PhD Diagnostic Exam guidelines:

The student's Ph.D. committee (also known as the Ph.D. dissertation committee) will be in charge of the Diagnostic Examination for each Ph.D. student.

The committee will give the student one expository research question, which may involve analysis, programming, and/or computation as well as a literature search. This question must not be based on the student's previous master's degree thesis work, if any, or on the student's professional experience.

The student will be given two weeks to prepare a research presentation dealing with the given topic. At the end of the two weeks, the student will make a half-hour presentation of her/his findings. The committee will then question the student on the topic of the presentation.

Depending on the student's undergraduate and master's degree institutions, the field of her/his master's degree, her/his GPA, her/his pursuit of a Ph.D. degree after a master's degree or directly after a bachelor's degree, any discontinuity in her/his higher education, etc., at the discretion of the Ph.D. committee there might be oral questions over the OSU M.S. core courses and their prerequisites following the presentation. The student will be notified well in advance as to whether or not her/his Diagnostic Examination shall involve course work questions.

The presentation part of the Diagnostic Examination is a public event and it must be announced at least five days before it is held.

The result of the Diagnostic Examination will be a grade of "Pass" or "Fail" given for the entire presentation as well as the oral examination, as applicable.

The student will have two chances to pass the Diagnostic Examination.

For a student entering the Ph.D. program with a master's degree already earned in Computer Science or a closely related area, the Diagnostic Examination must be taken within one calendar year. For a student entering the Ph.D. program without such a master's degree, this examination must be taken within one year of having completed twenty-four hours of course work beyond the bachelor's degree.