Exam Committee:

The Comprehensive Exam Committee makes up of 3 members, including your faculty advisor that serves as the chair, and two other faculty from the student’s area. Exceptions to the committees may be petitioned with the SOMD Graduate Committee.

Exam Material:

Comprehensive examinations may include questions about any aspect of the musical specialty in which the student is working and are not limited to coursework taken as part of the doctoral degree program. Consult your faculty advisor for a study guide.

Comprehensive examinations have written and oral compo­nents, with the written component taken first.

Written Portion:

The written portion of the exam should take place no later than Friday of week 9 of the term.

The written is prepared by the examining committee, under the direction of the student’s advisor. No later than one week before the examination, the committee chair must submit a hard copy of the examination and any associated materials to the SOMD Graduate Office.

On the day of the test, the student should arrive at the SOMD Graduate Office by 8:10 A.M. and must submit the finished exam to the SOMD Graduate Office by 4:45 P.M. on the same day. Restroom and lunch breaks are permitted. During the examination day, the student may not seek or obtain any information related to the examina­tion from any outside source. Students will be provided with a computer with MS Word.

Some areas of study require additional days of examina­tion; others do not. This portion of the examination may include components such as a take-home section or a demonstration of skills acquired in the area of specialization. If additional components are required, the SOMD Graduate Office will provide a copy of the exam to the student. When all portions are completed, the SOMD Graduate Office will send exam answers to the committee members via email by the morning of the next business day.

Oral Portion:

The Oral examination is two hours in length and covers the written portion and any other portions of the area examina­tion, as well as other topics related to the specialized area (e.g., further explore the student’s knowledge and skills in areas covered in the written examination, seek clarification where written responses were ambiguous or unsatis­factory, evalu­ate the student’s knowledge in other relevant areas). 

Scheduling:

Exams may be scheduled after the following conditions are met:

1. Completion of all coursework and degree requirements, with the exception of,
   • the third recital for performance students;
   • the public lecture and defense.
2. Permission to take the examination by the advisor.
3. During the term in which they take the comprehensive examin­ation, students must be registered for at least three graduate (3) credits. 

Students must schedule their exam at least 1-month in advance. To schedule:

1. Contact the SOMD Graduate Office to confirm room availability for your written exam. A hold will be placed for you. The hold will be released if the exam is not confirmed 1-month in advance.
2. Work with your faculty advisor to build your Exam Committee. Confirm written exam and oral exam dates with all members.
3. Upon verbal confirmation of dates with your committee members, email the SOMD Graduate Office to request the Com­pre­hensive Examination Scheduling Form. The form will be sent to you via DocHub.
4. Complete the form.

Without permission from the ADGS, exams may not be scheduled during the first week of classes in any term or during summer session. The written portion of the examination should take place no later than Friday of week 9 of the term, with the oral portion of the exam occurring no later than Friday of week 10.

Evaluation:

Both the written and oral portions of the examination will be evaluated by the committee that prepared them. The stu­dent’s responses will be evaluated on the basis of the following criteria:

• Each response demonstrates thorough knowledge of the topic and is of sufficient depth, breadth, and precision to answer the question fully and correctly.
• Each response distinguishes between information of central import­ance and peripheral importance and focuses on the former.
• Each response demonstrates the student’s ability to organize and report information, analyze and evaluate that information, and draw conclusions intelligently.
• Each response is written in good English prose style and follows accept­ed rules for grammar, punctuation, spelling, and sentence and paragraph structure. Each oral response is in good conversa­tional English, is rationally organized, and is clearly presented.

Using the criteria above, the committee will make one of the following decisions:

• Approve the examination as is (pass);
• Require the student to retake any part of the written examination, to retake any part of the oral examination, or both (conditional pass);
• Require the student to complete appropriate remedial activities (conditional pass);
• Require the student to retake the entire examination (no pass); or
• Declare the examination failed and refer the results to the Music Graduate Committee with a recommendation to terminate the student’s place in the program (no pass).

Decisions regarding passing the area comprehensive examination will be made on the entire examination (i.e., the specialized area written exam­i­na­tion, other examination components, and the oral examina­tion). The decision requires the unanimous vote of the committee.

The written and oral portions of the examination and notification of results are to be com­pleted within a period of three weeks, with the oral exam portion occurring no later than Friday of week 10 of the term.

Retakes:

Students must pass the doctoral comprehensive examination by the second attempt. There must be a minimum of ten weeks in between the first and second attempts.