Admission Requirements
In addition to the general requirements of the College of Arts and Sciences, the Department of Mathematics and Statistics have the following requirements for students who wish to enter into the Ph.D. program, regardless of concentration:
- A baccalaureate degree in mathematics, statistics, or a related field with a grade point average of 3.0 out of 4.0. Students with a grade point average of 2.75 will be considered for conditional admission.
- Three letters of reference,
- Recent GRE scores,
- A statement describing study plans.
- Applicants from non-English speaking countries must achieve a satisfactory score on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL).
Students must have completed courses in mathematics equivalent to the following with a grade of B or higher:
Graduate Assistants
Graduate assistants are required to enroll for a minimum of 18 credit hours each semester. These credit hours will consist of courses required for the prescribed program of study, as well as additional hours of MATH 8801, MATH 8802, MATH 8900, MATH 8950, MATH 8999, MATH 9999, STAT 8691, STAT 8692, STAT 8900, STAT 8950, STAT 8999, and STAT 9999.
Transfer credit hours: Students can transfer at most 24 semester credit hours to the program with the approval of the appropriate Graduate Director of the Department. Petition documents include the transcript, the course syllabi, exams and course notes or the textbook.
Qualifying exam: Students must pass a qualifying exam set by the appropriate graduate committee in accordance with any further requirements specified in the previously described concentrations. Students who fail the exam on the first attempt may take it only one more time. Students must pass the qualifying exam within two calendar years of admission.
Candidacy exam: Students must pass an oral candidacy exam before a committee that includes at least two final members of the student’s dissertation committee. The candidacy exam is set by the committee and covers course material within the student’s area of specialization or a proposed topic of thesis research. The details are determined by the committee in a manner consistent with any guidelines stated above for the student’s concentration. A student must advance to candidacy by the fourth year. The candidacy exam can be taken only twice.
Dissertation Committee: The student and his/her dissertation adviser shall form a dissertation committee. The committee should consist of at least four faculty members. For students in the bioinformatics and biostatistics concentrations, one committee member should be from another department such as the School of Public Health, the Department of Biology or another institution.
Final dissertation defense: Upon completion of the research, the student must defend his/her dissertation publicly.
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