will be analyzed.

Adherence to a standard grant format (e.g., NIH R-21 or NSF format) as selected by the Candidacy Examination committee is suggested. The candidate will provide the proposal to his/her research advisor at least three full weeks prior to the oral portion of the candidacy exam. The advisor or student is responsible for distributing the proposal to the candidacy examination committee, who will evaluate the quality of the proposal and determine if the student has satisfactorily completed this condition.

9.5 Written Candidacy Examination

The written portion of the exam will consist of one question from each of the candidacy committee members, sent to the research advisor. The student’s research advisor is responsible for overseeing and coordinating the exam, and must make sure the student has no less than one full week to complete all parts of the written exam, not including holidays. Each candidacy examination committee member will provide one question to the advisor that may be directly based on the research proposal (i.e. typical review-type question) or may be based on the research area described by the candidate. Questions also may be based on coursework and/or ask for a critical review of the literature in a certain area. Each question may include multiple parts. The student is required to submit all written responses to both the committee member and the research advisor in the time period set by the advisor.

The entire written exam may be taken over an extended period of time, not to exceed one month. It is not uncommon for written exams to be completed over the course of 7 to 10 days. The oral portion should take place no later than one month past the date of the last written exam, but no sooner than one week after the date of the last written exam. The advisor is responsible for communicating with the committee about BME procedures and policies. This is especially important when the committee is composed of faculty outside of BME who will require guidance on what to expect.

9.6 Oral Candidacy Examination

The student may give a brief presentation of their pre-candidacy/qualifying research proposal before the oral examination begins. This typically lasts between 15-20 minutes. Immediately following, the committee will examine the student on the proposal and his/her understanding of the engineering and life science disciplines underlying the proposed research. The GSH states that the oral examination should last no more than two hours, with at least one hour devoted to questioning of the student and that questioning of the student should occupy the entire period of the examination. In BME, oral exams tend to run closer to two full hours, with additional time allotted for the pre-examination presentation. Students should be prepared for oral questions that examine (but are not limited to):

• general knowledge and reasoning skills in the area of biomedical engineering (especially in the domains of their coursework and in the area of their undergraduate background), and topics raised in the written portion of the candidacy exam
• the fitness of the student to formulate and address a research problem including knowledge of background materials, current literature, experimental design, methods, alternative techniques, statistical analysis, likely outcomes, etc.

See Section 7.3 – 7.7 of the GSH for complete candidacy policies.

9.7 Candidacy Results

At the conclusion of the oral portion, the committee determines pass or fail of the entire Candidacy Examination, based on both the written and oral performance. Attendance at the oral portion of the exam is limited to the student and the members of the Examination Committee. Successful completion of the Candidacy Examination requires a unanimously affirmative decision of the Committee. If the examination is not passed, a supplemental examination may be taken with the permission of the Candidacy Committee and in accordance with Graduate School policies. See Section 7.6 of the GSH for more information.

9.8 Candidacy Processes

It is the student's responsibility, with the approval of the advisor, to contact all examiners on the candidacy committee and schedule the candidacy examination. When the date and time for the oral examination are arranged, students may schedule a room for a 2-hour block of time in BME or elsewhere on campus if it is more convenient for the committee. (Under normal circumstances, a teleconferenced exam would require a petition; due to COVID 19, all exams are currently required to be teleconferenced via Zoom so no petitions are needed unless for external members.)

An Application for Candidacy form should be submitted by the student (approved by the advisor) to the Graduate School via gradforms.osu.edu when starting the written examination, but must be submitted at least two full weeks before the date of the oral examination. The location (or indication of teleconference via Zoom) and 2-hour time block must be listed on the form.

Once the oral examination is complete, the candidacy committee will complete the Candidacy Examination Report via gradforms.osu.edu. Links will be sent to their osu.edu email addresses for this purpose. Candidacy status established in one doctoral program or at another institution is not transferable to another doctoral program.

Q: Are there deadlines for candidacy like there are for defenses?

With two-week notice, you may take the candidacy exam up until the day before the start of the next semester (i.e., the published end-of-semester deadline) and candidacy exams may span one to the next semester. You will be considered a post-candidate the semester immediately following passage of the oral exam.

Q: How long after passing candidacy should I defend my dissertation?

It is up to your advisor and dissertation committee; however, it must be no longer than 5 years after passing the candidacy exam. If the dissertation is not completed in that time, candidacy will be cancelled and a supplementary candidacy exam will be required.

Q: I am a new student with transfer credits. Can I take candidacy right away?

No, you will need to complete the BME program of study which will allow you to use up to 30 transfer credits but will require you to take at least some required “fundamental” BME courses here, as a qualifying condition. In order to graduate with a PhD you will need 80 credit hours total, or 50 post-master’s hours, at least 24 of which must be taken here. Many of the 24 credits may be taken post-candidacy as research.

Q: My research advisor is new, from a home unit outside of BME. Who can they contact for guidance on running their first BME candidacy exam?

Advisors with questions about coordinating the written and oral exams are welcome to contact the Graduate Studies Chair, Jun Liu at liu.314@osu.edu; a BME colleague; or the student’s core faculty advisor.

9.9 Post-Candidacy and Continuous Enrollment

All students who successfully complete the doctoral candidacy examination will be required to be enrolled in every term of their candidacy (summer excluded) until graduation. Students must be enrolled for at least 3 credits per semester. More than 3 credits may be taken, only with written permission of the research supervisor and funding source. It ultimately will be the responsibility of each student to ensure that they are meeting the enrollment provisions of the continuous enrollment policy. For more information, review the GSH. Before registering for the next term, students should complete the BME assessment post-candidacy survey and remind their Candidacy Committee members to do the same. (Contact the graduate studies coordinator for the survey at senitko.1@osu.edu.)

9.10 Obtaining the Master’s Degree as a Result of Passing Candidacy

Students who pass candidacy may earn an MS credential en route to completing the doctoral degree by completing an Application to Graduate with an MS on gradforms.osu.edu in any semester after candidacy has been passed. There it is indicated that the student is continuing on for a PhD and is earning the Master’s as a result of passing the candidacy examination, and will be approved by the student’s advisor and BMEGSC Chair.