Candidacy Examination Guidelines

·         During the second year of full time study and at least 1 quarter prior to the exam, the student and their adviser form a candidacy examination committee, which must be approved by the SAMP Graduate Studies Committee.  Composition of the candidacy examination committee follows rules set forth by the graduate school and must include at least three P members of the graduate faculty in SAMP.

·         The student writes three abstracts proposing a research projects that are within the realm of expertise of his/her dissertation advisor. Each should have substantive potential to become a grant and the student’s dissertation. Although the topic of the grant proposal should be within the realm of the dissertation adviser's area of expertise, a topic is not acceptable if it overlaps extensively with existing written research proposals.

·         The student’s candidacy examination committee reviews the abstracts and selects the concept deemed most appropriate for writing a grant.

·         The format of the candidacy examination may be the scientific sections of an NIH R01 grant proposal, which includes a 25-page single spaced application, or an equivalent application.

·         The student, with the adviser’s guidance, may elect to use a grant application from another funding agency. In this case, the length and format of the application must allow for an appropriate level of rigor, including hypotheses or questions, background and significance, and a detailed plan for research methods and design.  The student’s candidacy exam committee and the SAMP graduate studies committee must approve the format.

·         Regardless of the format of the grant proposal, budgetary and other administrative sections of the grant will not be part of the examination.

·         Once the format for the proposal is agreed to, the candidacy examination committee establishes a timeline for completion of the grant proposal. At this point, the student begins writing the proposal. Faculty guidance should be general at this stage. It is appropriate for the student to seek mentoring and guidance to ensure they are on the right track and are employing appropriate resources in preparation of the grant. It is also appropriate for faculty, when asked, to identify weak, missing, or difficult to read sections of the proposal. However, detailed editing from the faculty as might be done to help the student submit a manuscript is not appropriate for the proposal. The intellectual content of the proposal must represent the student’s own thinking.

·         When it is time to schedule the candidacy exam, graduate school rules require that the candidacy exam committee be approved by the SAMP graduate studies committee and the graduate school.  It is important to have these approvals in place ahead of time.

·         The final grant proposal is evaluated as the student’s written candidacy examination by the candidacy examination committee. If the written examination is judged acceptable, an Oral Examination is scheduled and held in no less than two weeks.  These procedures follow normal graduate school procedures.

·         Students who pass the written and oral candidacy examination are encouraged to take feedback from the candidacy examination process and submit the grant proposal for extramural funding.

·         Prior to starting the dissertation project itself, the student must convene a separate dissertation proposal meeting, as explained in the policy for the dissertation proposal.