Schedule your Qualifying Exam

1. See Karen Corl in Room 501A before you do anything else

she can help to guide you through the process. This can save you a lot of aggravation!

2. Secure your adviser's approval to take the exam

3. Pick a week in which to schedule your exam.  

Choose a week that fits best in your schedule. This week should be selected at least a month in advance to accommodate the committee’s schedule. You will need a minimum of two hours for your exam. Email Karen Corl [email protected] with the week you have selected.

4.  Secure 529 Walker

Karen Corl will secure 529 Walker for your exam after the committee has agreed on a date and time. You will receive an email with the details after it is confirmed.

5.  Submitting Qualifying Paper. 

Submit your qualifying paper two weeks prior to your exam to Karen Corl  [email protected]. She will forward your paper to the committee for review prior to the exam. 

Paper guidelines:  

  • Written in the style of a journal article 
  • Abstract – no more than 250 words 
  • Paper – 4000 words or less.

Complete guidelines can be found in the graduate handbook 
http://www.met.psu.edu/academics/graduate-studies/handbook-graduate-students

6.  Process Forms

There are no forms required for the qualifying exam. Grading is done electronically.

7.  Publish your exam to the website

In order to publish your exam talk, you will need to add the event to the Meteo website. Use the instructions below; you may want to print them before you click the link in step one. Don't forget step #13 or no one will see your event!

  1. LOG IN to the Meteo website by putting "https://" at the beginning of the URL of this page. 
  2. Go to the All Qualifying Exams section of the Meteo website (this page should open in a new window so these instructions will remain in your current window).  In the left menu bar (black) click on the "Add New" and select the  "Qualifying Exam" menu item.
  3. Speaker name - your name followed by two dashes (--) and PhD Qualifying Exam
  4. Affiliation - Penn State, Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science
  5. Event URL - leave blank
  6. Description - enter your talk title within quotation marks
  7. Event Location - usually will be 529 Walker Building
  8. Event Starts and Event Ends: obvious, but be very careful you've chosen the right dates and times (especially the AM and PM).
  9. Event Body Text - Enter "Adviser: (name of your adviser)." The rest may remain blank unless you have an abstract or any other information you want everyone to know.
  10. Event Types (very important) - This tells the system where to publish your event and gives it the designation necessary to generate the automatic email reminders. This part is found by clicking the "Categorization" tab at the very top of your editing window. In the "Event Type" box, you'll need to select (don't type them in--click in the box and wait for the drop downs to appear) all of these individually.
    • GR and
    • Homepage, and
    • PhD Qualifying Exam
    • Then click "Save" and you'll go back to the default editing window.
  11. Contact Info - type your name, email, and phone in the next three fields.
  12. Click "Save"  
  13. FINAL IMPORTANT STEP.  You must "publish" your exam event in order for it to show up on the website. In the black menu bar at the left, click on  "State: Private" (it should be red) and select, "Publish to the World."

8.  Email Karen Corl [email protected] to let her know you scheduled your exam on the website.