Following the successful defense
of the prospectus and all required and elective coursework, the student will apply
for admission to candidacy using the
Application
for Admission to Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
form. The student is to
complete the cover page, and then obtain signatures from the Chair and Dissertation
Committee in Section A of the Qualifying Examination Committee Report. Once
signed by the committee, the application should be sent to the Ph.D. Director
for final signature, and then to the Assistant Dean of Graduate Programs and
Enrollment Services, who will forward it to the Graduate School-Newark, Dean's
Office. At this point, the student is considered a post-qualifying Doctoral
Candidate.
Students may also be permitted
to advance to candidacy earlier than the successful dissertation prospectus
defense if they have met the following conditions: (1) appointed an internal
dissertation committee of one SCJ faculty chair and two SCJ faculty committee
members; (2) completed a concept paper of approximately 10 pages in length
describing the dissertation project, to be approved by the internal committee;
and (3) submitted the Appointment of Dissertation Committee form, the approved
concept paper, and the Application for Admission to Candidacy form with
required signatures to the Ph.D. Director for approval. This does not
substitute for the necessity of a successful dissertation prospectus defense at
a later date.
As a Doctoral Candidate, to
maintain active status in the doctoral program, students must be continuously
enrolled until they graduate. They do so by registering each semester for
dissertation research credits. Once students have completed the required 18
hours of dissertation research credits, they may register for one of three
continuing statuses¿full-time matriculation continued, full-time study on
campus, or full-time study off campus¿plus one dissertation research credit.
These continuing statuses have different fee structures and financial aid
implications, so students are referred to the Graduate School-Newark for more
information (
https://catalogs.rutgers.edu/generated/nwk-grad_current/pg34.html
). Note that students who have
exhausted their assistantship funding from SCJ and have not yet advanced to
candidacy will be expected to pay for nine credits each semester, rather than one
credit.
Doctoral Program 
