Candidacy, Oral Examinations, and the Thesis

Approval of Candidacy

Candidacy marks a midpoint in the course of graduate education. Achieving candidacy for the PhD signals that a graduate student has: (a) completed required course work, (b) passed required exams to demonstrate his/her comprehensive grasp of the subject area, (c) demonstrated the ability for clear oral and written communication, and (d) shown the ability to carry on scholarly work in his/her subject area. Requirements for achieving candidacy for the thesis master’s degree are determined at the departmental level. Students enrolled in research degree programs submit their petitions for candidacy for a master’s or doctoral degree  through the department chair to the dean of graduate and postdoctoral studies. In the petition sent to the dean, the department chair identifies the student’s thesis director, recommends a thesis committee, certifies that the applicant has fulfilled the departmental requirements, and provides a course transcript as evidence that work completed within the department is of high quality. Students in nonthesis master’s programs, including professional master’s programs, must submit a certification of nonthesis master’s  through their department chair to the Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies.

Students must file their applications for approval of PhD and MA/MS candidacy in the Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies on or before November 1 for January conferral and on or before February 1 for May conferral. Students may take the final oral examination in defense of their thesis only after the dean of graduate and postdoctoral studies approves their candidacy. PhD students must be approved for candidacy before the beginning of the ninth semester of their enrollment at Rice. Master’s students must be approved for candidacy before the beginning of the fifth semester of their enrollment at Rice.

Thesis Committee

The thesis committee administers the oral examination for the student’s thesis defense and has final approval/disapproval authority and responsibility for the written thesis.

A thesis committee is composed of at least three members. Two, including the committee chair, must be members of the student’s department faculty; in doctoral thesis committees one member must have his or her primary appointment in another department within the university. At least three members of the committee must meet one of the following requirements:

• Tenured or tenure-track members of the Rice faculty
• Research faculty holding the rank of faculty fellow, senior faculty fellow, or distinguished faculty fellow
• Faculty who have been certified as thesis committee members by the dean of graduate and postdoctoral studies

The composition of the thesis committee must always meet the guidelines mentioned above.

The committee chair need not be the thesis director. The chair, however, must be either a tenured or tenure-track member of the major department or a research faculty member of the major department. Additional members of the committee, who may or may not meet the above criteria, may be selected with the approval of the department chair. These would be in addition to the three required members.

Candidates are responsible for keeping the members of their committee informed about the nature and progress of their research. They also must establish a schedule for thesis completion and review. The members of the committee, in turn, should review the thesis in a timely manner, approving a preliminary form of the thesis before scheduling the oral examination.

Announcement of Thesis Defense

Oral examinations for the doctoral degree must be announced at least two weeks in advance. Oral examination announcements are to be submitted to the Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies by entering the information into the Graduate Students Thesis Defense Announcement form at events.rice.edu/rgs. An automatically generated email will be sent to the Office of Research and Graduate Studies.

Oral examinations for the master’s degree must be announced at least one week in advance in the same manner as the doctoral defense.

Oral Examination in Defense of Thesis

The public oral defense of a thesis is intended to be an examination of a completed body of work and should be scheduled only when the dissertation is essentially completed. At least one copy of the thesis must be available in the departmental office not less than two calendar weeks prior to the date of the oral defense. The length of the oral examination and the subject matter on which the candidate is questioned are left to the judgment of the committee. The defense should be scheduled by the student after consultation with the thesis advisor, who agrees that the thesis is completed and ready to be defended. All members of the thesis committee must be present for the oral defense. A candidate must be enrolled in the semester in which his or her oral examination is held. Students who defend during the summer must enroll in the summer session of classes. For the purpose of the oral defense only, enrollment in a semester is considered valid through the Friday of the first week of class of the following semester. Students passing the oral examination on or before the end of the first week of classes of any semester do not have to register for that or any subsequent semester even though they may be continuing to make minor revisions to the final copy of their thesis.

Should a candidate fail, the committee chair may schedule a second examination. Students who fail a second time must withdraw from the university.

Students must send a copy of their approval of candidacy form, signed by the thesis committee signifying successful defense of the thesis, to the Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies within one week after the oral examination.

The original approval of candidacy form must be turned in when the thesis is submitted.

No later than six months from the date of the examination, candidates who successfully passed the oral examination in defense of the thesis must submit two signed copies of the thesis to the Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies. If the thesis is not ready for final signature by the end of the six-month period, the “pass” will be revoked and an additional oral defense will need to be scheduled. Applications for an extension without reexamination must be made by the candidate with the unanimous support of the thesis committee, endorsed by the school dean, and approved by the Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies. Extensions of this six-month period for completion without reexamination will be granted only in rare circumstances.

PhD students must defend their theses before the end of the 16th semester of their residency at Rice. Master’s students must defend their theses before the end of the eighth semester of their residency at Rice.

Thesis Regulations and Procedures

The thesis is the principal record of a student’s work for an advanced degree. It is permanently preserved in the library. Instructions for thesis submission and guidelines for thesis formatting are provided by the Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies at the time of approval of candidacy. Additional copies of these instructions are available from the graduate studies office and can also be accessed on the Rice website at: graduate.rice.edu.

Students must have the original signatures of their thesis committee on two title pages of their dissertation. Students submitting a dissertation for the PhD, DArch, or DMA must fill out a Survey of Earned Doctorates form . All students submitting theses, whether for master’s or doctoral degrees, must complete a University Microfilms International (UMI) contract. Students must pay their fees for microfilming and binding their theses to the cashier before submitting the two copies to the Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for approval. Students have six months from the date of their defense to submit their thesis. However, in order to qualify for a given commencement, they must meet the submission deadline for that commencement per the Academic Calendar .