The preliminary committee will normally form the core of the student's five-member dissertation committee. The student should at this point designate one of the three members as the committee chair. The preliminary exam must be taken by the end of the third year. It consists of two written exams based on two distinct reading lists devised by the student and approved by the committee. The exams consists of two take-home essays, each of which should be no longer than 20 pages.
Students have ten days to complete the two-part exam.
They meet with the prelim committee for two hours no later than two weeks after turning in the essays to discuss the written exams. The student will advance to candidacy if the committee determines that he or she passed the preliminary examination, and provided that all incompletes have been removed. If the committee determines that the student has not passed the preliminary examination, the committee may offer the student an opportunity to retake the exam. If no such opportunity is offered, or if the student fails the second exam, he or she will be invited to apply to the School of Graduate Studies for a terminal M.A. 4. The student also submits a bibliography, and a detailed schedule for the researching and writing of the dissertation.