In addition to the policies set forth by the UB Graduate School, all graduate students in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences must abide by the following rules.
There may be further restrictions imposed by your home department. Please refer to the Graduate Handbook posted on your department’s website and/or contact your department’s Director of Graduate Studies to determine if there are additional departmental policies that are applicable to you.
The Graduate School and SEAS require a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0 for all courses that will count towards a student's degree.
SEAS restricts the maximum total number of credit hours (out of 72) that can come from Master's project, Master's thesis and Doctoral dissertation to be 36.
Thus, for students not counting any Master's project and/or Master's thesis credits toward their PhD degree, a total of 36 credit hours may be taken as dissertation credits. For students including Master's project and/or Master's thesis credit hours within their 72 credit hour Doctoral program, the maximum dissertation credits would be reduced from 36 by the number of Master's project and/ or Master's thesis credits.
In contrast, the UB Graduate School policy does not have a restriction on the number of credit hours for a dissertation.
SEAS restricts the maximum number of credit hours from a Master's (MS/ME) thesis or project to 6.
In contrast, the UB Graduate School policy does not have a restriction on the number of credit hours for a Master's (MS/ME) thesis or project.
SEAS does not allow S/U grades, except for Master's project, Master's thesis, dissertation, internship or courses taken as supervised research or seminar.
In contrast, the UB Graduate School policy states that no more than 25 percent of required course credits in a student’s graduate program (not including courses taken as supervised research, thesis, project, portfolio, or dissertation guidance) shall be graded on an S/U basis.
SEAS stipulates that at most, two attempts can be made to repeat courses other than those that are normally “repeatable” ("repeatable" courses include dissertation, research, thesis, project or portfolio guidance; independent study; directed readings, etc.). This limit can be met in two different ways — by repeating the same course twice or by repeating two separate courses once each. In addition, there is a limit of four courses on which a student can receive an “R” grade.
In contrast, UB Graduate School policy states “If a graduate student repeats a course that is normally not repeatable, only the highest grade earned in the course will be counted toward the degree and used to calculate the grade point average associated with the graduate degree program requirements. However, the student’s official transcript will record all courses attempted (including repeated courses). All resulting grades earned are calculated in the GPA and reflected on the student’s final official transcript.”