Doctoral FAQs

1. Student completes required departmental coursework.

2. Student forms doctoral committee. Department submits a committee constitution in the Committee Tool. Committees should be submitted ~2 weeks before advancement exam/ dissertation defense.

3. Student takes qualifying exam and advances to candidacy. Department submits Doctoral Advancement to Candidacy Form in DocuSign. The advancement to candidacy fee will be assessed to the Student’s TritonLink at the next monthly SFS billing cycle.

   1. NOTE: Joint Doctoral Students with SDSU use a different form. The SDSU department will initiate the advancement form (JDP3) in Adobe sign.

4. Student continues to conduct research.

5. Student prepares to defend their dissertation and graduate. Student meets with GEPA Academic Affairs Advisor to review dissertation formatting & required paperwork. Student defends. Department submits Doctoral Final Report Form in DocuSign.

   1. NOTE: Joint Doctoral Students with SDSU use a different form. The SDSU department will initiate the final report form (JDP5) in Adobe sign.

Students may take their qualifying exam over the summer. However, all advancement forms turned in during Summer Quarter will count for the following Fall Quarter.

During the summer quarter, Graduate Academic Affairs will still review advancements and send out the advancement letters.  After receiving the letter, students will be assessed the $50 advancement to candidacy fee on their next TritonLink billing cycle. Please note that the advancement forms will sit in the Graduate Academic Affairs DocuSign queue as they cannot be fully processed until the first day of Fall instruction. It is important that students remain enrolled in Fall in order for the advancement to be processed. If a student takes a leave of absence or withdraws that Fall Quarter, then the advancement will be processed in the student's next eligible quarter.

Students who are eligible for the Non-Resident Supplemental Tuition waiver will have it applied for the following Fall Quarter.

JDP EDD students are an exception and may receive a Summer advancement.

It is at the discretion of the department (student’s advisor, committee, department chair) if the student should re-advance.  Before the student is accepted into the program, it is advised that the department review the student’s coursework and research to determine if departmental standards for advancing to candidacy have been met. If it is determined that the student will re-advance, it is an internal process with the department.  The student doesn’t need to pay the candidacy fee again or re-submit an advancement form.

The student’s committee should also be reviewed and reconstituted if it does not meet departmental requirements.

Time limit recalculation requests are necessary when the assigned time limits based on the default calculation (from when a student starts any graduate program) do not match the student’s new academic plan. These requests should be submitted at the time the student transfers from a Master’s to a doctoral program, from 1 doctoral program to another, or is being readmitted to a doctoral program. The reasoning for a time limit recalculation is due to the transfer or readmission itself. Some examples for time limit recalculations are:

• a student switched to the doctoral program late in the MS career so more time is needed to develop the research topic;

• additional courses are needed because the student came from a different program;

• a student changed advisors/research topic as a result of the switch;

• a student completed the MS a while ago and is readmitting to the doctoral program so all the time limits are expired.

When a student is getting ready to transfer (or be readmitted) to a doctoral program, we recommended reviewing what the time limits would be based on the student's original start quarter at UC San Diego. The student’s faculty advisor should then determine if the assigned time limits are still appropriate or if the student will need more time based on the academic plan. There are 3 time limits that can be recalculated (pre-candidacy: PCTL; support time: SUTL; and total time: TRTL); a program may request a recalculation of all 3 time limits at the same time, or only for 1 or 2. If a recalculation is not needed when the student transfers, a time limit extension request can be submitted 1 to 2 quarters prior to the time limit expiration.

Recalculation requests should be submitted to the PhD Graduate Academic Affairs Advisor via email. The request should be in the form of a letter from the student's faculty advisor, endorsed by the department chair. The letter should explain the reason/s that a recalculation is needed (see above bullet points for some examples). Please provide as much detail as possible to support the need for additional time. 

Joint Doctoral Program recalculation requests should be submitted to the JDP Academic Affairs Advisor via email. Both PhD and JDP requests are reviewed by the Senior Associate Dean.

Time limit extension requests are necessary when a doctoral student's academic progress is delayed and more time is needed. Extension requests should be submitted 1-2 quarters in advance of the time limit expiring. Some justification examples for time limit extension requests are:

• a student changed labs/advisors;

• a student was facing some personal or health issues which delayed the academic/research progress;

• a student was delayed due to unexpected research results/equipment failure, or more time is needed to collect data.  

Extensions are commonly submitted for individual time limits. However, this is not always the case so extensions of multiple time limits can be considered if appropriate. Extension requests should be submitted directly to the Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs for the Senior Associate Dean's consideration.

The Time to Doctorate Policy can be found at: https://grad.ucsd.edu/academics/progress-to-degree/time-to-doctorate-policy.html

Doctoral degrees are research-driven, and not coursework-driven like Master’s degrees. So there is not a formal transfer for GEPA to process. Any transferred courses used for the student’s doctoral would be evaluated by the department and handled internally.

Depending on what stage the student is in, there are different options:

1. Find a new advisor at UCSD. Student’s committee needs to be reconstituted since advisor cannot be the committee chair. The advisor can still sit on the committee.

2. If a student has advanced, they can file for in absentia and work with advisor at the other university. This is only applicable if the faculty member is no longer salaried at UCSD (may still be adjunct at UCSD but cannot be paid). Student’s committee needs to be reconstituted since advisor cannot be the committee chair. The advisor can still sit on the committee.

3. Withdraw from UCSD and travel to new university with the advisor, granted that the student is admitted to the university. Student will receive their degree from the new university. This option is more common with new first year or second year students who have yet to be established at UCSD.

They would follow the same defense and dissertation submission process that current students follow. If the returning student needs to enroll, then the department needs to submit a readmit petition for them.

Things to consider:

• Does the committee need to be reconstituted? Did faculty leave? The student should also consult with their old committee and confirm that everyone can still be a committee member.

• Is their research still current? The committee and/or department chair may want to evaluate the student’s research and coursework. If it’s determined that the research/coursework is outdated, then they may ask the student to re-advance. This would be an internal process and documentation does not need to be sent to GEPA.

• Fees

  • If not enrolling: student is assessed the filing fee and readmit fee. Both fees are assessed after the final review.

  • If enrolling: student pays the readmit fee when Academic Affairs processes the readmit petition. The filing fee is assessed after the final review.

    • In both cases, the re-advancement fee may be assessed if it’s been 5+ years since the student advanced to candidacy. It would be assessed after the final review.

Students in Joint Doctoral programs with SDSU enroll at both campuses during the course of their study. Students in the Joint-Doctoral program with CSUSM only enroll at UCSD during the course of their study.

For students in JDPs with SDSU, each year (typically July/August) an enrollment survey is requested asking which campus students will enroll at for the academic year.  There are 3 options:

1. Enrolling and paying fees at SDSU only.

2. Enrolling at both campuses and paying all fees at UCSD (not common).

3. Enrolling at both campuses and paying all fees at SDSU.

*If a student has a break in enrollment at UCSD while taking courses at SDSU the student will need to be reactivated – please be sure to update your departmental list as soon as possible so the JDP advisor can activate the individual student’s enrollment options.

Students are expected to meet a 36-unit academic residency requirement at UCSD prior to advancement to candidacy (a minimum of 6 units in a minimum of 3 quarters) i.e.: 3 quarters of 12 units, 6 quarters of 6 units.

There are general guidelines for JDP committees, but each program has specific committee requirements. Please allow for additional time for the approval process as there are multiple reviewers at both campuses. The committee form is initiated with UCSD via Student Database.

When submitting the final dissertation, the student submits to both campuses.  The details of this process are explained to students during their preliminary appointment with UCSD.