PhD Qualifying Oral Examination

A student is expected to take and pass the PhD qualifying examination during the first year of post-master's study. The passing of this exam qualifies the student as a PhD candidate. (a pdf version of this document is available.)

Purpose of the Exam

The PhD qualification exam has several goals.

To motivate students to review and synthesize course work and research material
To determine the student's ability to understand and apply fundamental concepts
To develop and test the student's ability to communicate orally and to respond to questions and comments
To evaluate the student's potential to pursue doctoral research
To identify areas that need to be strengthened for the student to be successful as a PhD student, independent scholar, and teacher.
To provide a mechanism for a range of faculty to come to know the student's capabilities.

Procedure for the Exam

The procedure for the exam consists of six steps.

An Academic Council Member from the Department of Bioengineering must be willing to supervise the student's PhD program and dissertation. The decision by the faculty member to supervise the student's program and dissertation is based on the potential of the student to become an independent scholar, and is based on many factors, such as the student's undergraduate and graduate course record, graduate record exam scores, and research, teaching and professional experience. The most important factor is the direct knowledge the faculty sponsor has obtained of the student's capabilities (e.g., as acquired through supervising the student in a multi-quarter project course, independent study, or as Research Assistant). The student must have a graduate Stanford GPA of 3.5 to be eligible for the exam. Students are encouraged to take the exam during the academic year and to work together to prepare for the exam. Typically the exam is taken shortly after the student earns the masters degree.
Once a faculty member agrees to be the 'faculty sponsor,' the student must submit an application folder containing the items listed below (a-f) to initiate the PhD Qualification Exam. The faculty sponsor will notify the department faculty that the application has been submitted and is on file for perusal by the faculty at the Student Services Office. Normally, the application will be discussed at the next faculty meeting (but no sooner than one week). The application should contain the following:
1. Updated transcripts of all undergraduate and graduate course work
2. Curriculum vitae
3. Calculation showing the student's GPA for courses taken at Stanford.
4. Research project abstract (<300words). This abstract should be written by the student and represent the topic on which the student would lecture if asked (see below)
5. Preliminary dissertation proposal (one page)
6. Knowledge and work of the student, and/or others, should be synthesized to present a rationale for the proposed dissertation topic (e.g., theory to be developed, hypotheses to be tested) as well as proposed methodology to fulfill the dissertation objective.
7. A list of four independent areas in which the student feels he/she has depth. One of these areas must come from a fundamental engineering topic (e.g., thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, control systems, signal processing, mathematics). A second area must be from a biological or medical specialty (e.g., molecular biology, cell biology, neuromuscular physiology, cardiovascular medicine). The other two areas may come from any medical, biological, bioengineering, or other engineering topics that lead to a cohesive program of graduate study (e.g., genetics, developmental biology, biotechnology, neurology, medical imaging, computer graphics, mathematics, robotics, polymer physics). The student should discuss these areas with their advisor in the process of planning their graduate program and prior to preparation of their application folder.
The student, in absentia, will be evaluated by the faculty at one of their meetings (other faculty may be requested to be present to participate in the evaluation). The evaluation will be based on the student's potential to become an independent scholar (see #1). The faculty will determine if the student should be allowed to proceed to the next step in the PhD Qualifying Examination. If the student is not allowed to proceed, the faculty sponsor will convey to the student the reasons for the faculty's decision. Otherwise, the faculty will appoint a subcommittee consisting of three or four faculty, at least two of whom will be Academic Council Members of the Bioengineering Department.
The subcommittee is to obtain additional information regarding the student's potential to become an independent scholar. To accomplish this objective, the student will present to the subcommittee a 15-minute technical lecture on the topic contained in the abstract (see #2d). (One week prior to the lecture, the student will give each subcommittee member a one page "reminder" containing the short abstract of the lecture, and the time and place of the lecture.) This lecture, followed by a short question/answer session, will be open to all faculty and students. Afterwards, in a closed session (up to 1.5 hrs.) with the subcommittee, the student will answer additional questions regarding the topic presented at the lecture, the four areas chosen by the student (see #2f), the preliminary dissertation proposal (see #2e), or other related topics. (The two-hour time-slot and the place of the lecture and questioning will be arranged by the student and the faculty sponsor with consent of all subcommittee members.) The subcommittee will deliberate on all the information it has acquired (from the preliminary evaluation by all the faculty [see #3], and from the lecture and the question/answer session) and will decide on a recommendation of pass, conditional pass, or fail (see #5). This recommendation will be communicated to the student.
At the next meeting of the Bioengineering Department faculty, the subcommittee, after commenting on the additional information obtained at the student's technical lecture and during the closed-session question and answer period, will convey to the faculty their recommendation. The faculty, after consideration of the subcommittee's recommendation, will decide if the student has passed the PhD qualifying examination. (A majority vote of the faculty is needed to carry any recommendation). Possible outcomes are that the student:

passes unconditionally;
passes conditionally;
In this case, the faculty will outline the weaknesses and how the conditions the student could (or must) fulfill before reconsideration (e.g., specific courses must be taken with performance at a specified level; communication skills need to be improved as evidenced by ...). With the faculty sponsors' endorsement, the student will later request a change from "conditional pass" to "pass" after he/she believes that the conditions have been fulfilled. The student will outline in this request the reasons for this belief. The faculty will meet again to act on the request.
fails, with or without option to retake.

The student's sponsor will notify the student and the Student Services Office of the results of the examination.