Setting up a Qualifying Exam (QE)
General information
The qualifying exam is an examination required for certain students to prove their preparedness and capabilities to apply and synthesize the skills and knowledge during the graduate program. A qualifying exam is mandatory if your degree does not fulfill the entree requirements of WU. The supervisor will establish a QE which needs to be approved by the Doctoral Service Centre before a PhD candidate can execute a QE.
How to set up the QE
The supervisor is instructed to submit a QE proposal for the candidate if the candidate's prior education is insufficient. Then you create the requirement 'Submit Qualifying exam proposal'. You set a deadline of three months for this.
The Doctoral Service Centre has to set up the QE for the PhD candidate.
1. Navigate to the 'PhD projects' tab.
2. Click on the 'PhD project registrations' tab.
After selecting the right PhD project, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on 'Requirements' button.
Click on the 'New' button.
1. Click on the box next to 'requirement' and select the right option: 'Submit Qualifying exam proposal'.
2. Click on the 'Save' button to save the requirement.
This proposal is approved by the Doctoral Service Centre (or the Dean). If the approval has been received, set the requirement 'Submit Qualifying exam proposal' to mark resolved and fill in the comment field who did the approval and for which courses.
Take Qualifying Exam
Then the Doctoral Service Centre creates the requirement 'Take Qualifying Exam' and the deadline needs to be set to one year from the intended start date. Write in the comment field which courses will be taken.
Create the requirement by selecting the right PhD project, scrolling down to the bottom of the page and click on the 'Requirements' button.
Click on the 'New' button.
1. Click on the box next to 'requirement' and select the right option: 'Submit Qualifying exam proposal'.
2. Click on the 'Save' button to save the requirement.
Then the account can be set to Accept.
Reviewing the Qualifying Exam
After the supervisor submitted the approval process, an email will be sent to the Doctoral Service Centre to review the QE.
Clicking the link will take you to the following page:
After reviewing the content, you can approve or reject the requirement underneath 'Feedback'.
After you filled in the result and comments, you can submit the assessment by clicking on the 'Submit' button
The grades must also be completed in the comments. In addition, the grade list has to be uploaded by the promoter.
If the Doctoral Service Centre approves the QE, the PhD candidate can perform the QE.
If the Doctoral Service Centre rejects the QE the supervisor will receive an email informing them that the QE is rejected. The supervisor has to make the necessary changes and resubmit the QE.
The Doctoral Service Centre will approve or reject the QE after the PhD candidate has performed his/her QE and submitted his/her QE document.
Exemption
If there is an exemption from the Dean of Research and it turns out that the QE is no longer needed, then the 'Take qualifying exam' requirement can be removed. It still has to be recorded that this exemption exists and that it is being moved to resolved for this reason.
If an exemption is granted (QE or Language Test), then you need to put the proof of this (usually an email) in the Documents (in PhD Projects).