United States Graduate Programs
In many United States institutions the term "Prelims" is used for the preliminary examinations required before a graduate student is permitted to begin working on a doctoral dissertation. Depending on the institution, "prelims" may also be called "quals" or "general exams". Practice in this regard varies among US Graduate School programs, and even among academic departments at the same institution. Some have a single examination or set of examinations, in which case they are typically called "Prelims." Other departments have two sets of examinations, one taken early in the student's graduate work called "Comps" because they are intended as a comprehensive survey of the student's overall preparation to undertake graduate-level work, and a later set known as "Quals" intended to assess the student's qualifications to undertake dissertation research. Typically a student who does not pass such examinations will be given one more chance. If a student does not pass on the final attempt, they are usually given the opportunity to graduate with a terminal Master's Degree. Some institutions require students to pass both a written and an oral qualifying exam. Upon passing the written portion, the student is required to select a committee of professors from their department of study, and this committee administers an oral exam. Upon satisfactory completion of the oral exam, the student is allowed to begin dissertation work, and that committee becomes the dissertation advisory committee.
In some university departments, graduate students seeking a Ph.D. degree must take a series of written cumulative examinations on the subject of their study in the first year or two of the Ph.D. program. These cumulative exams are often given on a pass/fail basis and a graduate student who seeks to continue in the Ph.D. program must pass a minimum number of these cumulative exams. After this minimum number of cumulative exams is passed, this degree requirement is considered to be met, and the Ph.D. student no longer takes these exams but continues work on other Ph.D. requirements. A student that has passed these testing requirements is formally known as a Ph.D. Candidate, Doctoral Candidate, or A.B.D., which stands for all-but-dissertation.
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