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The application deadline is June 1. The admission committee may consider applications received after the deadline for admission in either the current or in a future semester. The program invites applications throughout the year and will notify you when various application documents arrive. You will be invited for an interview soon after your admission file is complete. For applications completed before April 1, the program sends admission decisions one week after your interview. For completed applications received after March 31, it sends admission decisions on July 1. Please review the application instructions on the Admissions Process page for more details

To accelerate the program, you can register for more than one advanced elective in some semesters and can accelerate work on your dissertation. However, the Executive Friday schedule limits an accelerated schedule to a minimum of three years.

Since an MBA, or similar master’s degree, is required for admission to the DPS program, credits earned for a master’s degree do not transfer. However, applicants who have earned advanced graduate credits that were not considered part of a prior degree or certificate may request up to six transfer credits.

You must petition in advance to be excused from an Executive Friday. The doctoral office, in consultation with other doctoral faculty, will decide if an excuse is warranted; otherwise you must withdraw from the program. Usually, work-schedule conflicts are not an acceptable excuse. Attendance is important because missing an Executive Friday is normally equivalent to missing 20% of the formal class time with the faculty.

In unusual circumstances, you can take a leave of absence from the program. However, a leave may delay completion of the program and does not extend the five-year completion time limit.

All doctoral candidates complete a two-semester, six-credit, independent-study publishing tutorial sequence under the supervision of a Lubin faculty member. For these tutorials, candidates develop expertise and conduct research on a topic of their choice.

The comprehensive examination consists of a written component followed in 2-3 weeks by an oral component. A committee of two examiners evaluate both components to determine whether a candidate has passed. Usually at least one examiner would be a faculty member who taught a concentration seminar. During the concentration seminars, faculty explain to candidates the breadth and depth of knowledge and skill they are expected to demonstrate during the examination.

A dissertation defense is a formal meeting of the dissertation committee with the candidate for the purpose of approving the completed research. A dissertation proposal approval meeting is a formal meeting of the dissertation committee with the candidate for the purpose of approving the design of the research to be completed as part of the dissertation. The individual committee members receive the document two weeks before the meeting and review it. At the beginning of the meeting, the candidate presents a summary of the document and discusses it with the committee. A dissertation proposal is the portion of the dissertation that can be written prior to beginning the field work. It is normally the first three chapters of the dissertation. The committee includes a supervisor and two other full-time faculty members of the Lubin School and two people who are not members of the Â̾ÞÈËÊÓƵ faculty.

The program does not have a specific minimum grade point average requirement for admission. Prior grades are one of many factors considered in admission decisions.