Admission to the biomechanical doctoral program is by examination. The qualifying examination is administered to candidates following completion of a minimum of 30 semester hours of graduate study with a GPA of 3.5 or above, and which conforms to the general topical content of the requirements for the Master of Science Degree.
The student application for examination must be approved by one of the biomedical faculty and must contain a comprehensive description of the proposed area of research to be done for the Ph.D. dissertation together with a list of supporting course work. Any deviations from the above must be approved by the ME Biomechanical Graduate Studies Committee.
The examination is oral, and will be conducted by a committee consisting of five members. One member is the student's supervising professor and another member is the "ad hoc" chair of the examining committee, as appointed by Area Coordinator. The examination will cover the following:
- (A) The defined research topic proposal
- (B) The student's past course work
In part (A), the student will be examined on knowledge of the background for the research topic and will be expected to defend the significance and chances for success of the proposed research. A report describing the proposed research and supporting background information is to be prepared by the student and approved by the proposed supervising professor. This report should be limited to 50 pages, and should be delivered to the examining committee at least 2 weeks prior to the oral examination.
In part (B), three (3) courses will be pre-selected from the Major Area Courses for an in-depth oral examination by the committee.
