Comprehensive Examinations: Oral
After passing the written comprehensive examination, doctoral students must take and pass an oral comprehensive examination. The research advisor serves as chairperson of the oral comprehensive examination committee and directs 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 at least two weeks prior to the date of the examination.
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.
- A student must be in compliance with the continuous enrollment policy.
- The student's program must be active.
- The student must not be on an approved Leave of Absence.
- Annual progress review from program on file in the Graduate School for each year prior to students 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 the Graduate School to publicize the examination. Exceptions to this rule must be accompanied by an explanation of the late request from the Research Advisor and will be considered on a case by case basis. No exam/defense will be allowed with less than one week prior notice.
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 UNC Today, the Graduate School calendar or in any other appropriate university publication and forward a Results of the Oral Comprehensive Exam form to the student’s Research 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 assigned according to the guidelines for Doctoral Committees. The student’s performances on the examination will be evaluated as:
- pass;
- may pass when conditions are met (specific conditions and a timeline for completion must be recorded on the Results of the Oral Comprehensive Examination form before turning in to the Graduate School); or,
- fail, with the option of "retake permitted" or "retake not permitted" which should be specified on the Results of the Oral Comprehensive Examination form before submitting it to the Graduate School. A decision not to permit a retake will result in the student's termination from the degree program. If the student does not pass during the first attempt of the oral comprehensive examination, and a retake is permitted by the committee, the retake may not be scheduled during the same semester that the original examination was completed. Only one retake is allowed. Failure of the examination retake will result in termination of the student's degree program.
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 student's research advisor.
The results of the oral comprehensive examinations 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.