Admission to Candidacy
Acceptance in a graduate program does not automatically make a student a formal candidate for either the Master's or the Doctor of Philosophy degree. There are both general and specific academic requirements that a student must meet in a prescribed period of time before admission to candidacy. These requirements include, but are not limited to, the following: (1) completion of a specified number of credit hours in graduate courses; (2) earning a suitable score on a qualifying examination, if required, administered by the student's major department; (3) demonstrating satisfactory abilities in expository writing; (4) selection of an appropriate problem for a thesis topic or for dissertation research; and (5) approval by the student's major department and by the Graduate Faculty. Admission to candidacy must be achieved within a specified period before the student expects to receive his/her diploma. It is the student's responsibility to meet requirements on time.

Candidacy for the master's and the doctoral degrees is valid for a limited period. Reinstatement to candidacy may be permitted under mitigating circumstances, subject to approval by the major department and by the Executive Committee of the Graduate School.