A student must pass a qualifying examination to be allowed to continue toward the Ph.D. degree. It is designed to test the student's preparation to do research in applied mathematics. The Doctoral Qualifying Examination comprises the so-called Common Exam and the Area-Specific Exam. Every doctoral student must take the former but may choose to take the latter in the student's declared area of concentration -- computational applied math. (CAM), operations research (OR), or statistics (STAT).

The exams are given twice a year during the first week of Spring semester and summer.

Common Exam (Updated on December 12, 2003)

In the first two hours of the three-hour Common Exam the student is expected to do six out of eight problems in linear algebra and advanced calculus at the level of AMS 510, Analytical Methods for Applied Mathematics and Statistics. The following link has problems from recent AMS 510 homework assignments that give an idea of what the Common Exam questions in linear algebra and advanced calculus will be like. 510 review problems

In the remaining hour, the student answers the problems in one of the two categories. The CAM Category requires doing two out of three problems from each of AMS 504, Foundations of Applied Mathematics and 505, Applied Linear Algebra. The Stat/OR category involves doing three out of four problems from AMS 507, Introduction to Probability.

Computational Applied Math (CAM) Exam: Organizer Prof. Brent Lindquist

Students will be asked to solve 8 problems.
4 problems out of the following 5 problems: 2 from 501, 2 from 502, 1 from 503.
4 problems out of the following 5 problems: 2 or 3 from 526 and 2 or 3 from 527.

Operational Research (OR) Exam: Organizer Prof. Emre Alper Yildirim

The exam is 4 hours long. Students must answer
2 out of 3 questions on AMS 540
2 out of 3 questions on AMS 550
3 out of 2 questions each from 553, 546, 545, 544, 556, 569.

Statistics (STAT) Exam

It consists of two parts: Mathematical Statistics and Applied Statistics. Mathematical Statistics part is organized by Prof. Hongshik Ahn. Applied Statistics part, organized by Prof. Steve Finch, Nancy Mendell or Wei Zhu, is usually given as a take home exam.

Past Common Qualifying Exams and Area Specific Exams may be accessed by clicking here: Past Qualifying Exams