PhD students will be required to take a preliminary exam on the core courses in the second year of their program. This exam will cover material in the three Business and Technology core courses. Questions will be written by faculty teaching these courses. Each prelim question will be evaluated by the question writer and two other faculty members. The grading process will be blind—the answer sheets will be given a code and the graders will not know the identity of the authors. This will however be a problem if only one student appears for the prelim exam.

Each faculty grading a question will assign one of four grades: High pass, Pass, Low Pass, or Fail. The grades of a student are compiled across all questions and presented to the POS committee of the student in a blind fashion.

A similar procedure is adopted for prelim exams in the major area. The student will be expected to take the major prelim in the Fall semester of the third year.

If a student gets a Low Pass or Fail grade across questions, the remedial process will be decided by the POS Committee, in consultation with the PhD Program Director. The remedial action may involve re-writing some questions, taking the prelims a second time, or dismissal from the program.

Upon successful completion of the preliminary exams and successful defense of the dissertation proposal; the student is formally admitted to candidacy for the Ph.D. degree.

<< Summary of Courses | Dissertation >>

Spotlight

“The PhD culture is different. I believe that when a PhD student walks in the door, we have to treat that person as a colleague rather than as a student. We want students to believe that they are the engine behind the growth of the program.”

Sridhar Ramaswami
Ph.D. Director, College of Business

Sridhar Ramaswami, Ph.D.
(515) 294-5341
sramaswa@iastate.edu
3216 Gerdin Business Building
Ames, IA 50011