Written Component
The purpose of this component is to assure that all students admitted to candidacy in the Department have a certain core competency necessary for success in a physics career.
The core courses are defined as Classical Mechanics (601), Mathematical Methods of Physics (605), Electrodynamics (606), Quantum I (614), Quantum II (615), and Statistical Physics (602). Students must demonstrate competency in the core courses.
Starting in spring of 2023, and with permission of the Research Advisor and the Graduate Program Director, students are allowed to replace a 6NN core course with a research course for the purpose of written qualification. In this case, the core course that is replaced is waived altogether and excluded from the qualifying process. The intent of this option is to allow students to take at least one advanced course needed for their research before their third semester. You must have prior permission of your Research Advisor and the Graduate Program Director to exercise this option.
The resulting set of 6 courses define the “qualifying coursework.”
To qualify in coursework, a student must achieve the following:
- Pass Mathematical Physics (605) with a B- or better, assuming it is among the qualifying courses.
- Of the remaining qualifying courses, all but one must receive a B or better for qualification.
- The sixth course must be passed with a B- or better.
In other words, a student with a B- in 605 and one other qualifying course would still qualify in coursework, so long as all other courses received a grade of B or better. Core courses that have been waived are treated as if they received a B or better for the purpose of qualifying.
In rare cases, a student may request a qualifying exam if they fail to pass a course. Qualifiers will only be offered to students who have taken a course and failed to receive a B or better. Because they are optional, students must request a qualifying exam as soon as possible after receiving a low grade in a qualifying course. A request for an exam is also a commitment to take the exam: pulling out of this commitment is strongly discouraged and will result in denial of additional qual requests.
Qualifying exams, if offered, take place shortly before the start of the corresponding core course. A passing grade on the qualifier is 55% or better. Passing the qualifier is equivalent to passing the course with a B or better.
Wherever possible, qualifying exams are graded double-blind, meaning that faculty do not know whose paper they are grading, and students do not know by whom their exams were graded. All problems have at least two graders for quality control.
While the following is subject to change, qualifying exams are currently four hours long and comprised of three problems. They are closed book with no notes permitted. There is a 15-minute period before the exam when students may look over the problems but not write. Each of the problems has equal weight, but the weight of questions within each problem is not fixed and is determined on a case-by-case basis.
In rare cases, and under exceptional circumstances, the department may opt to offer a student a "Q exam." The goal of the Q exam is to help a student advance to candidacy when their course or final grades are close, but not quite sufficient to merit qualification. In this case, the Graduate Curriculum Committee (GCC) will pose a question or questions to aid in focusing the student on their perceived areas of weakness. The student will prepare solutions to these problem and then be questioned on them, and related topics, at the Q exam.
Complete details of the coursework/written component of the quals, including the Q exam, can be found in the Physics Graduate Program Handbook.
A note about the role of the Graduate Curriculum Committee (GCC)
The GCC consists of faculty teaching graduate courses, plus the Graduate Program Director. They have primary responsibility for both the graduate curriculum and the qualification procedure. Their responsibilities include the following:
- Providing guidelines for the core graduate courses. This includes creation of a list of required topics to be covered in each course and ensuring that the guidelines are followed.
- Writing and administering mid-semester and end-of-semester student surveys for the core courses. The surveys will ask questions about coverage of material specific to the course and student understanding. The data are collected and reviewed by the GCC.
- Preparing and grading qualifying exams as needed.
- Recommending to the full faculty a pass/fail decision for each student for the coursework quals.
- In rare cases, administering the Q exam as described in the Physics Graduate Program Handbook.
Impact on Financial Support
Failure to pass the written component of the Qualifying Procedure prior to the end of the fifth semester in the program will result in removal from the Physics doctoral program, but usually allowing one term to complete an MS degree, if necessary. Financial assistance cannot be guaranteed during any additional semester used to complete an MS degree.
Oral Component
NOTE this policy has changed as of 10/28/2024
The purpose of this component is to help students transition from formal coursework to engagement in research, and to develop specific skills necessary for success in research.
Deadline for passing the oral quals
Starting with students who entered in the Fall of 2024 or later, the oral quals must be passed no later than the end of the semester following the completion of the coursework quals. For most students, this will be the fourth semester in the program. For students who arrived with full core course waivers, the oral quals must be completed by the end of their second semester in the program. Students who do not pass the oral quals on time will not advance to candidacy and, unless an extension is granted, may be asked to leave the program. Starting in the spring of 2025, extensions will only be considered if the GCC finds there were extenuating circumstances.
Advancement to candidacy is by vote of the full faculty. That vote will take place, at latest, at the beginning of the semester after the oral quals should have been administered. For students who have passed their oral and written quals, this vote will be pro forma (in other words, if you have passed both parts of the quals, you will necessarily advance to candidacy).
The old rule applies to students who entered the program in 2022 or 2023, which required oral quals before the end of the 5th semester. However, starting in Spring of 2025, extensions will no longer be granted except for extenuating circumstances
The instructions for completing the oral quals are as follows:
- Choose a Chair. Before the first day of the semester in which you are required to pass the oral quals, students shall choose a faculty member to serve as Chair of their Research Qual Committee. Except in rare cases, this should be the same faculty member who serves as the Dissertation Committee Chair. Identifying an appropriate chair is the responsibility of the student. The chair will select one other faculty member to serve on the Research Qual Committee. The name of the chair will be communicated to the Graduate Program Director no later than the add drop deadline of the semester in which the oral quals is required. If a student has difficulty identifying a chair, they must speak with the Graduate Program Director by the end of the first day of the semester.
- Propose a topic for a presentation. The student shall identify in consultation with the Chair, a research topic that is related to the anticipated subfield. They shall consult with the Chair of their Research Qual Committee to ensure that the topic is reasonable and the proposed presentation is of a nature and scope appropriate to a research-style seminar. It should be su1iciently broad to provide context and help the student develop familiarity with their anticipated subfield, and sufficiently narrow to give depth and focus to the presentation.
- Schedule a presentation. The presentation is expected to reflect careful study of a current topic and to demonstrate that the student has understood both the important physical concepts, and the larger scientific context of the topic under investigation. A key element is the requirement that the student consult multiple research papers to put together a cohesive discussion of contemporary work or an open problem in physics. In other words, summarizing a textbook discussion is inappropriate, as is simply giving a summary of research that the student has already completed.
- A list of references used in the study must be provided to the Research Qual Committee.
- The length of the presentation should be 30-45 minutes, and students should expect additional time devoted to discussion with the committee.
- Following the presentation, the Chair of the student’s Research Qual Committee will send a completed Research/Oral Qualifying Exam Checklist to the Graduate Program Director. If the presentation is deemed inadequate, the committee may ask the student to perform additional work, such as preparation of a short document or a second presentation, which must be completed by the end of the semester. For this reason, it is important to schedule your exam mid-semester, and not near the end of the semester.
Note that the role of the Research Qual Chair is not to supervise the study, but to be a source of advice and help.
If a student is making good progress and already has a dissertation committee assembled and prospectus written at the start of the semester in which the oral quals is required, then the student may use the Prospectus to complete the oral quals requirement, if they can do so by the oral quals deadline. If a student wants to do this, they must inform the GPD in the first week of the semester in which their Oral Quals is due, and their research advisor must also consent. For more information about the Prospectus see Sec. II.9. Note that the oral quals is a relatively simple assignment; the Prospectus is considerably more work.
Students are reminded that completing these milestones in a timely fashion is necessary to remain in good standing, and extensions will only be granted in extenuating circumstances. It is their responsibility to schedule and prepare the oral quals in time to satisfy department guidelines.