# Admission to Candidacy Admission to candidacy for the PhD in Clinical Research constitutes a promotion of the student to the most advanced stage of graduate study and provides formal approval to the candidate to devote essentially exclusive attention to the research and the writing of the dissertation. To qualify for admission to candidacy, students must: * Be in good standing * Have completed all required coursework with a minimum of a B or better in all required coursework as per their declared track * Earned a cumulative GPA of 3.0 * Have passed the Written Comprehensive Qualifying Exam * Have received approval of the proposed subject and plan of the dissertation from the respective MAC following a successful Dissertation Research Thesis Proposal Oral Presentation --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://ismms-gs.gitbook.io/graduate-student-handbook/chapter-3-1/clinical-research-education-program/doctoral-dissertation-phdcr/admission-to-candidacy.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.