The Doctoral Program is designed to encourage your individual research interests while providing you with the skills to meet your professional goals.
In general, you must complete at least 20 course units (up to four per term) for the PhD degree, and you must complete at least 12 of these at the University of Pennsylvania. If you're registered for four courses in a term, you may audit an additional course, with permission.
On this page:
- Academic Standards
- Time Limits
- The Doctoral Dissertation
- Wharton Authorship Policy for Doctoral Student-Faculty Collaboration
- Teacher Development Program (TDP)
Academic Standards
Wharton expects the highest quality of scholarship from its doctoral candidates, and your performance is reviewed at the end of each academic year. Students with less than a B average for all courses taken in that 12-month period (including final grades or incompletes from previous work) must submit a written statement in support of his or her continuation in the program, to be reviewed by the student's program coordinator and the Doctoral Programs Office. Failure to initiate a written appeal results in an automatic withdrawal from the program by the start of the next academic year.
You are given two opportunities to pass the preliminary examinations. An appeal for a third attempt can be made by following the procedure described in the "Wharton School Doctoral Programs: Policies and Procedures," a supplementary publication for matriculated students. Individual departmental graduate programs may impose more stringent requirements.
Time Limits
The Doctor of Philosophy degree normally requires three to five years of full-time study. Entry into the program is only possible in the fall semester. After entry, you take course work as necessary to prepare for admission to candidacy. You are admitted to candidacy upon the successful completion of course requirements, your preliminary examinations, and a seminar in communication and teaching skills. In all of the School's programs, the preliminary examinations must be completed at least one year prior to the defense of the dissertation.
You must complete all the requirements for admission to candidacy within four years of the date of admission into the program (excluding leaves of absence). Once admitted to candidacy, you must complete your dissertation requirement within the four years following. After admission to one of the School's programs, you must either be registered for courses or dissertation work or be on an approved leave of absence. Leaves of absence are granted, under extenuating circumstances, only to students in good academic standing who have not yet been admitted to candidacy. Those who are not on an approved leave and who have not registered for any one semester will be considered to have withdrawn from the program.
The Doctoral Dissertation
While writing your dissertation, you interact extensively with Wharton faculty, seeking advice from those with whom you share research interests. They help you formulate and pursue your dissertation topic as early as possible in your program. Together with interested faculty, you create a research relationship with your dissertation adviser and dissertation committee.
The formal dissertation procedure takes place in two phases. In the first phase, you prepare a proposal indicating the nature of your planned dissertation research. When you have developed a written dissertation proposal that your advisor judges is ready for oral defense, a formal proposal defense before the dissertation committee is held.
Following approval of the dissertation proposal, you enter the second phase, the dissertation phase. When the written dissertation is judged complete by your advisor, it must be defended orally in a final dissertation defense before the dissertation committee.
For a complete explanation of course requirements, academic standards, the Teacher Development Program, time limits, and dissertation procedures and requirements, see Wharton School Doctoral Programs: Policies and Procedures, a supplementary publication for matriculated students.
Wharton Authorship Policy for Doctoral Student-Faculty Collaboration
At the Wharton School, all students work with faculty on research. Before initiating joint research activities, the faculty member and the student should have a clear understanding of how authorship credit on any papers that arise from their research will be determined. The disciplinary standards, styles, and procedures for credit, for the order of authors' names, and for acknowledgment footnotes vary across Wharton's doctoral programs and across the research centers and schools in which its faculty and students participate. Therefore, there cannot be a single set of rules or procedures.
The key element of the policy is a statement of expectations by the faculty member and agreement by the student at the start of the research. The actual expectations and policies must be mutually agreeable and, if they are not, the student or faculty member should decline collaboration. When roles and expectations change over the course of collaboration, the understanding concerning authorship should be discussed again and altered if necessary. If disputes arise, the process for resolution outlined in the Graduate School rules and procedures should be followed.
Teacher Development Program (TDP)
All PhD candidates in the Wharton Doctoral Programs may be required to participate in the Teacher Development Program (TDP). Offered in the fall semester only (meeting twice a week for four weeks), the workshop covers course design, lecturing, discussions, the use of the case method, and other pedagogical strategies. All participants are videotaped at least twice and will receive individual, confidential feedback from the instructor.
Doctoral candidates are encouraged to participate in the program during their second year to prepare them to teach while at Wharton. However, the requirement may be fulfilled at any time during residency. Occasionally, waivers may be granted by the department's doctoral coordinator under the following conditions:
- significant prior teaching experience
- recognized teaching awards
- college-level education courses
Please see the Center for Teaching and Learning site for further information.