The gate
Candidacy certifies you've shown mastery of the field and have a viable dissertation plan. The qualifying exam format varies — written, oral, a portfolio, or a research paper — and is set by the program. Forming the committee and getting the proposal approved usually happens around the same time.
After you advance
The work becomes self-directed: regular meetings with your advisor, committee check-ins, and the dissertation itself. Watch the candidacy and overall time limits, keep continuous enrollment as required, and confirm how the reduced dissertator tuition and any funding change affects your budget and, for international students, your status.
In and around Porter Falls
Porter's eight graduate programs are small and applied — most students are working in the Valley while they study — and the Graduate School office in Millwright Hall keeps the handbooks and funding notices in one place.
The practical details
Requirements: Completed core coursework, passed the qualifying/preliminary examination, an approved dissertation committee, and often an approved proposal. Status change: You become ‘ABD’ (all but dissertation); tuition may shift to a lower candidacy rate and enrollment to a dissertator credit. Clock: The time-to-degree limit still applies, and some programs set a separate limit on years in candidacy. Anything time-sensitive — an accommodation, a booking, a deadline — is worth confirming directly before you rely on it, because the specifics here can change from term to term.
If you have a question
The office behind this is Graduate School (Millwright Hall, Room 320). Call (715) 555–0225 or email gradschool@uwporterfalls.edu during the fall and spring terms, or sign in to MyPorter to send a message or book a time. If it turns out another office owns the question, they will route it rather than send you back to the start.
Fictional information
UW–Porter Falls is a work of parody. Every office, person, building, phone number and statistic on this page is invented; nothing here describes a real institution or a service you can actually contact.