Continuing beyond the MSEE at Stanford

Continuing beyond the MSEE at Stanford

Students working toward the Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering who wish to continue their studies past the M.S. degree and work toward the Ph.D. or Engineer degree in Electrical Engineering at Stanford must request the addition of a new degree program by submitting the form "Graduate Program Authorization Petition" for approval by the Department. Once a student has received the MSEE degree, he or she may not register for additional course work without this approval. The university assesses a fee of $50 for adding new degree programs, which includes the Graduate Program Authorization. The fee will be added to the student's account at the time the form is received in the Registrar's Office. The form and the fee are required upon completion of the MSEE even if the student was originally admitted for the MS/PhD program.

Permission to study beyond the M.S. degree will normally be granted to students who were originally admitted to the PhD program if the student:

1. has passed the Ph.D. qualifying examination within the past year

   OR

2. has a written commitment from a regular member of the EE faculty to serve as an Engineer or PhD dissertation adviser, and has a satisfactory academic record to date.

Students who were originally admitted only for the M.S. degree and not to the PhD program may petition the EE Graduate Admissions Committee for a change of status to the PhD program with permission to take the PhD qualifying exam in January. Only a few petitions are granted because of the following stringent conditions:

1. The student must have maintained a grade-point average of at least 3.50 in graduate-level, technical courses at Stanford.
2. The petition must be accompanied by a letter from a member of the academic council agreeing to supervise the student's PhD research and providing evidence of financial support. If the prospective research supervisor is outside the School of Engineering then there must be an additional supporting letter from an Academic Council member in Electrical Engineering.
3. The petition can only be submitted after the student has completed two quarters of full-time graduate study (excluding the summer) at Stanford.

Because many of our faculty members have more requests to serve as dissertation advisers than they are able to handle, it is obviously desirable for students to make their interests and skills known to faculty members with whom they might be interested in working, prior to seeking a commitment to supervise.

The requirement concerning permission to study beyond the M.S. degree is based on several reasons. We want to ensure that each student who is studying toward the Engineer or Ph.D. degree will have a reasonably good opportunity to find a regular faculty member who can serve as research supervisor. Each year our Department is able to provide faculty research supervision for approximately 70 new post-M.S. graduate students. Typically about 50 of these new post-M.S. students have come from the Stanford MSEE program; the remaining students have been admitted to begin post-M.S. study after completing the MS work at schools other than Stanford, or have been accepted as transfers from other Stanford departments. Recently, there have been well over 50 pre-MS students each year at Stanford who meet or surpass our minimum grade-point average qualification for study beyond the MS and who have expressed interest in continuing their graduate study here; therefore, it has been necessary to establish a procedure to ensure that the number of post-MS students in each technical area within Electrical Engineering is compatible with the number of available research supervision opportunities.

The application form, "Graduate Program Authorization Petition," may be obtained from Diane Shankle in the EE office. It must be approved by Diane Shankle and submitted to the Graduate Degree Progress section of the Registrar's Office prior to conferral of the M.S. degree.

Continuing beyond the MSEE at Stanford