All Ph.D. students must pass the candidacy exam by the end of their sixth academic semester in the program to remain in good standing. By this time, students should have a research advisor. Core classes do not have to be complete before the candidacy exam. Continue reading for more information about the candidacy examination process.
For faculty: Templates and forms are available on the Candidacy and Defense Information for Faculty page. You are responsible for collecting signatures on appropriate forms and memos, and submitting them via the appropriate channels.
Purpose and Scope
The candidacy exam consists of a presentation to the members of the student's doctoral
committee (in an open forum) in which the student reviews some of the published
research in the chosen subfield of specialization. The exam will normally be based
on a single article chosen by the student with guidance from their research advisor.
The student is expected to present the findings, place the work in context, and
provide a critique of the published work. In response to the presentation, the
student will be asked questions from the general audience. After this, the student
will be asked additional questions from the doctoral committee in a closed session.
Typically, the doctoral committee will ask questions that relate the research to
more fundamental physics and not require the student to know the entire literature
of the discipline or subfield, although some contextual knowledge will be expected. Normally,
the talk is roughly 40-50 minutes, and the public portion of the candidacy exam,
with questions, is roughly an hour. The closed session with the doctoral committee
is typically about 90-120 minutes. These are only guidelines, and a particular
committee may require more or less time to evaluate a prospective Ph.D. candidate.
You must book a room and announce your exam at least a week in advance using the template available on the Candidacy and Defense Information for Faculty page. The prepared announcement should then be shared to the Department.
Pass/Fail
The candidacy exam is a pass/fail exam. The committee chair will arrange the signature form for the exam to be ready for committee members to sign. This should be submitted to the college with
all committee member signatures. If a committee member participates remotely, they
may sign the paperwork digitally or write a permission e-mail to have another committee
member sign on their behalf. In accordance with the graduate catalog for the
Ph.D. degree, the committee will pass a student that has demonstrated the following
abilities in the candidacy exam:
- Understand and critically evaluate the published work chosen by the candidate and its relation to the broader field of research
- Explain physics and/or astronomy principles pertaining to the published work chosen by the candidate
- Communicate effectively through oral presentation, aided by slide presentations, chalkboard discussion, etc.
Doctoral Committee
Three committee members must be from the faculty of the WVU Department of Physics
and Astronomy. The fourth member may be internal or external to WVU. If external
to WVU, the fourth member must hold a Ph.D. (or equivalent degree) in a field
related to the candidate's dissertation research. If internal to WVU, the fourth
member must be from a department other than the Department of Physics and Astronomy.
All members must have a Ph.D. or equivalent degree.
If the membership of the doctoral committee has to change, please seek guidance
from your committee members and chair. Once the new committee membership has
been secured, please inform the department by an email to the Graduate Advising
and Studies Committee Chair including a list of the names and affiliations of
the current and updated membership and a brief justification for the change.
The department will obtain approval from the college.