Scheduling qualifying exam

 Hi! Graduate students! 

It's time to schedule your qualifying exam. In most schools, you should take qualifying exam on the second year in your program.

In most case, you should take written exam first and then take oral exam.

I listed several tips and example to schedule the qualifying exam.

1. You only need to schedule oral exam.

You don't need to meet your committee members in person for written exam. For written exam, you can just send the proposal to committee members and then they will comment your writing.

 According to the program you are taking, the written exam will be 2 or 3 weeks ahead of your written exam.

So, you only need to schedule oral exam.

2. Schedule the oral exam 2-3 month ahead.

The oral exam(presentation) will take more than 2 hours. It depends on your school or department tho. It's hard to find the time slot that four or five professors and you have 2 more hours. So, it is better to schedule it ASAP. 

3. Do not ask them which date is available. Pick one or two weeks by your self.

It will be super hard to schedule 2 or 3 hours if you ask 5 busy people which date is fine for them. 

I recommend you to pick one or two weeks on the calendar and send them the time slot using the poll like "when is good" (https://whenisgood.net/)

4. Use my example :)

Title: Qualification oral exam scheduling 

Dear committee,

Thank you for agreeing to being a member of my PhD committee.

I’d like to schedule the oral exam. The meeting will be held via zoom.

Please fill out the WhenIsGood poll using the following link. I picked ### [e.g. from May 1st to May 8th/ the last week of October], please let me know if it doesn't work for you.

http://whenisgood.net/###

Let me know if you have any questions.

Best,

###