Exams and Thesis Requirements

General Information
Admission to Doctoral Candidacy
Selecting A Doctoral Thesis Advisor
The Doctoral Thesis Committee
Additional Requirements
Master's Thesis

General Information

By virtue of admission to graduate study, it is the judgment of the admissions committee that a student is capable of completing one of the doctoral programs. There are a number of points in the student's program where this decision is reevaluated. The decision to provide or continue financial support for a student is related to, but separate from, the decision to renew admission.

Upon arrival at Carnegie Mellon and until such time as a student chooses an academic/ thesis advisor, the Director of Graduate Studies or his/her designee serves as the students' advisor. The Department faculty monitor the students' work and set goals and standards for them. The faculty obtain quantitative information in the form of course grades and performance on the qualifying oral examination (described later). Qualitative information from instructors and advisory committees also plays a role.

Departmental policy is that students in good standing who are making satisfactory progress towards completion of their doctoral degree and whose teaching/research performance is satisfactory can expect that their support will continue for a total of five years. Support past the fifth year is decided on a case-by-case basis.

Admission to Doctoral Candidacy

A student entering with a master's degree in the mathematical sciences or related disciplines does not automatically attain doctoral candidacy. Admission to doctoral candidacy requires the successful completion of the qualifying oral examination.

No later than the beginning of a student's third year of residency the student will select an Academic Advisor (eventually this person may become the student's Thesis Advisor). The student and the Academic Advisor will select a Doctoral Advisory Committee consisting of at least three members including the academic advisor.

The primary duty of the Advisory Committee is to administer the Qualifying Oral Examination described below. Normally they will require that the candidate take specified courses or otherwise prepare for the examination according to a specified syllabus.

The student's Doctoral Advisory Committee, after consultation with the student, decides upon a major and a minor topic for the examination. The major topic will be the proposed area of thesis research. The minor topic should be a subject relevant to, but not closely related to, the research area.

The purpose of this examination is to establish the breadth and depth of the student's knowledge in the general areas related to the thesis area. The committee determines the format of this examination. The content of the examination must be agreed upon by the student and the committee not less than one month prior to the date scheduled and a document describing the content will be submitted to the Department.

The examiners may choose to require the student to repeat all or part of the examination. An unsatisfactory performance on the second examination normally leads to dismissal from the program. In exceptional cases the committee may choose to make part of the examination written rather than oral.

Except in rare circumstances a student in the Department of Mathematical Sciences is expected to have passed his/her qualifying exam by the end of his/her third year in residency at CMU. Students who have been supported on a fellowship for at least one year are expected to have completed this process by the end of their fifth semester in residence at CMU.

Students who successfully pass their qualifying examination are admitted to doctoral candidacy.

Selecting A Doctoral Thesis Advisor

After admission to doctoral candidacy, a student must select a doctoral thesis advisor. Acting as an academic advisor is not a commitment to act as a doctoral thesis advisor, but it is often the case that the academic advisor continues on as thesis advisor. The advisor/advisee relationship is long-term and not to be entered into casually by either party. It's important to establish a clear understanding of commitment from the start.

Usually, the thesis advisor is a member of the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Carnegie Mellon. On occasion students are permitted to choose an advisor from outside the Department or even outside the university. However, when the thesis advisor is not a regular or research faculty member at Carnegie Mellon, the head of the Mathematical Sciences Department or the faculty member who supervises the Department's doctoral program shall appoint, after consulting both the candidate and his/her thesis advisor, a regular or research faculty member in the Department to serve as the candidate's Departmental sponsor. It is the Departmental sponsor's responsibility to monitor the candidate's work and to assist him/her, the thesis advisor, and the Department in assuring that all work conforms to the candidate's doctoral program.

After the Qualifying Oral Examination has been passed and a thesis advisor has been selected, a new Doctoral Advisory Committee (which may or may not differ from the previous one) shall be formed. The members will be nominated by the thesis advisor with the agreement of the candidate (and of the Departmental sponsor, if there is one), and their appointment approved by the Department head. The purpose of the committee at this stage is to serve as a resource for the student and to monitor the student's progress. The responsibility for advising the student lies with the thesis advisor.

The committee may include members from outside this Department. The committee must have at least three members, including the thesis advisor and the Departmental sponsor, if there is one (and thus will have at least one member from the Mathematical Sciences Department). The student should maintain contact with the members of the committee.

For students wishing to continue in the Department beyond their fifth year there will be an annual research review in their fifth and subsequent years. For this review the student will report orally to the Doctoral Advisory Committee. If any member of the committee or the Department head requests it, the student shall also submit a written summary of the report. This may be requested before or after the oral report is given. The written summary should provide a reasonable overview of the student's progress, and in general it need not be more than three pages long. This summary is to be considered confidential, and must not be circulated to anyone outside the Department except members of the committee, without the consent of the student and the thesis advisor.

Possible items for the student's report include:

	Papers and books which have been read.
	Courses and seminars attended.
	Programs written and experiments performed.
	Concepts formulated, conjectures investigated, and methods used.
	Theorems proved.
	Talks given and papers written.
	Copies of technical reports or papers authored or co-authored by the student.
	Thesis proposal, plan, or outline.

Following the oral report, the committee shall meet privately to discuss the student's progress. A written summary of this meeting will be prepared by the student's thesis advisor, who will send copies to the director of graduate studies and Department head in advance of the annual meeting at which the Department evaluates graduate students. The thesis advisor will communicate to the student any recommendations or suggestions made by the committee.

The Doctoral Thesis Committee

Often the Doctoral Advisory Committee will serve as the Doctoral Thesis Committee, although this is not required. The duties of the Doctoral Thesis Committee are described below.

The thesis committee should be appointed no less than two months before the estimated date of the final examination. In order to permit an orderly performance of the committee's functions, it shall be the responsibility of the candidate to keep the committee informed about the progress of his or her work, from the time the committee is appointed to the time the thesis is submitted. The committee may specify whether this should be done individually or collectively by formal or informal presentations.

The purpose of a Doctoral Thesis Committee is to judge the validity, originality, significance, and proper presentation of the candidate's doctoral thesis. To that end, the committee shall examine the thesis submitted by the candidate, conduct the public oral final examination on the thesis, prescribe corrections or revisions to the thesis before or at the time of the examination, and certify to the dean its finding on the acceptability of the thesis in its final form.

The Doctoral Thesis Committee shall consist of no fewer than four members, and shall include the thesis advisor, as well as the Departmental sponsor, if there is one.

At least half of the members of the committee shall be regular or research faculty members in the Department of Mathematical Sciences; one of these, who must be a regular faulty member with the rank of assistant professor or higher, shall chair the committee. If qualified under the preceding provision, the thesis advisor will ordinarily chair the committee; the same is applicable to the Departmental sponsor if there is one.

At least one member of the committee shall be a "visitor," i.e., a person not affiliated with the Department nor with any Department participating in the candidate's thesis research; the thesis advisor may not serve as "visitor." To be eligible to be a "visitor," a person should be familiar with academic standards and procedures and be especially qualified to judge some aspect of the thesis. A "visitor" may come from another Department at Carnegie Mellon, from some other university, or from outside academic institutions altogether

A vacancy on the doctoral thesis committee need only be filled if the remaining members would not constitute a valid committee. When a vacancy is filled, care shall be taken that the new committee member has the time and opportunity to participate effectively in the performance of the committee's functions.

The final examination may proceed only if the committee members present would, by themselves, constitute a valid thesis committee according to the preceding provisions. A member of the committee who is unable to be present at the final examination may, if he or she wishes, submit a written recommendation.

When the thesis advisor (and the Departmental sponsor if there is one) is satisfied that the thesis is ready, it shall be submitted to the committee. The final examination shall be scheduled so as to provide the committee with two weeks to study the thesis between its submission and the date of the examination.

Additional Requirements

Students enrolled in the Department graduate programs are trained to become educators and researchers at the university, college, and industrial level. All candidates for graduate degrees are required to be actively engaged in research or assisting in teaching each semester.

Master's Thesis

The master's degree will be awarded upon completion of the required courses and/or thesis. For the master's degree candidate who is writing a thesis, an oral Thesis Examination is required. At this public examination the student will present the thesis results and be questioned about them by the examination committee and any others in attendance.

If you plan to write a Master's Thesis, a thesis advisor and two other faculty members must be selected to complete the Master's Committee. The duties of the committee include being available to the student for advice, to oversee the progress of the thesis, and to conduct the thesis examination. The duties of the student include ensuring that each member of the committee is aware of the current status of their thesis and course work, and to arrange the time and place of the examination.

Mathematical Sciences Home      Mellon College of Science       Carnegie Mellon University