Comprehensive Examinations: Oral
After passing the written comprehensive examination, every doctoral student must take and pass an oral comprehensive examination. The program advisor, who shall serve as chairperson of the oral comprehensive examination committee, should direct the student to arrange the date, time and place of the oral examination with all committee members . After all arrangements are made, the student or program advisor will notify the Graduate School by forwarding a signed and completed Request to Schedule a Doctoral Examination form.
In order for the Graduate School to approve a request for the student to take the examination, the following conditions must be met:
- The committee members and faculty representative must be the same as those approved by the Graduate School.
- The written comprehensive examination results must have been received and recorded by the Graduate School prior to requesting to schedule the oral comprehensive examination.
- Annual progress review from program on file for each year prior to student scheduling their oral exam.
- The Request to Schedule a Doctoral Examination must be turned in to the Graduate School at least two weeks (14 calendar days) before the requested date of the examination to allow for any problems to be addressed.
The student is responsible for confirming the date and time of the examination with all of their committee members. The Graduate School will approve and publicize the examination date, time and place in the UNC Today or in any other appropriate university publication and forward a Results of the Oral Comprehensive Exam to the student’s Program Advisor.
Any examination which is not scheduled in advance through the Graduate School will not be recognized as valid and must be rescheduled.
All committee members and the faculty representative must be present at the examination or a substitute assuaged according to the guidelines for Doctoral Committee. The student’s performances on the examination will be evaluated as:
- pass;
- will pass when conditions are met (conditions must be recorded on the Results of the Oral Comprehensive Examination form before turning in to the Graduate School; or,
- fail, with option to retake permitted or retake not permitted-program terminating specified on the Results of the Oral Comprehensive Examination form before turning in to the Graduate School.
At least three-fourths of the committee members must agree on the final evaluation.
All members of the UNC faculty are invited to attend and may ask questions of the student after the committee members finish their questioning. Other graduate students may also attend with permission from the chairperson of the committee.
The results of the comprehensive examinations, proposals and defenses must be reported to the Graduate School no later than the semester following the examination or defense or the Graduate School may require a repeat of the examination.