Program Admission
Admit Terms and Deadlines
Students will start the program in the Fall.
Application materials must be received by
February 1st. All materials must be received by this date before the Graduate Admissions Office, Graduate School, and Doctoral Operations Committee review. Decisions for financial aid, usually in the form of a graduate assistantship, will generally be made annually in April or May.
Admission decisions are usually made within six weeks of this due date.
Minimum Graduate School Requirements
For full admission, applicants must have 1) Earned a four-year baccalaureate degree from a regionally accredited U.S. institution or an equivalent degree from a non-U.S. institution, 2) a minimum cumulative undergraduate grade point average of 2.7 on a 4.0 scale, or 3.0 in the last half of the undergraduate program. Conditional admission may be available to applicants not meeting minimum admission requirements.
Program Requirements
Applicants must also meet the following program requirements. Requirements may be more stringent than the minimum graduate school requirements.
- Academic ability as measured by verbal, quantitative, and written scores on the Graduate Record Exam/GRE (website). An applicant’s GRE scores must be under five (5) years old. Students with older GRE results are required to retake the GRE. The GRE is waived for the Fall 2024 application cycle.
- Completion of graduate work, in a field relevant to applied technology, with a minimum 3.0 GPA on a 4.0 scale. In exceptional cases, conditional admission may be possible with an undergraduate degree, with a minimum 3.0 GPA on a 4.0 scale;
- Academic background in a technology area. Applicants must have completed a minimum of 30 semester hours in a master’s degree program in a technology-related area, including a course in statistics;
- Fit between applicant and faculty scholarly activity and technology concentration. A personal statement is requested describing the applicant’s professional and academic goals. We are particularly interested in applicants with academic interests similar to our faculty. The personal statement must include the intended area of concentration.
- Personal qualities that predict success in graduate study and professional placement after graduation. To evaluate these, each applicant must submit three letters of recommendation.
- Current resume. Preference is given to applicants with documented work experience related to educational goals.
Students may be admitted to the program under one of the two categories described below:
Option A: Master’s degree (full admission): Students must meet one of the following requirements, 1) Master’s degree from any EMU GameAbove College of Engineering and Technology program, or 2) Master’s degree from any regionally accredited institution in an area related to one of the Ph.D. in technology concentrations. Preference will be given to students holding a completed master’s degree.
Option B: Graduate credits - Master’s degree in progress (conditional admission): Students must meet one of the following requirements, 1) Undergraduate degree and graduate credits from any GameAbove College of Engineering and Technology master’s degree program, or 2) Undergraduate degree and graduate credits from any master’s degree program from a regionally accredited institution.
Application
Your application will be submitted using GradCAS, a Centralized Application Service (CAS) hosted by Liaison. After reviewing the admission requirements, please review the application instructions and select the appropriate application.
- Go to 2023-2024 GradCAS to apply to a program beginning in Summer 2024, Fall 2024, or Winter 2025.
- Go to 2024-2025 GradCAS to apply to a program beginning in Summer 2025, Fall 2025, or Winter 2026.
Domestic Applicants Within the application, applicants will follow the instructions to submit official transcripts from the institution(s) that granted their bachelor’s and graduate degrees.
If the bachelor’s degree-granting transcript does NOT list 30 or more credit hours with an overall GPA of 3.0 or over OR list 60 or more credit hours with an overall GPA between 2.7 and 2.99, the applicant is required to submit transcripts from all previously attended institutions. The University may ask applicants to submit additional transcripts after applying.
International Applicants Before applying, applicants must review the international application/process deadlines at emich.edu/international as they may differ from general program requirements.
For additional information regarding the application process, please see Graduate Admissions or International Admissions.
Program Information
Graduate Assistantships
Students may be eligible for graduate assistantships while they are enrolled in the program full-time, where full-time is defined as enrolled in a minimum of eight credits. If awarded, a student will be assigned to a faculty member in his or her area of research interest. He or she will spend 20 hours per week assisting with research and teaching activities. Graduate assistants may be asked to assist with class preparations, presentations, and grading, as well as with data collection, preparation, and analysis. Faculty members will serve as mentors to their students, training and guiding them in developing their own research plans for dissertation work. Students may request specific faculty persons as mentors and may request a change in mentor as they matriculate through the program. Every effort will be made to accommodate student requests within reason. Graduate assistantships include tuition waiver and stipend and are usually 8-month appointments.
Graduate/Doctoral Fellowships
A few graduate/doctoral fellowships are available to highly qualified students who have full admission to the doctoral program and have served as graduate assistants at EMU. The graduate fellowship is a distinction of honor awarded to selected graduate students based on academic merit and demonstrated abilities. Fellowships are available only for full-time doctoral students.
Fellows must enroll in and complete at least eight hours of graduate-level course work in each of the Fall and Winter terms of the award. Fellowships are 12-month appointments and students must be enrolled in courses every semester during the year, Fall-Winter-Summer.
Fellows must have a minimum 3.6 cumulative masters-level GPA to receive consideration. Doctoral students who have already begun their programs must have a minimum 3.6 cumulative doctoral GPA to receive consideration for fellowships.
A doctoral fellow’s responsibilities may include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Provide research assistance to faculty.
- Participate in research, sponsored or un-sponsored, at the level of a research investigator.
- Teach two College of Technology courses in an area in which they are qualified.
- Assist in the maintenance of the College and/or a department or program’s website(s).
- Assist in the development and operation of seminars and symposia for the college.
- Perform tasks and duties normally associated with the honor of a fellowship.
The stipends and related benefits will be in accordance with those currently in effect for graduate assistants and doctoral fellows.
Candidacy Qualifying Examination
The College of Technology doctoral program requires students to participate in a Candidacy Qualifying Examination to demonstrate their understanding of applications of multiple research methods related to applied technology in their selected field of concentration. After students have completed the majority of their doctoral course work, except for the dissertation research, they are required to complete a candidacy qualifying exam. The purpose of this examination is to determine students’ mastery of the literature base, research design knowledge, and problems and issues in their field of concentration. The examination requires that the student answer written-questions on the technology core, the concentration, and the research core. The written exam will be administered simultaneously to all eligible students during the Fall and Winter semesters at a pre-determined time. An oral examination will be scheduled within one month of the written exam and involve the student’s dissertation committee. Students are expected to provide evidence of their ability to identify doctoral-level research problems, analyze and synthesize background information related to the problems, and apply appropriate research methodologies for the collection and analysis of data to resolve the problems. See details on specific requirements and pre-requisite courses for the Candidacy Qualifying Examination in the COT Doctoral Program Student Handbook.
Failing this exam will result in a review of the student’s performance in the Ph.D. program by the Doctoral Operations Committee. The committee may recommend that the student be dismissed from the doctoral program, be permitted to withdraw from the doctoral program, or be allowed to retake the examination (either partially or totally) after a remediation plan has been developed and implemented. Re-examination may not take place until at least three months have elapsed, but must occur within one calendar year. The results of the second examination are final.
Dissertation
Proposal
After students have passed the candidacy qualifying examination, they may begin work on their doctoral dissertation proposal. Proposals must be developed under the oversight of a dissertation committee, and formally presented to the committee in a venue similar to the Candidacy Qualifying Examination.
Defense
After a student has completed all course work requirements, received the approval of the dissertation research proposal, and completed the dissertation research, they will present the final results of their dissertation research to their doctoral committee. The student must give the committee a minimum of two weeks to read the final copy of the dissertation. After the committee has read the dissertation, the student will present their work to the committee, faculty and guests. At the end of the presentation, the committee will ask questions of the student to either clarify the research or to ensure that the student understands the background, results, and ramifications of the research. At the end of the presentation, the committee will deliberate alone on the results of the defense. They may recommend that the student pass with minimal corrections to the dissertation or with major corrections, or, in rare cases, ask the student to redo significant portions of the research. See details on this requirement and the courses related to it in the current COT Doctoral Program Student Handbook.
Degree Requirements: 60 hours
The doctoral program requires the completion of a minimum of 60 graduate credit hours of study, beyond the master’s degree. Its 60 credit component parts are:
- Technology core courses that provide a common knowledge base for all students;
- Technology concentration courses that enhance technical expertise and promote technology literacy supporting the area of the student’s doctoral research;
- Cognate courses shaped around individual research interests;
- Research skills across a variety of settings;
- A scholarly research study, original work as performed by the student; and
- Dissertation.
Concentration: 15 hours
Students are required to take at least 15 credits of graduate credit related to their area of concentration. Specific course requirements are determined in consultation with the student’s doctoral advisor from the area of concentration. The student’s concentration will be noted on their EMU transcript.
Concentrations include:
- Construction Management
- Cybersecurity and Applied Computing
- Engineering Management
- Interior Design
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- Polymers and Coatings
- Quality Management
- Technology and Society
- Technology Management
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Cognate Courses: 6 hours
This planned program of course work beyond the core and technical concentration contributes to the student’s intellectual and professional development, and their area of research interest. Cognate courses should together constitute a unified experience in a particular subject or discipline area. Specific 600- and 700-level courses are selected in consultation with the doctoral advisor or a committee member who represents the cognate area. The cognate courses must be taken outside of the area of concentration or outside the College of Engineering and Technology.
Research Skills: 9 hours
Research design and methodology courses provide advanced skills that prepare students for completing the dissertation. It is expected that incoming students will have a level of statistical competence equivalent to that gained in a graduate-level statistics course.
Dissertation Research: 21 hours
A student may enroll in dissertation research courses only after achieving candidacy status. Students must enroll in courses that result in the writing, defense and presentation of the dissertation.
Critical Graduation Information
Each graduate student is responsible for fulfilling the requirements or their equivalents of the Eastern Michigan University catalog in force at the time of their initial registration or a subsequent catalog, including the one in effect at the time of their graduation.
Students have seven (7) years to complete the requirements for the doctoral degree from the date of first enrollment in the doctoral program at EMU.
In the event a student does not complete the degree requirements within seven years of the date of their original registration, the student may be required to have their credits re-evaluated by the academic department(s) of their degree in keeping with catalog requirements in force during the year of their graduation.
The following are minimum requirements for all doctoral degrees awarded by Eastern Michigan University. Some programs require more than the minimum in one or more areas below.
- Minimum Credit Hour Requirements
- A Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree must require a minimum of 90 credit hours post bachelor’s degree.
- A Ph.D. degree in a program that requires a master’s degree for admission must require a minimum of 60 credit hours post-master’s.
- A Ph.D. degree in a program that allows a specialist’s degree for admission must require a minimum of 36 credit hours post-specialist’s.
- Doctoral degrees in clinical or practitioner programs must require a minimum of 75 hours if admitting students post-bachelor’s degree. If admitting students post-master’s degree, a minimum of 41 new hours are required.
- Doctoral programs must require a minimum of 15 total credit hours of research and research support coursework.
- No more than six credits of independent study courses, and no more than 12 credit hours of special topics and independent study courses combined, may be applied to a graduate degree.
- Residency Requirement - See Academic Policies and Processes—Graduate School for residency requirements.
- Students must maintain a 3.0 cumulative GPA in all graduate-level courses taken at EMU and in their program of study to remain in good academic standing and be eligible for graduation. Students do not need to be registered for classes during the semester of graduation.
- The Graduate School does not permit the use of undergraduate courses (499 and below) to meet degree requirements on graduate programs of study.
- Some doctoral programs require a dissertation. See the Graduate School website for Thesis and Dissertation Manuals, all forms, and information about research and human subject approval. Every completed thesis or dissertation must be submitted to Digital Commons. Any form of graduate student work submitted to Digital Commons must first be approved by a faculty advisor and the Graduate School.
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