UW-Madison School of Nursing
Ph.D. Program Criteria for Satisfactory Progress

Grade Criteria | Registration Credit Minimum | Monitoring Progress
Certification for the Comprehensive Preliminary Examination

Grade Criteria

Students must meet the following grade requirements:

1. A student must maintain an overall grade point average of at least 3.0 in all doctoral work.
   
2. A student must receive a grade of B or better in each of the 3 nursing foundation courses (N860, N861, N862). If a grade less than B is received in any of these 3 courses, the grade requirement will be met by retaking the course the next time it is offered and receiving a grade of B or better.
   
3. A student may not receive more than one grade below B in any 12 month period.
   
4. A student may not carry more than one grade of incomplete. Incompletes must be removed by the end of the next semester of residence. (The summer session is not considered.)
   
5. Failure to meet the grade criteria may place a student in a state of unsatisfactory progress. A student in a state of unsatisfactory progress must remove the grade deficiencies by the end of the next semester.

Registration Credit Minimum

Students must be registered for a minimum of 6 credits in the regular semesters. Ph.D. dissertators are required to register for a minimum of 3 graduate level credits (usually 990) at the dissertator rate. Three (3) graduate credits at the dissertator rate is considered full-time.

Certification for the Comprehensive Preliminary Examination

Certification constitutes permission to take the comprehensive preliminary examination. Successful completion of the examination advances the student to candidacy and signals readiness to conduct independent research. Students must have completed the following requirements in order to write the preliminary examination.

1. Completion of requirements for the M.S. in Nursing. Generally, students will be expected to have completed nine population focused credits, six nursing research credits, three clinical field study credits, and a master's thesis/project or research practicum. Transcripts of students with master's degrees in nursing from other universities will be reviewed for equivalency.
   
2. Completion of the three doctoral foundation courses and one nursing seminar.
   
3. Completion of the research methods and statistics course work (minimum of 6 credits), the philosophy of science requirement (2 credits), ethics requirement (1 credit), and course work in the area of secondary concentration (minimum of 12 credits).
   
4. Students must also clear their records of any incompletes or grades of progress (P) in non-research courses and satisfy the Ph.D. residence requirement.
   

Monitoring Progress

1. The student's faculty advisor in nursing is responsible for monitoring the student's progress in the program.
   
2. The faculty advisor and the student will establish a timetable for each student which specifies dates for completion of program requirements.
   
3. The faculty advisor will report to the Graduate Programs Committee on the advisee's progress annually or whenever an advisee is placed in a state of unsatisfactory progress.
   
4. Failure to meet minimum grade criteria will result in a state of unsatisfactory progress. If the student has not returned to satisfactory progress by the end of the next regular semester, a decision about whether the student will be permitted to continue will be made by the Graduate Programs Committee with input from the student's advisor.

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