{"id":4047,"date":"2009-02-27T19:05:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-28T00:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/graduate-program\/graduate-program-outline\/qualifying\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T13:19:39","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T18:19:39","slug":"qualifying","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/graduate-program\/graduate-program-outline\/qualifying\/","title":{"rendered":"Qualifying Exams"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><em>For all students<\/em><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The written exam is a proposal based on the student\u2019s thesis research.<\/li>\n<li>The format for the proposal is similar to an NIH fellowship proposal\n<ul>\n<li>1-page Specific Aims along with a 6-page research proposal (title page, aims, and references not included in research proposal page limits).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The proposal is developed in the Grant Writing course (PHCO 732), which spans the fall semester of the student\u2019s 2<sup>nd<\/sup>year in graduate school.\n<ul>\n<li>Each student, with the help of the three faculty teaching the course, develops their specific aims page, the background and significance sections, and the experimental design of the first aim<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Once the instructors and the student are satisfied with the state of the proposal, the student is given a minimum of 6 weeks to write the full proposal<\/li>\n<li>Each proposal is assigned a unique committee of four faculty members whose expertise match the subject matter of the proposal.<\/li>\n<li>Proposal evaluations are done similar to a study section, where all faculty meet at one time and discuss the proposals\n<ul>\n<li>There are four outcomes of the proposal evaluation:\n<ul>\n<li>Pass<\/li>\n<li>Edit-two week (two weeks allotted to address reviewer comments)<\/li>\n<li>Edit-four week (four weeks allotted to address reviewer comments)<\/li>\n<li>Fail (very poor proposal or no proposal turned in)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>This is the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/930\/2026\/01\/PHCO_DWE_rubric_2026_v3.docx\">rubric <\/a>that faculty will use to review the student DWE proposal.<\/li>\n<li>The oral exam is a 2-hour oral defense of the written proposal administered by the thesis committee selected by the student.\u00a0This is a Pass\/Fail exam<\/li>\n<li>Upon successful completion of their written and oral exams, the student spends full time in the laboratory working on their thesis project.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/930\/2026\/02\/2026_PHCO_DOE_Overview.pptx\">Powerpoint overview of the DOE<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/930\/2023\/12\/2024_PHCO_DOE_Overview.pdf\">Written overview of the DOE [pdf]<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/graduate-program\/graduate-program-outline\/qualifying\/doe-overview\/\">Written overview of the DOE [webpage]<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For all students The written exam is a proposal based on the student\u2019s thesis research. The format for the proposal is similar to an NIH fellowship proposal 1-page Specific Aims along with a 6-page research proposal (title page, aims, and references not included in research proposal page limits). The proposal is developed in the Grant &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/graduate-program\/graduate-program-outline\/qualifying\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Qualifying Exams\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22429,"featured_media":0,"parent":2435,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"layout":"","cellInformation":"","apiCallInformation":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-4047","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","odd"],"acf":[],"_links_to":[],"_links_to_target":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22429"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4047"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27348,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4047\/revisions\/27348"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}