Admission requirements to the Ph.D. program are naturally more stringent than those for the lesser degrees. More attention is paid to the student's background and potential to perform independent research. All applications are considered individually. In general, admissions are granted to students with a master's degree in electrical engineering or computer engineering who have achieved a minimum GPA of 3.5 on a 4.0 scale. Exceptional students may be accepted after receiving the bachelor's degree. Submission of GRE scores is recommended but not required.

All application forms and related material can be obtained from the Web site of The Graduate Studies Office at Stevens Institute of Technology. Students interested in discussing qualifications for admission to the graduate programs of the ECE Department can contact the Director of the ECE Department.

Ph.D Degree Course Requirements

The Ph.D. degree requires 90 credits. A maximum of 30 credits can be applied toward the 90-credit requirement of the Ph.D. from a previous master's degree or from any other graduate courses subject to the approval of the advisor. All Ph.D. candidat es must take at least 30 credits of thesis work and at least 20 credits of course work at Stevens beyond the master's degree. Courses counting towards the Ph.D. degree are expected to be taken from the ECE catalog courses (approval by the student's advisor is required to apply courses outside the ECE program to the Ph.D. degree).

Other Degree Requirements

All Ph.D. candidates must pass the written Ph.D. qualifying examination. Students may take the qualifying examination only twice. Failure to pass the qualifying examination in the second attempt will result in dismissal from the Ph.D. program.

After the student has successfully completed the qualifying examination, (s)he must arrange for an advisor to assist in the development of a thesis proposal. The advisor must be a full-time ECE professor or professor emeritus. Once a suitable topic has been found and agreed upon with the advisor, the student must prepare a thesis proposal. This thesis proposal should be completed and defended within one year of passing the Ph.D. qualifying examination. The proposal must indicate the direction that the thesis will take and procedures that will be used to initiate the research. Ordinarily, some preliminary results are included in the proposal. In addition, the proposal must indicate that the student is familiar with the research literature in his/her area. To this end, the proposal must include the results of a thorough literature search. A committee of at least three faculty members must accept the written thesis proposal. The committee chairperson is the thesis advisor. The other two members should be ECE department faculty. After the written proposal has been accepted, the examination committee conducts an oral defense. At this defense, the student presents his/her proposal.

All Ph.D. candidates who are working on a thesis must have a thesis committee chaired by the thesis advisor and consisting of at least four members. The thesis advisor and at least two other members must be full-time faculty members or professors emeritus of the ECE department. In addition, there must be one member who is a regular faculty member within another department at Stevens. It is permissible and desirable to have as a committee member a highly-qualified person from outside of Stevens. The committee must approve the completed thesis unanimously. After the thesis has been completed, it must be publicly defended.