Appendix 5: Qualifying Exam Guidelines
EPP Ph.D. Qualifying Exams
The following provides a few details on the EPP Ph.D. Qualifying Exams that you will take just after the end of your third semester here in EPP.
In mid- to late-May, all students will be contacted and asked who will be participating in Qualifiers. Then in early June, you will receive a request for a short abstract for your Part A paper. This is not a binding contract. Rather, it's an attempt to start the process of interacting more broadly between you, your advisor and the rest of the EPP faculty to make sure that the topic you are addressing is appropriate. The faculty will review the abstract and get comments back to you. We recognize that as your research proceeds there may be significant changes in what you end up doing.
In mid- to late-October, we will hold a few days of "pre-qual presentations." These are open meetings in which you have a chance to do a presentation, which indicates to the faculty what you think your Part A paper will look like, and hopefully present some preliminary results. These typically involve a 15-minute presentation with 15 minutes for questions and comments.
Although it is not a required course, most of you will probably want to sign up this fall for 19-705 "Workshop in Applied Policy Analysis." This course gives you experience in how to set up and solve the Part B problems.
Part A papers will be due right after the New Year. The Part B problem will be handed out a few days later and you will have six days to develop your solution. Part A presentations will follow about a week later (usually take place during the last two weeks of January). An electronic copy of slides that you will present must be submitted just prior to the first scheduled presentation, to ensure equitable preparation time for all students.
Though it is not part of the formal process, it has become traditional for the more advanced doctoral students to organize an opportunity to do trial runs on both your pre-qual and final Part A qualifier presentations. They will let you know the details in the fall.
Don't hesitate to talk with Granger, Mitch and your advisor(s) if you have questions.
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PART A - PRELIMINARY ABSTRACTS
Preliminary abstracts will be due June 30 with feedback from the faculty occurring some time in late July.
The abstract should be one(1) page in length and written as if it were the actual abstract you envision for the paper you hope to have when it is finished in December (rather than as a proposal for research). View it as a trial balloon for your benefit. The intent is to elicit early feedback and ideas from the faculty such as, "if you are doing work in this area, you ought to be familiar with this methodology or that reference, etc."
It is not a contract and should not be a source of anxiety for you. It you also want to append a one-page outline of the schedule you plan to follow for the research and writing of your qualifier paper, you may do so as this may elicit beneficial feedback as well. This outline is optional.
Be sure to include a title for your paper and the name(s) of your advisor(s) on the abstract.
Part A PAPER Guidelines
Part A papers must be submitted electronically to our online submission system and also in hard copy by <specify date>. The paper should be no more than 5,000 words of main text (excluding references, tables and appendices) and not more than 25-pages in length (excluding appendices). Each faculty may apply their own criteria when evaluating the quality of your Part A submission and presentation. However, faculty do enter their evaluations electronically on a common form (see Part A form enclosed).
Your Part A paper must contain the following information on the title page:
- your name
- the title of your paper
- two (2) word counts, as follows:
- one word count for the main text (excluding references, tables and appendices)
- one word count for the entire paper (including references, tables and appendices)
- the name(s) of your advisor(s)
Make sure your pages are numbered. You may use either 11pt or 12pt font.
This information will be mandatory for all papers.
We will be using the START Conference Manager to facilitate grading of both the Part A and Part B qualifiers. All papers must be submitted online in either Microsoft Word or PDF format.
To submit your Part A paper to the online submission system, perform the following steps.
• Type in the title of your paper next to "Title of Submission" and your name next to "Author." Type in your email address next to "Email."
• Click the "Choose File" button and follow the instructions to upload your paper.
• Select "Part A" under submission category.
• You can leave the Summary box blank.
• Click the "Submit" button.
You should receive an email confirmation with a passcode that will allow you to update your paper up to the deadline date and time. If you have questions about the online submission system, please contact Prof. Lorrie Cranor (lorrie@cmu.edu).
Part B SOLUTION Guidelines
Part B papers should not exceed 20 pages (>1.5 space, >12 point).
To submit your Part B paper, follow the same instructions, but select "Part B" under submission category. After the deadline we will replace the student names with numbers and remove the email addresses before the faculty begin grading the papers. Make sure your paper does not include a cover page and does not include your name anywhere on it. In addition, make sure you do not include your name anywhere in the document properties. If you are using a recent version of Word you should be able to use the privacy option to "remove personal information from this document on save." If you are generating a PDF, check the document properties settings to make sure your name doesn’t appear. Please try all this BEFORE the day of the deadline so you can make sure you know how to do it and ask for help if you can’t figure it out.
Part B papers are graded blind. The form used by faculty to enter their evaluation is also enclosed (see Part B form). Please follow the above instructions and make sure your name does not appear anywhere on your Part B paper or in the document properties when you submit it electronically!
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