The UNC Graduate School requires that all students pass a qualifying examination prior to admission to candidacy for the Ph.D. In the Neurobiology Curriculum this Qualifying Examination is divided into two parts.

Part 1, the General Qualifying Examination (GQE), is intended to examine general knowledge of basic and contemporary neuroscience as presented in the core coursework and as gained during laboratory apprenticeships, seminar participation, and journal club activities.

The GQE is administered at the end of the spring semester of the student's second year in the program, usually in June. The GQE is composed by a standing Examinations Committee of the Curriculum from questions solicited from teams of faculty members. The GQE consists of 4 extended questions. Associated with each question are several (2-5) neuroscience research articles or reviews from the scientific literature to serve as initial reference material. Each student is allowed to choose 3 of the 4 questions to answer during a 3-week period. The examination is "open literature" and students are encouraged to incorporate additional literature into answers. Page limitations and format for the answers are provided at the time of the examination. The answers to each of the 3 chosen questions for each student are evaluated by at least three members of the Neurobiology Curriculum faculty with specific or related expertise in the topic area of the question.

The specific goals of the General Qualifying Examination are to determine:

• The working knowledge of the student in neuroscience.
• The ability of the student to integrate information from various technical approaches to neuroscience research.
• The organizational skills of the student in formulating hypotheses, designing experiments, and presenting evidence.
• The ability of the student to identify and discriminate among key experimental observations.
• The breadth of perspective related to neuroscience research problems.

Part 2 of the GQE is administered by the student's dissertation committee and consists of an oral defense of the formal dissertation proposal. This dissertation proposal is written by the student in the form of an NIH research grant, including Specific Aims, Background and Significance, Preliminary Studies, Experimental Design, and References.

While oral exam questions usually focus on the proposal, the nature of questioning on this exam can be expected to be wide ranging.