Admissions Criteria

Doctor of Science degree program requires an appropriate earned baccalaureate degree or master's degree from a recognized institution, completed course work pertinent to the field to be studied, an acceptable professional background, and a capacity for creative scholarship. Students whose highest earned degree is a baccalaureate must present a grade-point average of at least 3.3 on a scale of 4.0 in undergraduate work. Students whose highest earned degree is a master's degree, must present a grade-point average of at least 3.5 on a scale of 4.0 in graduate work. All students are required to submit scores from the Graduate Record Examination general test, and provide two letters of recommendation.

Admissions Process

Once approved the applicant will be assigned to the appropriate advisor and an admissions letter will be prepared and sent. Within one year of acceptance, each student must have a Form 1 submitted and approved. The student!|s area of focus and field of study must be recorded on the Form 1.

Program Requirements

The program is divided into two stages. The first comprises a study of related fields of learning that support the general area of research focus and culminates in the qualifying examination. The second, composed of original research and the presentation of findings in a written dissertation, culminates in the final examination.
Students admitted to doctoral study are encouraged to undertake one year of full-time study on campus. In general, the advisor will require the student to register for a minimum of 6 credit hours of course work in every fall and spring semester.
Upon admission to the first stage of the program, the student will meet with their assigned advisor to structure their programs of study. Programs of study will include a focus area selected from table above. A minimum of 30 credit hours in a formal program at the graduate level beyond master's study or, for students without master's degrees, a minimum of 54 credit hours in a formal program at the graduate level beyond the baccalaureate, is required. In addition, all doctoral students take a minimum of 24 hours of dissertation research once they have been admitted to candidacy.
The following courses are prerequisites and are required in addition to the credit hours discussed above: Math 31, 32, and APSC 115. Students who do not have a master!|s degree will be required to take the following courses: EMSE 212, EMSE 260, EMSE 269, EMSE 283. Students with a master!|s degree may also take EMSE 212, EMSE 260, EMSE 269, EMSE 283 for doctoral credit however they are not recommended and are subject to approval by the department chair.
All doctoral students are required to take EMSE 216 and EMSE 271. It is recommended that students register for EMSE 216 in their last year of course work. In addition, students must select one quantitative method course from the following list: EMSE 208, EMSE 254, EMSE 273.
If a doctoral student receives two grades of F or three grades below B, graduate study is terminated and further enrollment prohibited. Courses in which the student earns grades below B, are not included in the total credit-hour requirement for the degree. Students who receive any grade below B, are required to review their programs of study with their advisors. Students must maintain a GPA of 3.5 in their program of study (all courses on the Form 1).

Qualifying Examination

The qualifying examination is the principal means of determining whether a student will qualify as a candidate for the doctoral degree and progress to the second stage of the program. Its purpose is to ascertain that the student's background and intellectual development are adequate to support doctoral research in the central field.

The Qualifying examination consists of 2 parts: Quantitative Methods Exam and Focus Area Exam.
The Quantitative Methods Exam will be a 3 hour written exam offered the last week in September and the last week in January. Students should apply to take this exam before the end of the preceeding Semester. This exam will consists of a 1 hour exam covering EMSE 271 and a 1 hour exam covering either EMSE 208, EMSE 254 or EMSE 273. Students should fill out the DQE checklist and either fax or mail to the department, attention Ms. Zoe Danzan.

The Focus Area Exam will be both a written and oral exam. Students will take this exam the first semester following the completion of their coursework. Students should register for EMSE 399 for the semester in which they will be taking the exam. Students will be required to complete a 10 page literature review on a topic in their focus area. They will have two weeks to complete the review. At the end of the two weeks they will be required to submit the review to a committee of three faculty members (the advisor, one faculty member appointed by the chair, and one additional faculty member). The student along with their faculty advisor will then schedule their oral exam. Oral exams will be approximately one hour long.

At the discretion of the committee a student who fails any part of the qualifying examination may be given a second opportunity to qualify for candidacy. Usually, the entire examination must be retaken.
Students who fail to qualify for candidacy in a doctoral program of the School will be considered to have failed on a school-wide basis and will not be admitted to further doctoral study within the School.

After successful completion of the DQE, the candidate's advisor will present the academic record of the candidate and request the formation of a research committee. The Department will vote on (provisional) admission to candidacy and the research committee. Once the student is admitted to candidacy for the degree; he/she begins specialized study and research under the supervision of their research committee. At this point the research committee will remain fixed unless a change is formally requested and approved.