Current Students
Current students, please use the tabs below to explore the Astronomy Department’s policies and procedures.
As an entering graduate student you will be assigned a major professor and a senior graduate student as advisor and mentor. You can change your major professor at will, after consulting with the faculty. You are encouraged to work with a variety of the faculty and research staff during your first two years. By the time you take the preliminary examination, normally after two years of graduate study, you should have discussed a thesis topic with a professor who will serve as your thesis advisor.
Complete classwork
At the end of the second academic year a student must have:
- Completed at least 32 credits of course work (including all core courses)
- Received grades of C (or below) in no more than 3 credits’ work
- Received a GPA of at least 3.0 in the core courses taken
- Satisfactorily completed at least 3 credits of Astronomy 990 (Research)
- Completed an approved minor
Prelims
Students must have taken the Preliminary Examination by one academic month (i.e., excluding the summer sessions) after completing the second academic year (unless extended as described below).
Thesis Proposal
Within 9 calendar months after passing the Preliminary Examination, the student must pick a major professor, submit a written thesis proposal, and have it accepted by the faculty following an oral presentation
Doctoral Thesis
Students are expected to complete their thesis as quickly as possible, typically after a total residence or about five years. The median time to graduate is 5.5 years.
Financial support beyond that stated in the initial offer letter requires special approval from the Department. The Graduate School requires that the degree be completed within 5 years after taking the Preliminary Examination. Students are advised to check Graduate School requirements. A candidate for a Ph.D. degree who fails to take the final oral examination and deposit the dissertation within five years after taking the Preliminary Examination is required to take another preliminary examination and to be admitted to candidacy a second time.
After the preliminary examination is passed, students must register for a minimum of 3 credits of Astronomy 990, each semester.
In collaboration with your proposed major professor, you should begin considering a thesis topic before you take the preliminary examination.
Formal approval of the thesis proposal is obtained after you make an oral presentation to the faculty giving the thesis title; the aim of the research (together with a statement of how it is related to current results, research, and trends in astronomy), an outline of the specific steps to be carried out; and a preliminary estimate of the facilities required (e.g. time at observatories or supercomputer centers).
This approval should be obtained within nine months of passing the preliminary examination. After the finished thesis has been presented, the final oral examination will include questions on the thesis research and also its relation to the wider field of which it is a part.
For final submission to the graduate school, the thesis must adhere to the graduate school formatting guidelines.
Financial support for graduate students is provided through University fellowships or Departmental assistantships. Contingent on satisfactory progress, the length of guaranteed student support is four continuous years for those with no prior graduate work. Three continuous years are guaranteed for those with one year or more of prior graduate work. In either case, it is almost always the case that students remain fully funded through their thesis defense.
Students are paid at a maximum 50% appointment level throughout their graduate school career. The funding percentage is also dependent upon the funds that are available to the faculty member funding the student. Once the guaranteed four years of funding have been met, however, the department will reevaluate the funding percentage.
As an entering graduate student you will be assigned a major professor and a senior graduate student as advisor and mentor. You can change your major professor at will, after consulting with the faculty. You are encouraged to work with a variety of the faculty and research staff during your first two years.
By the time you take the preliminary examination, normally after two years of graduate study, you should have discussed a thesis topic with a professor who will serve as your thesis advisor.
Graduate students from other departments who wish to minor in Astronomy should ask the department for assignment of a minor professor. The minimum requirement for a minor is 9 credits from courses at or above the 300-level, including Astronomy 700 (cross listed courses with other departments are not eligible), and a GPA of 3.0 in the minor courses.
The Astronomy Department does not have a foreign language requirement.
Astronomy graduate students are expected to take the written examination at the end of the second academic year and the oral prelim by the end of their 5th semester. Both parts of the prelim exam must be passed in order to continue as a graduate student in Astronomy at UW-Madison. If there is a need to boost the knowledge in a topic, there is a chance to delay taking the preliminary exam for an extra year.
Rationale:
These exams are a chance for the students to express the knowledge that they have gained since becoming a graduate student at the University. This is also a chance for the professors to make sure each student has made satisfactory progress in their research and overall understanding of astronomy in general.
Candidates for the Ph.D. are required to pass a preliminary examination before beginning their formal thesis work. This examination covers all fields of astrophysics and consists of both written (two half days) and oral (two hours) testing. The examination is not a test on a particular series of courses, but rather on the whole subject of astrophysics and related fields in physics. Candidates are expected to be familiar not only with the contents of textbooks, but also with research results as reported in scientific journals and departmental colloquia and seminars.
Our prelim exams are composed of two parts:
- The first is a written exam composed of short questions are drawn from all areas of astronomy (not necessarily covered in one of the core classes). The exam will consist of a morning and an afternoon part with six questions each.
- The second is an oral exam in which the student is expected to display in-depth knowledge of topics related to their research. The first part of the oral exam consists of a presentation on the student’s research. The second part is in a question and answer format in which the faculty committee members pose questions related to the talk and astronomical topics related to the student’s area of research to the student.
Location and date:
Since there are generally less than 10 students in each class, the exams are held in one of the conference rooms in our building.
The Chair sets the date of the Preliminary Examination after consultation with the faculty and with the students who will take it. The examination will normally be given only once for all of the students who complete their second academic year at the same time. The students will be informed at least a month before the date of the Preliminary Exam if the exam will be of a substantially different form (in the distribution and nature of the written and oral parts) from the previous exam.
The written exam is held in the weeks following spring finals. The written exam is held over two days for all students. The oral exam is to be scheduled individually by each student and their committee, to be held between the beginning of their 3rd semester and end of their 5th semester. After each student has completed the exam, the professors meet to discuss the results.
To enter as a graduate student you must have undergraduate preparation that includes at least three years of college physics and mathematics through differential equations. While undergraduate training in Astronomy is not required, you should be familiar with the basic facts of modern Astronomy.
It is recommended that you review these facts with a text such as Astronomy (Zeilek, 2002) or Modern Astrophysics (Carroll and Ostlie, 1996). It is the student’s responsibility to meet the Graduate School and Astronomy Department (both minor and major) requirements at the proper times; therefore you should be familiar with the general requirements found in the introductory section of the Graduate School Bulletin as well as the special requirements and course listings given in this Bulletin.
All candidates are expected to have direct experience in research by the time they take the preliminary examination. Students therefore normally carry out small research projects. Students also will learn how to carry out observations by using telescopes and will participate in the reduction and interpretation of ground-based or satellite observations.
Teacher training is an integral part of our graduate program, and an essential aspect of preparation for the Ph.D. The department is committed to helping students develop their teaching skills, through training programs and mentoring. Ph.D. candidates are normally required to hold a teaching assistantship for between one and three semesters.
The best way to learn about the different research opportunities available in the department is to browse through the Research section on this web site, which presents the different research areas actively pursued, as well as an overview of our observatories and research facilities. If you want to learn more about a specific area, we encourage you to contact a faculty member or research scientist directly.
From the second semester through the successful presentation of their thesis proposal, graduate students are advised by their “Committee of Three”.
Motivation:
- Provide students with a broader advising perspective
- Plan for financial support
- Provide students with regular feedback on their progress
- Encourage early publication
- Insure that no student falls behind
- Foster more departmental collaborations
Operational Details:
- The committee consists of the research mentor + 2 faculty members, senior scientists, or emeritus faculty.
- Members are chosen by the grad advising committee in consultation with the student regarding their interests.
- Committee members transition as appropriate prior to the thesis proposal. After the thesis proposal, the Committee of Three morphs into the Thesis Committee.
- First and second year students meet with their committees in Nov/Dec and Apr/May. All other students meet with their committees in Apr/May.
- The meeting should be scheduled for 1 hour. The research mentor should attend only the second half of the meeting, since he/she does not need as much updating as the other committee members.
- Students are responsible for scheduling the meetings. A best faith effort must be made to have all members present – a minimum of 2 committee members is required. Remote participation via skype or telecon is fine when necessary.
- Prior to the meeting, the student sends a completed form (found in the Astronomy_Graduate_Handbook_2023) to the committee outlining his/her progress over the past year. This acts as a starting point for discussion.
- After the meeting, the student adds the advice from the committee to the form and sends it to the chair of the graduate advising committee.
- The grad advising chair will send reminders about the meetings and has oversight responsibility. (Students are not required to have a Committee of Three meeting, but they are strongly encouraged to do so.)