The Qualifying Examination

Prerequisites and typical timeframe. Students taking their qualifying exam will have completed BCHM 8327 (Scientific Communication), usually during the Fall semester before their qualifying exam. This course includes specifics on how to prepare a grant proposal and in-depth discussions on good grant writing practices, common concerns and mistakes. The aims of the BCHM 8327 proposal are the tentative Specific Aims of the student’s Ph.D. project, as determined by the student and their advisor.

Informational meeting with DGS. The DGS will hold a meeting, typically in early February, with all students preparing to take the qualifying exam to overview the process and address student questions.

DGS notification of qualifying exam preliminary Specific Aims. The topic for the qualifying exam will comprise two Specific Aims from the student’s thesis project. Students are strongly encouraged to consult with their advisor, other trainees, or other program faculty as a sounding board before finalizing their Specific Aims. The student will write and submit to the DGS via email on or before March 1 a preliminary Specific Aims package for their qualifying exam research proposal containing (3 pages total):

• Cover page (1 page limit) should be included indicate these are qualifying exam Specific Aims, listing the name of the student and the title of the proposal.
• Specific Aims page (1 page limit, 11-point font, 0.5” page margins) describing the rationale for the proposed studies, hypotheses to be tested, and Specific Aims designed to test the hypotheses. The general experimental approaches and methodologies utilized to test the hypotheses should be briefly described for each Specific Aim.
• List of up to five references to aid the Examining Committee in evaluating the Specific Aims (3rd page, not likely to exceed 1 page).

Qualifying Exam Committee. The committee will be comprised of at least four members of the graduate faculty, three of whom must have primary or secondary investigator-track appointments in the Department of Biochemistry, one of whom must be tenured. One committee member should not be a primary faculty in Biochemistry but can be a secondary faculty member. The student’s advisor is not on the Qualifying Exam Committee but will join the other members of the Committee upon a successful pass of the exam to constitute the student’s full Ph.D. Committee. The student and advisor should first draft a list of 5-6 possible primary Biochemistry faculty in order of preference and 3-4 secondary Biochemistry faculty or non-departmental faculty and send the list via email to the DGS for approval within one week of the informational meeting with DGS that is typically held in early February. Members of the committee should not include a student’s or advisor’s family member. The DGS may make modifications, recommendations, or suggestions to the list of committee invitees. Upon DGS approval, the student may then solicit commitments by faculty members on the list until the committee is composed. Once the committee members have accepted their role, the DGS will appoint the committee chair. Committee chairs will be selected from a pool of primary Biochemistry faculty that have served on at least two Biochemistry qualifying exam/thesis committees.

Committee approval of Specific Aims. Once their Qualifying Exam Committee is composed, the student will provide their Specific Aims page to each committee member no later than one week prior to the pre-qualifying exam meeting.

Pre-qualifying exam meeting. The student will schedule a one-hour pre-qualifying exam meeting with their Qualifying Exam Committee within the March 15-April 15 time range. The Ph.D. advisor must attend this meeting, provide to the committee in advance of this meeting via email a list of five topics that are most relevant and important for the student’s project (techniques, methods, analyses, areas of biology, field, etc.); and advise the Committee regarding the nature of the proposed aims and progress of the student.Once a time and date for the pre-qualifying exam meeting is found, the student will inform the DGS and Graduate Program Administrator and confirm the date, time, and place with the Committee and Ph.D. advisor. The student should work with the Departmental Administrator to reserve a room for the meeting.

The student will present their qualifying exam proposal Specific Aims to the Committee in a presentation with the following format (9 slides total):

• title slide (1 slide)
• background (3 slides, max)
• state your specific aims (1 slide)
• for each specific aim: list the aim, approaches, and preliminary data (2 slides per specific aim).

Minimal slide animation transitions should be used. For example, do not include more information per slide using animations that transition text in and out of the slide, but it is OK to use animations to iteratively show information that will remain on the slide as you present the slide.

The student’s pre-qualifying exam presentation slide deck should be provided to the committee via email the morning of the meeting. Based on the Specifics Aims presented, the Committee will determine whether the student’s anticipated qualifying exam research proposal will be “defendable” in a qualifying exam. If not, the Committee will help the student to craft new Specific Aims that appear to be defendable. Adjustment of Specific Aims can take place during the meeting or immediately following via iterative e-mail discussion. When evaluating the student’s Specific Aims, the Committee should keep in mind that the student was tasked with proposing a project that includes thesis goals that still fit within the timeline of a typical thesis project. Thus, the two Specific Aim(s) that will be presented may not include all the goals or Specific Aims of the student’s thesis project.

The Committee will also preview with the student the likely types of questions that will be asked at the actual oral qualifying exam. While any question is allowable at the exam, the Biochemistry graduate program faculty recognize that there is a vast amount of background information in the broad field of biochemistry. Thus, while a textbook knowledge of basic concepts in biochemistry is expected, the Committee will provide guidance to the student of what advanced knowledge is needed tailored to the student’s field of research and the objectives outlined in the qualifying exam proposal.

Written qualifying exam proposal. The written component of the qualifying exam is a grant proposal in the style of an NIH F30/F31 NIH fellowship application with the following format (11-point font, 0.5” page margins):

• Cover page (1 page) that includes the name of the student; the name of the advisor; the title of the proposal; and the date, time, and location of the oral exam.
• Specific Aims (1 page)
• Research Strategy (6 pages) with three sections: i. Significance, ii. Innovation, and iii. Approach containing three subsections (rationale for studies; approach including preliminary data; expected results, pitfalls, alternatives)
• References (no page limit)

The student is responsible for all scientific aspects of the proposal including background information, approach, experimental design, and methodology for all experiments. The student may consult with anyone concerning methodologies, format, references, etc. of the written proposal. Students are free to orally discuss the proposal with their advisor or other faculty. Other students or postdocs—but not faculty—can provide feedback and critiques of the written proposal and attend practice qualifying exams. Critiques of the proposal should be limited to comments and not include any editing of a written proposal.

• Students often have questions about the appropriate scope of the proposal. The following guidance should be considered:
• The student should assume a timeline of three to four years for the proposed experiments.
• The experiments should realistically be accomplishable with typically available resources, but students do not have to limit themselves to any specific methodologies. Students can propose to generate new reagents or methods if they can justify how that could be accomplished within a typical thesis project timeline.
• Not all aims must be hypothesis driven and unbiased approaches can be appropriate. However, there should be some hypotheses tested within the project.
• Aims are not equivalent to experiments. Students should consider what would be required to publish should their methods be successful. A typical thesis project would be expected to result in more than one publication.
• The student should be able to place the proposal in the context of what is already known, define what will be learned, and explain the significance of the expected outcomes.
• A student may need to cut parts of their actual thesis proposal to accommodate two Specific Aims requirement of the qualifying exam proposal.
• Expected pitfalls and alternative approaches should be included in the research strategy.
• The student should pay particular attention to whether the approaches outlined in the research strategy would be sufficient to accomplish the aims proposed.
• The student should provide the qualifying exam research proposal to the Committee no later than one week prior to the oral qualifying exam.

Qualifying exam meeting. The student should schedule a date and time for the qualifying exam at the same time as scheduling the pre-qualifying exam meeting. The Biochemistry DGS typically attends the qualifying exam meeting, but not the pre-qualifying exam meeting; therefore, students must include the DGS on all qualifying exam meeting scheduling correspondence. The qualifying exam meeting should normally take 2 hours, but the meeting should be scheduled for 2.5 hours in case the Committee needs extra time for discussion. This exam should be scheduled no earlier than 4 weeks after the pre-qualifying exam meeting and typically no later than June 1. Once a time and date for the qualifying exam meeting are found, the student will inform the DGS and Graduate Program Administrator and confirm the date, time, and place with the Committee and Ph.D. advisor. The student should work with the Departmental Administrator to reserve a room for the meeting.

The mentor should also provide the Committee chair with a letter providing an evaluation of the student’s performance to date, at least one day prior to the oral examination; please send the letter (signed on letterhead in PDF format) via email to the Committee chair with a CC to the DGS and program manager for program records. In advance of the oral exam, the Graduate Program Administrator should provide the chair of the committee with a copy of the student’s Vanderbilt academic record. The Administrator will also provide the examination outcome forms to the student taking the exam, which are to be completed and returned by the committee chair to the Program Administrator following the exam.

At the exam, the committee will decide whether the written proposal meets the minimum expectations of the committee and is defendable. If the committee is unanimous in their evaluation that the written proposal does not meet the minimum requirements, then this will be considered a failed exam and the student will be informed of the deficiencies that must be corrected. If at least one of the committee members judges the written proposal to meet the minimum requirements, then the student will be allowed to present their proposal at the oral exam.

The student will present their qualifying exam proposal Specific Aims to the Committee in a presentation with the following format (12 slides total):

• title slide (1 slide)
• background (3 slides, max)
• state your specific aims (1 slide)
• for each specific aim: list the aim, approaches, and preliminary data (3 slides per specific aim).
• overall impact of the proposed studies on the field (1 slide)

Minimal slide animation transitions should be used. For example, do not include more information per slide using animations that transition text in and out of the slide, but it is OK to use animations to iteratively show information that will remain on the slide as you present the slide.

The student’s qualifying exam presentation slide deck should be provided to the committee via email the morning of the meeting. During the oral qualifying exam, the student should demonstrate:

• Mastery of knowledge concerning the background, methods, and literature related to their specific project.
• A firm grasp of textbook-level biochemistry. This does not imply extensive memorization of metabolic pathways, etc., but does imply fluency in all major areas of biochemistry as defined by the consensus topical composition reflected by most biochemistry textbooks (for example, those authored by Stryer, Voet and Voet, etc.).
• An understanding of cell and molecular biology and of genetics at a level consistent with what is taught in the Bioregulation course for first-year IGP students.
• The ability to think critically, defend the proposed science, and communicate reasonably well.
• The approaches proposed are generally sufficient to complete the aims and test the proposed hypotheses.
• Ability to think about the next steps beyond or adjacent to the proposal—the next set of experiments, downstream hypotheses that could be proposed, etc.
• Completing the proposed research would provide a significant advance to the field of study.
• General student motivation and track record in terms of work ethic, lab aptitude, responsible conduct of research, general motivation, and scholarship are also expected to be satisfactory. These traits will be evaluated in part based on the advisor’s letter to the committee and the student’s course grades.

Qualifying exam outcomes. The possible outcomes of the qualifying exam are pass or fail. At the conclusion of the student’s oral defense, the chair of the committee will tally a blind vote to determine the initial impression of each member on whether the student passed or failed. After the initial vote, the committee will proceed through a balanced discussion of the merits of the written and oral portions of the student’s exam; the committee should make every effort to arrive at a unanimous or majority decision. If the vote is a tie, then the result will be considered a failed exam. Whether or not the student passes or fails, the committee chair will provide the student verbal and written feedback regarding the strengths and weaknesses with specific recommendations for improvement.

Students who fail the exam are given one opportunity to re-take the exam within 60 days of the failed qualifying exam; a longer timeline requires the consent of the DGS and mentor. The committee may request the student to redo the written, oral or both parts of the exam. A pass in some cases may be accompanied by a requirement by the committee that the student carry out certain tasks (such as completing specific research training or coursework) in order to be considered a Ph.D. candidate in good standing, as will be assessed at future Ph.D. committee meetings. If a second oral exam needs to be scheduled, the student should poll the committee and DGS for this purpose, with the Departmental Administrator then helping to locate a suitable room. Similar to the initial exam, the student should provide their committee with their proposal (revised, if needed) at least a week prior to the exam.

Following the exam (or both exams, if the student takes the exam twice), a letter addressed to the student will be prepared by the committee chair that summarizes committee discussion and states the outcome of the exam. This letter is sent to the student, the Ph.D. advisor, DGS, and the Program Administrator.