- Proposal 1: The Qualifying Exam will remain unchanged in format and timing. Incoming students will be permitted to take the exam “for free”, as currently, but will not be required to take it.
The majority of students were more-or-less satisfied with the qualifying exam and by a ratio of about 3:1 would keep it as is rather than eliminate it.
- Proposal 2: Under exceptional circumstances, at the discretion of the faculty, students who fail the Qualifying Exam for the second time may be permitted to take a Special Oral Examination, the outcome of which will determine whether the student in question will be permitted to continue in the program. The purpose of any such Special Oral Examination is to test whether the student, who has twice failed the written qualifying examination, is nevertheless sufficiently secure with the material of the core courses to eventually graduate with a Physics PhD. Any Special Oral Exam, therefore, should test whether this is the case by asking a number of questions at the level of and on the material of the written qualifying exam. The Special Oral Exam committee shall consist of 4 faculty nominated by the DGS.
Rationale. The student questionnaires overall did NOT reveal any great dissatisfaction with the current Qualifying Exam procedure, except a possible mismatch between material on the exam and that taught in the core courses. This motivates Proposal 1, and our earlier proposal to create guidelines for the topics appearing in the core courses and the qualifying exam. However, students agreed with the concern, expressed by several, that the current administration/grading of the exam was too opaque. On balance, there was no faculty concensus on a satisfactory means to address this concern.
Proposal 2 formalizes an ad-hoc procedure that has been followed occasionally.