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Permission to register each
term is contingent, in part, on judgment that progress in the degree program is
satisfactory. A student who fails to maintain satisfactory progress will have
his or her candidacy terminated. Each program maintains its own standards of
satisfactory academic progress, and all students must familiarize themselves with
these standards.
The Graduate School considers progress to be minimally
satisfactory when progress is at a rate that will allow a student to complete
the M.A. degree within four consecutive terms of full-time study (GSAS
Degree Requirements under section VII.B.1.b for part-time study), the
M.A./M.Phil. degrees within four calendar years, and the M.A./M.Phil./Ph.D.
within seven calendar years. Students who receive credit for an M.A. completed
elsewhere must complete the M.Phil. within three calendar years and the Ph.D.
within six. This time limit for the M.A./M.Phil./Ph.D is known as the Seven-Year Rule for the Ph.D.
Only with permission of the department or program and the dean may a
Ph.D. student register for an eighth or later year of
study. This is already strictly enforced in many departments, so
students
should plan to complete all requirements in the given time period. Note
that the Seven-Year Rule is enforced by GSAS in the sense that
financial support or
housing extensions are not granted after seven years of residence. Some
programs have a shorter time-to-degree requirement. Where the program's
time-to-degree rule is shorter than seven years, the student must
follow the program's rule.
Satisfactory progress is
assessed annually on the basis of academic performance, including the timely
completion of all language examinations and all certifying and comprehensive
examinations and thesis requirements, grades, and performance in any required
teaching or research apprenticeships.
In addition, GSAS requires, beginning in the spring semester of the second year of
doctoral study, that all students complete the
Report on Progress in Candidacy in the Doctoral Program. Both students and
their advisers complete sections of this on-line report that detail progress,
quality of work, and schedule for dissertation and degree completion. Information
about the report is available at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/gsas/sub/dissertation/rules/progress/index.html.
Students
who fail to maintain satisfactory progress will be alerted to their
deficiencies, advised of the means to remedy them, and told the consequences of
their failure to do so. Extension of the time allowed for completion of a
degree may be granted on recommendation of the student’s sponsor (or adviser in
the case of the M.A. and M. Phil.) and the department (or program) chair to the
Dean when specific, unusual, mitigating circumstances warrant. Students may
initiate a request for extension by submitting to the dean a statement of work
in progress and a schedule for completion together with the recommendation of
the sponsor/adviser.
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