·         The CompExam shall test the candidate’s fundamental knowledge in COE/ICS. It shall also test the academic maturity of the candidate to pursue a PhD degree.

·         The CompExam shall be offered once a year, on Thursday of the first week of classes of the spring semester [1].

·         The student shall register for the exam by the end of the tenth week of the preceding semester.

·         The CompExam shall be managed and administered by the Joint Program Committee.

·         The CompExam shall cover the following five areas:

·         The CompExam is a closed book exam and shall last for four hours.

·         The CompExam booklet shall consist of five separate exam papers, each representing a single area of concentration listed in item 5. Each exam paper is a one-hour exam in length with a total of 100 points.

·         The candidate shall choose only four exam papers to answer.

·         The examination shall be considered “FAIL” if the sum of the total scores of the four areas is less than 280.  Otherwise, the examination is considered “PASS”

·         A candidate who fails the CompExam shall re-attempt it only once in its next administration. 

·         A second failure will require the candidate to withdraw from the program.