How to: Qualifying Exam

(PhD Milestones: Qualifying Exam)

  • Reach out to potential qualifying exam committee members ~3 months in advance with a tentative date, or at least a range of dates so that you can start coordinating exactly when everyone will be available. You will need 2 additional committee members in addition to your advisor.
    • Pick a date for the “oral exam” where you will meet with your exam committee.
    • The “written exam” portion will be a set of questions/writing prompts from your committee members, provided to you several days before the date of the oral exam. Make sure that when you schedule the exam, you take into account that you will want to have a few days before the oral exam set aside to spend your time working on the written component. (For example, if your oral exam is scheduled for a Tuesday, you can request to have the written exam questions in hand by Friday, giving you Saturday, Sunday to work on them, and then submit them to the committee on Monday for them to review.)
    • When you have scheduled a date for your exam, make sure to establish what day you want to receive the written questions, and when they will be turned in to the committee to review before the oral exam.
    • Reserve a conference room! (See notes here about reserving a meeting room for exams/presentations) If you'll be meeting in-person (rather than over Zoom), make sure you reserve a meeting room well in advance (especially if you might be competing with students looking for study space during midterms or finals). Make sure the room has a whiteboard and markers or chalkboard and chalk (typically they will ask you to draw conceptual diagrams, or explain equations). Ask your advisor if there's a room they'd prefer, try to pick a place that's convenient for everyone if folks are coming from all different places across campus. (Call or visit the CEE front office to reserve a room in the CEE buildings. Another option are library meeting/study rooms, or the research commons)
  • Send the details of your qualifying exam date/time and committee members to CEE graduate advising: ceginfo@uw.edu
  • Contact your committee members ~2-3 weeks before the exam to remind them of the date you are expecting their written questions, and the date/time of the oral exam.
    • At this time (or even earlier) provide your committee with a list of relevant classes you've taken, a CV or list of publications (if any), and a brief (~1 paragraph) description of your research interests and plans. (They will probably be coming up with questions in the last couple days before the exam and will want this information about you and your interests to reference. Contact them again the week before or week of if you need to send another reminder.)
  • The written exam:
    • Receive the written exam questions and get to work! (typically they'll email you a document with their questions or writing prompts) The goal of these questions is supposed to be gauging how you approach technical problems, assess some of your knowledge, and make you think about aspects of your area of research you may not have thought about before. For any technical questions, be thorough in your answers by explaining your thought process, possible assumptions you have to make, and sources of information you're referencing to help you answer (remember, this is open-book). For writing tasks, reference the literature your committee might suggest you take a look at (or even ask for suggestions if you don't know where to start).
    • Submit your answers on time! (email all your committee members the answers to all your questions so that they can review the answers to other committee members questions too if they want) Return your answers/solutions to the committee's questions on time, even if you haven't quite finished everything (just make sure to explain in your answer if you're missing anything, and perhaps the steps you would have taken to complete anything that isn't complete). Also its a good idea to remind the committee of the meeting room place/time for the oral component of the exam.
  • Take a break, get some rest. Great work! You've gotten through the lengthiest part of the qualifying exam! The committee should be spending some time reviewing your answers before the day of the oral component of the exam.
  • The oral exam:
    • What to bring with you to the oral exam:
      • Copies of the written questions and your answers for the committee members in case they didn't bring their own copy. (they really should bring their own copy, but just in case)
      • Copies of your class list/CV/research statement (the same thing you'd emailed them when scheduling the exam) in case they want to see those things. (again, they should have those if they're prepared, but just in case)
      • Markers/chalk/eraser for whiteboard/chalkboard (make sure ahead of time that the room has these materials. You may need to ask the CEE front office or someone at the Library for access to these if they're not already available in the room). Also bring pencil/paper too.
    • During the exam, introduce yourself and give a brief overview of your research interests that you'd provided the committee with. You'll likely then be asked to explain your written exam problems, asked followup questions about those problems, and then more general questions about your planned research topic.
    • At the end of the exam the committee will ask you to leave the room so that they can discuss in private and decide if you've passed. They'll invite you back in and give some feedback, suggestions about areas to study/read about more.
  • After passing the exam, your advisor will then submit a form to the CEE advising office notifying them that you've passed.
  • If they decide that you did not pass the exam, I would have serious concerns about why your advisor and committee had you go through the qualifying exam process. By the time you are ready to take the qualifying exam, I would hope that your advisor and committee would already have a very good idea of your skills and preparedness for continuing to work on your PhD (and therefore have already decided that you can no doubt pass this exam). If your advisor and committee genuinely do not think you are prepared to pursue a PhD, I would hope that they do not make you go through the qualifying exam until they feel that you're prepared. If they have you take the exam and decide that you did not pass, this reflects poorly on the mentorship you've received, not on you.