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Updated on November 3, 2025. Effective beginning Fall 2025.
Admission to CGU doctoral programs requires a formal application and approval of the field faculty and dean. This requirement extends to students completing a master’s degree at CGU. Specific information regarding degree requirements for each program is available in the Program Requirements section of the Bulletin.
Unit requirements for doctoral degrees vary according to the type of doctoral degree. Generally, a minimum of 72 units of coursework is required for the Ph.D.
The residency requirement ensures that students who graduate from CGU have been fully enriched by the program characteristics and faculty interactions that distinguish their degrees as CGU degrees.
For students who do not transfer credit from a previous degree program, residency requirement may be met by:
Students who receive transfer credit meet the residency requirement in one of the following ways:
Note: Students who are admitted to a doctoral program after completing a CGU master’s degree are subject to the same regulations on residency as students who enter CGU after completing a master’s degree at another institution. Units earned in a CGU master’s program generally count toward the unit requirement for a doctoral degree in the same field. Because coursework requirements differ from field to field, not all CGU master’s units may count toward doctoral degree requirements. Students should consult their faculty advisors.
Students enrolled in a PhD program must be enrolled continuously, either for credit or through Doctoral Study (499), until the degree is earned. For PhD students who must still complete unit requirements, enrollment in Doctoral Research (495), Tutorial Reading (497), or Independent Study (498) is advised. Grades for Dissertation Research are not required until the oral defense is passed and the dissertation is submitted. No grades are issued for Doctoral Study.
Doctoral students are required to complete a Transdisciplinary course prior to the completion of 48 units toward their doctoral program, including transfer credits.
To fulfill this requirement, students must enroll in a CGU course section headed by the prefix TNDY and successfully complete a total of four units. Transfer units and audited courses may not be used to meet this requirement.
The course will count as four units towards the doctoral degree requirement. It will not add any additional units to the student’s degree requirements nor count against the total number of transfer units from previous graduate coursework.
Milestones for the doctoral degree typically include, but are not limited to, the successful completion of one or more Research Tools, a Qualifying Examination, Advancement to Candidacy, and the Dissertation Defense. Additional requirements may apply depending on the student’s program. Students should consult the academic program section of the University Bulletin for specific milestone expectations and sequencing.
A demonstrated proficiency in a skill or subject—such as a foreign language, statistics, mathematics, computer programming, or other approved areas—required by certain academic programs to support advanced research. Proficiency must be verified through an approved examination, successful completion of a qualified course with a grade of B or higher, or another documented method accepted by the institution.
Transcript notation will be added only if the research tool is completed as a non-course requirement. To record successful completion of the Research Tool on the student’s transcript, department staff will submit a completed Research Tool Approval Form to the Registrar’s Office by the last day of the semester in which the tool was completed.
Tools Completed Outside CGU
Students who have completed a research tool at another institution may petition their faculty to receive credit toward the CGU degree. An official transcript is required to substantiate that completion of applicable coursework occurred within the last three years. All transfer credit policies apply.
Students who intend to transfer tools to a CGU degree program are encouraged to petition their department as early as possible after beginning study at CGU in order to meet the three-year requirement. Requests are submitted as follows:
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Attach an official transcript that documents completion of the tool. If this information was included in the transcript provided upon admission, a new transcript is not required, and the student should indicate on the petition that the official transcript is already on file. The student’s department will make and attach a copy of that transcript to the petition.
When a student has completed all program requirements, the advisor and dean of the student’s program approve a committee to administer the qualifying examinations. Upon successful completion of the exam(s), the committee reports the results to the registrar’s office. Students are expected to successfully complete their qualifying examinations prior to advancing to candidacy and within six months of the established time to degree period of the program. Forms are available on the Registrar’s Form Index webpage.
Prerequisites for Qualifying Examinations
Generally, the following requirements must be met before a student is permitted to take qualifying examinations.
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The student must have completed not less than two years of full-time graduate study, or 48 units, including transfer credit. Courses in which the student has received an incomplete grade do not qualify toward the 48 units needed for eligibility.
Type of Exams
Refer to department and the requirements for degree program to determine the type of qualifying exams that must be completed.
Scheduling Exams
Qualifying exams are scheduled by the academic department. The student’s advisor or dean approves a committee to administer the examination whose results are reported to the Registrar’s Office using the Qualifying Exam Approval form. Exam results are posted to student transcripts in the Non-Course Milestones section.
Failing an Exam
Students who fail to pass the qualifying exam are permitted, on the recommendation of the student’s advisor and dean, to take a second examination after a stipulated period of time. This period must be no less than three months and no more than one calendar year after the first examination. If the results of the second examination are unsatisfactory, no further examinations are permitted, except upon recommendation of the graduate faculty in the field concerned and with the approval of the provost.
Students who are unable to pass required qualifying examinations within the time to degree established for their degree program, may be subject to dismissal from their program.
The membership of a student’s dissertation committee, including changes as they become necessary, must be reported to the registrar’s office. Each dissertation committee consists of at least three members drawn from the core CGU faculty or the Claremont Colleges Extended Faculty, on the condition that at least one committee member be a core CGU faculty member from the candidate’s department. CGU encourages the inclusion of an external expert, or experts, on the committee. This outside examiner or reader is in addition to the three members required for the committee. The outside examiner may be a faculty member from another institution or a qualified practitioner from the student’s field of study. If approved by the department, the outside examiner may vote in the committee’s proceedings and may be offered an honorarium. All dissertation committees are approved by the dean of the school. Exceptions to the make-up of a particular committee require approval of the provost.
The students’ dissertation committee, including changes as they become necessary, must be reported to the Registrar’s Office. Forms are available on the Registrar’s Form Index webpage.
Identifying the Dissertation Committee
As a student begins to refine a topic for the dissertation, they should identify an advisor who will chair the dissertation committee. At the same time, the student and the chair will identify members of the Claremont Colleges to form the committee. A committee must be established and reported to the Registrar’s Office on a Designation of Dissertation Committee form. This committee will approve the dissertation proposal and advance the student to candidacy.
Students must ensure that the dissertation committee complies with CGU policies and that any changes to committee membership are reported to the Registrar’s Office using a Designation of Dissertation Committee form.
On all approval forms submitted to the Registrar’s Office, individual members of the committee must personally affix their own signatures or provide other written evidence of individual approval. Such evidence may include written documentation or an e-mail from an institutional or professional domain. If approval is provided by such documentation, “See attached” may be recorded on the signature line for the individual. Under no circumstances will a committee chair, another member, or anyone else sign on behalf of a colleague.
Exceptions to Dissertation Committee Membership
Exceptions to the make-up of a dissertation committee must be approved by the provost. Requests should be submitted by the dean of the school through a Petition for Exception to CGU Policy form. Requests should include the following.
If approved, the Provost’s Office will notify the Registrar’s Office. Documentation for an approved exception is retained in the student’s file.
Students are ready to advance to candidacy and begin work on their dissertation (or paper/project for those doctoral degrees not requiring a dissertation) if all the following qualifications as specified by their program are complete: all coursework, qualifying exams, and research tools. Students are responsible for program requirements in effect for the semester of their admission or last readmission, whichever is the most recent, and published in the CGU Bulletin for that academic year.
Advancement to candidacy for the doctoral degree occurs when the student’s dissertation or project proposal is accepted and approved by the student’s committee. A copy of the student’s proposal must be attached to the Advancement to Candidacy form filed with the Registrar’s Office.
The dissertation proposal is a contract between the student and the committee detailing expectations and requirements of the dissertation or project. The content, organization, format, and length of the proposal are determined by the student’s committee. Any changes to the dissertation proposal must be approved by all members of the committee and documented on a Declaration of Change to Approved Proposal form. A copy of the revised proposal must be attached to the form, which is filed with the Registrar’s Office.
Doctoral students advance to candidacy when their dissertation or project proposals are approved by the student’s committee.
The dissertation defense, sometimes referred to as the final oral examination, should take place within one month of submission of a dissertation to the committee for review. Degree completion deadlines announced in the Academic Calendar apply.
Requirements
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An Intent to Receive a Degree form must be submitted to the Registrar’s Office for the term in which the student expects to graduate, by the deadline for submission established in the Academic Calendar. If an Intent to Receive a Degree form is submitted for one semester but the student delays the graduation term for any reason, a new Intent form must be submitted for the next term in which completion of the degree requirements is anticipated. These forms do not automatically roll over from one term to the next.
Final Approval
A Final Approval form must be submitted to the Registrar’s Office to document the student’s successful defense and approval of the dissertation itself The Final Approval form requires the signatures of all members of the dissertation committee and the dean. Students may not graduate or receive their degrees until all the required approvals have been received by the Registrar’s Office and the student has submitted the final, approved version of the dissertation to ProQuest.
Failing the Dissertation Defense
If a student fails to successfully complete a dissertation defense, the student may be permitted, upon the recommendation of the graduate faculty in the field concerned, to take a second examination. Students may not schedule a subsequent defense less than three months and no more than one calendar year after the first defense. The student must maintain student status and continue to enroll in Doctoral Study. During this period, the student should work under supervision of the dissertation chair to determine readiness to defend again. If the second defense is failed, no further attempts are permitted.
Upon completion of a successful dissertation defense and before a degree is awarded, the student must submit the final, approved dissertation (submission of the DMA project paper is optional) to ProQuest Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETD) Administrator. Submissions must be made by the submission deadline announced in the Academic Calendar. Failure to meet this deadline may result in delays to the student’s degree conferral term.
ProQuest Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETD) Administrator
Submission of the dissertation to the online ProQuest ETD Administrator is required for the completion of degree requirements. Dissertations and theses are published for CGU by ProQuest/UMI and the Claremont Colleges Libraries digital repository, Scholarship@Claremont. Both CGU and ProQuest have manuscript formatting requirements which are outlined in the Dissertation Formatting and Filing Requirements Guide available on the Registrar’s Form Index website. Documents submitted to the ETD are not eligible for publication until approved and released by CGU.
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