Advancing to Candidacy

Advancement to doctoral candidacy is the eighth milestone for the PhD degree, following successful completion of the Qualifying Examination. Students should apply for advancement as soon as possible after passing the QE.

To be eligible for advancement to candidacy you must:

  1. have passed the Qualifying Examination;
  2. have no Incomplete grades;
  3. have a minimum 3.0 grade-point-average in all upper division and graduate work taken while in graduate standing;
  4. have no more than one-third of the total units undertaken for the degree be graded on an S/U basis;
  5. have fulfilled any additional program requirements; and,
  6. have secured an appropriately configured dissertation committee.

Procedure to Advance to Candidacy

To apply for candidacy, doctoral students submit the online Advancement to Candidacy Committee eForm to the Graduate Degrees Office through CalCentral. The advancement application form should be filed no later than the end of the semester after the semester in which you passed the Qualifying Examination. A mandatory $90 Advancement to Candidacy Fee will be assessed to your CalCentral student account; revenue from this fee is used to support graduate student professional development.

Upon advancement to candidacy doctoral students will see their candidacy status and candidacy end term information displayed in the “Degree Progress” card in their CalCentral My Academics dashboard.

Once students advance to candidacy, they come under the jurisdiction of the Graduate Council, rather than that of the individual departments, Schools, or Graduate Groups, and are governed by a variety of policies intended to ensure their completion of the doctoral degree. The Graduate Council states that “the department must monitor the progress of students, but the completion of the dissertation is the responsibility of the student working with the dissertation committee, which is appointed on behalf of the Administrative Committee of the Graduate Council.”

CITI Requirement for Advancement to Candidacy

If you plan to use human subjects in your dissertation research, you must complete all required Collaborative IRB Training Initiative (CITI) online training prior to submitting your application for advancement to candidacy. You must indicate on your application form whether human subjects or animal research will be involved in the dissertation research. Completion of required CITI modules must take place before research is conducted.