The required preliminary exam consists of two parts: 1) a written, comprehensive examination in the middle of the fourth semester after the core courses have been completed, and 2) an oral examination on the student's research to be taken by the beginning of the fifth semester on the subject of the student’s first research project. A longer description of these exams is available on the department website, but we summarize the procedures here.
The written comprehensive exam is authored, administered, and evaluated by a committee of several faculty members and is given simultaneously to all students in the second-year class. This exam covers a broad range of astronomical topics, is taken over two days, and is intended to require 2 hours per day. Questions are designed to help make connections between different subfields. The exam is given in closed book format, with a note sheet allowed, and students are provided example questions from previous years.
On each question, students will receive one of three grades, “pass”, “major revision,” or “minor revision”. A pass indicates that the question is all answered correctly. A grade of minor revisions requires students to turn in revised solutions addressing a small error. Major revisions indicate a substantial misunderstanding and require a remediation plan in consultation with the committee and student advisor. Students are generally given 3 months to turn in all completed revisions to receive a pass. Students who do not complete revisions will not be able to advance in the program, but may still obtain a Master’s degree by completing a short, written thesis, usually a version of their research paper, and passing the research oral exam described below.
Students also complete an oral comprehensive exam at the beginning of the fifth semester. Prior to scheduling their exam, students must schedule at least one meeting with their oral exam committee. Students must submit a first author paper (not necessarily submitted/ published) that describes their research project. While many students submit articles that have been submitted for peer-review, certain projects may be ill-suited to this format and committees have the discretion to accept alternate written documents. In addition to the written document, students present a 30-minute talk and answer questions from their committee on their research and adjacent topics. Students are evaluated using a rubric in four categories: 1) quality of the paper, 2) quality of the presentation, 3) knowledge of the research project, and 4) knowledge of adjacent sub-fields. Students must be marked as adequate in 3 of 4 categories to pass. The exam will be no longer than three hours. If the student fails the research exam, a second try will generally be allowed up to six months later, and may be of a different format, at the discretion of the committee. Students who do not successfully pass on the second try will not proceed in the Ph.D. program, although a Master’s degree may be awarded at the discretion of the committee.
The Graduate College requires that the examining committee consist of a minimum of four people, including at least three graduate faculty members (this applies to most department faculty, but may require extra paperwork in certain cases.) The chair of the research exam committee should be an astronomy faculty member that is not the student’s advisor. The committee should also include one member outside of the student’s research area. The advisor is responsible for reporting the outcome of the exam to the student and the department, including providing the summary assessment of the student’s performance.