Students must be accepted for Ph.D. candidacy (application
for Ph.D. candidacy) and an outside chair must have been
assigned to their Ph.D. Supervising Committee before they
can take the Preliminary Examinations. Preliminary Examinations
must be passed before the dissertation can be accepted.
No Preliminary Examinations may be scheduled during the 30
days preceding Dec. 15 or Commencement. No oral examinations
may scheduled during June, July or August. Because of the
requirement that all Preliminary Examinations be completed
within a period of five weeks if there is an oral exam (see
the next paragraph), this means that in most cases no written
examinations can be taken before the end of July.
The normal format of Preliminary Examinations is 3-4 written
examinations of 4 hours each, followed by an oral examination
between one and two hours long. All examinations must be taken
within a period of four weeks if there is no oral, or five
weeks if an oral is required. The following departments and
programs have approved exceptions to this format: Chemistry,
Clinical Developmental Psychology, Mathematics, and Physics.
For details about these exceptions see http://www.brynmawr.edu/gsas/current_students/
FacultyRulesGoverningthePh.D.Degree.shtml, Section D. 5 a. (1).
Preliminary Examinations are scheduled and administered by
the departments and programs, normally by the department secretary.
Examinations may be written in bluebooks or - if the department
or program allows this - typed on a computer. In the
latter case the Guidelines
for Writing Ph.D. Preliminary Examinations on Computer must be followed.
A student who is completing the M.A. degree at the same time
as s/he is taking the Ph.D. Preliminary Examinations may offer
the final examination for the M.A. as one of the Preliminary
Examinations. If this occurs the examination must include
questions related to the M.A. thesis.
The outcome of Preliminary Examinations is determined by a
majority vote of the examiners. Dissenting examiners
may file a minority report to the Dean. Preliminary
Examinations may be graded "Satisfactory," "Satisfactory except
for [one or more fields or parts of fields]," or "Unsatisfactory."
In the case of "Satisfactory except for," the Supervising
Committee must specify what work is required to make up the
deficiency and the deadline(s) for doing so. The chair
of the Supervising Committee officially informs the Dean of
what is required, and the Dean conveys the information in
writing to the student. Deficiencies must be made up
within one year of the first written examination, and before
the dissertation can be submitted. In the case of one or more
examinations graded "Unsatisfactory," the Supervising Committee
may require the student to retake the examination(s) or may
deny the student permission to continue for the Ph.D. Re-examinations
must be successfully completed within one year of the first
written examination. No examination may be retaken more
than once.
Students must complete all remaining requirements for the
Ph.D. within 60 months of taking the first Preliminary Examination,
or repeat one of the examinations at the Final Examination.