For Post Candidacy Students

Course Registration:

• Post-candidacy students should enroll for 3 credit hours total
• The post-candidacy research course is 8999 (different numbering than the pre-candidacy 7998 course)
• You will need permission from your Advisor and the Vice Chair of Grad Studies if you are hoping to take over the 3-credit hour limit

Auditing a Course:

Here are the instructions to audit a course:

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First, you will need to get the approval to audit in writing from the instructor, send that approval email to the Graduate Program Coordinator, and then she will send it to grad_schoolregistrationservices@osu.edu along with the info in the list below and ask them to enroll you as an auditing student in the course:

1. Your instructor’s email response
2. Your Ohio State username (name. #)
3. Semester or term and year of course
4. Course department
5. Course number
6. Class number
7. Number of credit hours 

The GPC will copy you on those emails, so you know when the course has been added.

Something to keep in mind since is that the credit hours are charged tuition, but they don't count toward the minimum credit hour requirement for the semester.

So, pre-candidacy students will need to keep their needed credit hours of enrollment to meet the pre-candidacy minimum in addition to any audited courses, but, you have to make sure your PI (If you are a GRA) or Department (if you are a GTA) is okay with paying the additional tuition cost since they will be charged for the total course hours.

Student Health Insurance:

• If you have external health insurance already or insurance from your family that you want to use, then you do not need to enroll in the student health plan.
• However, if you do need insurance and would like to use the student health plan, you will need to manually opt in.
• This page has some information on how to select or waive your student health insurance: SELECT / WAIVE OVERVIEW : Student Health Insurance
• You should be able to select your coverage through Buckeye Link, in the 'Finances' section under 'Student Health Insurance.'
• It is important to note that the deadlines for this process each semester at the link above

Financial Responsibility Statement:

The Financial Responsibility Statement (FRS) is required to be completed each term before enrollment in courses can be initiated. Information on the Financial Responsibility Statement can be found on the Office of Business and Finance site.

To complete the FRS:

• Go to buckeyelink.osu.edu
• Select My Buckeye Link under Quick Links
• Log in with your Ohio State username (lastname.#) and password
• Select Financial Responsibility Statement under the To Do List
• Agree to the three required statements
• Select Submit
   

OPERS:

• GTA and GRAs: Remember, you need to manually opt out of OPERS if you do not want to participate! Otherwise, you will be automatically enrolled, and the monthly contributions will be automatically pulled out of your paycheck
• Here is some more information about OPERS, and how to opt in/out as a student: Student Employee Retirement - Human Resources at Ohio State
• You have 30 days from the start of your appointment to submit the opt out paperwork

Statement of Account:

BEGINNING OF SEMESTER: If you have enrolled in classes for the semester, then your tuition and fees have been calculated, and your Statement of Account is now available on your BuckeyeLink student center.

You will see an amount due - likely a very large amount! Do not worry – that will reduce to $0 when the following tasks are complete:

• You are enrolled in the correct number of credit hours for the semester
• Your AU25 appointment is active in Workday
  • Our HR and the Graduate Program Coordinator are responsible for hiring all students who will have GTA, GRA, or fellowship appointments in Physics. If you have a University, Graduate Access, or Presidential Fellowship, your hiring will be completed by the Graduate School
• As a reminder, the semester's mandatory student fees will be deducted in equal installments from your paychecks

Editing Physics Website Profile:

If you don't already have a photo on the Department of Physics website and are comfortable adding one, please do so! 
Here are some step-by-step instructions on how to log in to our website and add a photo to your profile page:

• Each grad student and staff member has editing access for their own personal page on the website. You can update your personal page at any time, by scrolling to the bottom of the physics website, clicking "Login," and using your full OSU email. You will need to reset/pick a password first, then you should be able to login and edit whenever. Contact the Graduate Program Coordinator if you have any difficulties with this
• You can add your office number, education, professional website, or whatever else you would like. (You can use the other 'People' pages as inspiration.)
• If you cannot log into your page or you believe your profile is missing, please contact the GPC

The graduate school and university offer many opportunities to apply for funding, and we encourage you to check these out:

• Graduate School Grants page: Grants | Graduate School
• Alumni Grants for Grad Research and Scholarship: Alumni Grants for Graduate Research and Scholarship | Graduate School
• Office of Research and Sponsored Programs: Find Funding | Enterprise for Research, Innovation and Knowledge at Ohio State
• Council of Graduate Studies funding: Funding, Awards & Resources : Council of Graduate Students
• Career Development Grant: About the Career Development Grant : Council of Graduate Students
• Ray Travel Award for Service and Scholarship: Ray Travel Award for Service and Scholarship (up to $1000 per academic year) : Council of Graduate Students
• General Resources: General Grad Student Resources : Council of Graduate Students
• College of Arts and Sciences Small Grants Program: Graduate Student Funding | College of Arts and Sciences

General course registration information on the OSU Graduate School website: Course Registration | Graduate School

• Please enroll for the coming term for all courses and research hours and be FULL time enrolled a month before the first day of the next semester's HR appointment start dates.  Procrastinate At Your Own Peril!  (See below for how many credit hours are required to be full time enrolled for a term.)
• Step one for registering for classes:  CLEAR Financial Responsibility Statement FIRST which can be found by clicking on your To Do item labeled as that on the right menu in SIS.  
• ALWAYS verify after you submit your course registration how many credit hours you registered for as you have to change the default of 1 credit hour when registering for Physics 8999 research and it is easy to forget to do that!
• Last Day you can ADD a full semester course ONLINE is the 1st Friday of the term!
• Deadlines Matter!  You can’t change your mind for enrolling or dropping any course AFTER the first Friday of a term as the First Friday is the deadline for a full refund of tuition.
• Remember, you should always ADD FIRST then DROP LAST. : )   SIS will not warn you that you won’t be able to add a full semester course after the first Friday as the online drop window is open until the 3^rd Friday.   Please check with the Grad Studies Office if you need to make any changes to your schedule after the fee payment deadline 1 week before the start of a new term.
• All POST Candidacy students for Graduate support titles (GTA, GRA) or on Fellowship or GRA GS-Match funding):  Enroll in the grad school requirement of 3 credit hours

First decide, would you like to have full access to all course materials and to complete all assignments/ tests, or are you just looking to sit in on the lectures?

If you just want to sit in, all you need to do is ask the instructor if this is okay with them. If it is, then you can just go and listen and that's the end of it.

However, if the instructor wants you to officially register as an auditing student and/or you are wanting full access as described above, then you need to get the approval to audit in writing from the instructor, send that approval email to the Graduate Program Coordinator (Carly Scopel, scopel.6@osu.edu), and then she will send it to grad_schoolregistrationservices@osu.edu along with the info in the list below and ask them to enroll you as an auditing student in the course:

1. Your instructor’s email response
2. Your Ohio State username (name. #)
3. Semester or term and year of course
4. Course department
5. Course number
6. Class number
7. Number of credit hours 

The Grad Program Coordinator will copy you on those emails so you know when the course has been added.

Something to keep in mind is that the credit hours are charged tuition, but they don't count toward the minimum credit hour requirement for the semester.

So, you will need to keep your three credit hour enrollment to meet the post-candidacy minimum, but, you have to make sure your PI (if you are a GRA) or the Department (if you are a GTA) is okay with paying the additional tuition cost since they will be charged for the total course hours.

Download and complete the Physics Graduate Studies Annual Review form found on the Carmen course “Physics Annual Review for Post Candidacy.” Next, please schedule a meeting with your advisor and all of your advising committee members.  Please contact your committee by (date TBD) to set up your meeting between  (dates TBD) These meetings typically should run about 15 minutes for students in their 3^rd and 4^th years and 30 to 45 minutes for students in their 5^th and 6^th years. Please note that most faculty will likely have these annual review meetings scheduled back-to-back in some cases and therefore if additional time is needed then a follow up meeting may need to be scheduled for later.  

Prepare a 3-to-5-page progress summary in Power Point, PDF, Word or your preferred document program for a 5 minute talk that should be a high level overview. Save or print the document to PDF. See Appendix below for more details for the recommended contents and suggested order. 

Update your C.V. or Resume with your accomplishments over the last year or more and save as a PDF.  The C.V./resume document is a good place to summarize some of the things you put on your review form about your recent activities. Before you meet with your full committee for your annual review, email each member the 3 PDF files (form, progress summary, CV) so they can review it prior to the meeting. For the actual meeting with you committee, bring paper copies of the 3 PDF files for each committee member who will meet in-person. It is not recommended to use a projector for in-person participants since this tends to take more time, unless your committee prefers that format. Please check with your advisor for the preferred presentation format.

 The Physics Graduate Studies program requires that students meet with all 4 of advising committee members at the same time, which can be on Zoom or a combination of in person and on Zoom (hybrid) or all on Zoom. If you need to meet with 3 out of 4 members of your committee and then later meet with the 4th person, that sort of set up is OK with the advanced approval of your advisor.  Your review will be considered “complete” after you have met with your full advising committee, your advisor has approved the annual review (see below), and you have uploaded your 3 documents to Carmen. Incomplete information on the form or missing assignments will need to be updated and uploaded. You should contact your committee no later than by (date TBD) to schedule your Annual Review for no later than (date TBD). 

After meeting with your advising committee, upload your 3 PDFs to the Carmen course “Physics Annual Review for Post Candidacy” as 3 separate homework assignments. No paper copies will be accepted. Preferred file name format is: Last name, first name -C.V.; last name, first name -form; last name, first name -summary.

Your advisor will approve your Annual Review form to confirm that the annual review meeting was completed, and it will also serve as approval of your research progress toward your Ph.D. See instructions under THESIS ADVISOR below for the advisor to approve the form. Your C.V. and Research Summary will be graded by the Grad Studies office awarding a point to check in these 2 documents.  Later, your annual review document will be reviewed by the Graduate Studies office then it may be assigned to a Graduate Studies Committee faculty member. If needed, any issues or concerns will be discussed by the Graduate Studies Committee.  Should any follow up with you be required, we may contact you to have a meeting with the Vice Chair of Graduate Studies and/or the Co-Chair of the Graduate Studies Committee to discuss.  You are also welcome to contact the Physics Graduate Studies office to discuss your review should you feel that is needed.

You should meet with or have an email conversation with your student before the review meeting with the full advisory committee to discuss the contents of the filled-out annual review form and the student’s research summary.  Please be sure to both discuss and provide information for question 6 about financial support for your student(s), and please include comments on current/future funding if you feel that would be appropriate. 

You must approve the Annual Review form after the meeting. You can approve the form in one of two ways: (1) sign a paper copy of the form, which your student with then scan and upload to the Carmen course, or (2) go to the Carmen course “Physics Annual Review for Post Candidacy”, look up your student’s assignments, and award 1 point as a grade for the Annual Review form assignment. Using Speed Grader is the best option for grading. The point serves to confirm that the meeting with the committee was completed and that progress toward a Ph.D. is approved. Should there be any concerns you may request a meeting with the Vice Chair of Graduate Studies for discussion.

The Graduate Studies office will grade the other 2 assignments to confirm that all 3 documents have been uploaded.

Please work with your advisees to schedule the annual review meeting and include your meeting format preference of in person, hybrid, or all on Zoom. We require that students meet with their full committee if at all possible.  If you cannot be present for the full committee review, please do schedule another time with your advisee for an individual meeting. 

Suggested topics to cover during annual review meeting:

1. Review milestones accomplished over last year.
2. Review funding plan/student support for coming year.
3. Review plans for future presentations, conferences, workshops, summer schools, and publications.
4. Review career goals post Ph.D. and the plans to achieve them.

Before the annual review meeting ends, the Graduate Studies Office asks that the Advisor leave the room (or go to breakout room) to allow the student to talk privately with the rest of the Advising Committee in case there are issues that the student or the advising committee would like to discuss without the advisor present.

      Suggested questions to ask students in the private section of the annual review meeting:

1. What are you concerned about?  (eg. working conditions, climate, your future, etc.)
2. Are you clear on expectations for progress and graduation?
3. Are you satisfied with your progress?
4. Do you get adequate feedback?  (Can include feedback from advisor as well as group members and collaborators.)

At the end of an annual review meeting, please have the student note any comments or concerns on the student’s copy of the form. If you think private communication is needed, please send email to the Vice Chair of Graduate Studies and/or the Program Coordinator with any issues or concerns you have.

The Advisor will be approving the Annual Review form on Carmen on behalf of the committee thus confirming the student’s review material and their progress toward finishing a Ph.D.  Advisor will use Speed Grader to award 1 pt for completing the review. If you have any questions or concerns after a review, you are welcome to contact the Vice Chair of Graduate Studies for further discussion.

1. Graduate Studies (GS) Annual Review Form saved as PDF with the file name as your “Last name, First name -form; -CV.; -summary. Examples: “Buckeye, Brutus -form.pdf; Buckeye, Brutus -summary.pdf; Buckeye, Brutus -CV.pdf”  
2. The 3 to 5 page PDF document with your progress summary/overview.

Page/Slide 1-2: Your name, area of research and year you started in program. Summarize or bullet-point your research progress/accomplishments made toward your degree in the past year.  Please include such things as:

• Highlights of your research activity/project(s)            
• Any scholarships or awards you received. (ex: poster competition awards or a fellowship)
• Conferences or workshops you attended         
• Published or submitted papers (including name and full authors list (if fewer than 10 authors), noting whether or not you are first author, and journal)
• Presented or were a named contributor to a poster or talk (please indicate title of the talk, name of the conference, and whether you presented the poster or talk         
• Participated in outreach events (GRASP camp, State Fair, Breakfast of Science Champions, school visit, etc.)
• You are an officer or serving member of an OSU student organization. (Includes SWiP, PGSC, CGS, etc.)
• Other activities related to progress toward your PhD

Page/Slide 2-3: Remaining objectives for completing your research and dissertation and give a time table for achieving them.

Page/Slide 3-4: High level work plan. Please specify both student and advisor’s input where appropriate.

3.   1 to 2 page C.V. or resume in the style or format of your choosing.  

Most graduate students in the Ph.D. program receive financial support as Graduate Associates, (either Teaching Associates (GTA) or Research Associates (GRA)) or as Fellows during their student career. These appointments cover the cost of tuition and the instructional fee, monthly stipend, and 100% subsidized health insurance. Renewal of GA appointments is subject to the student adhering to the code of student conduct, and remaining in Good Standing with the Physics Department.

Good Standing in the Physics Department generally requires that the student meets the Physics Core-Course GPA requirement (at least 3.30 GPA in the core courses), the Graduate School’s GPA requirement (at least 3.00 GPA in all graduate courses, see below), has satisfactory teaching performance as a GTA (as determined by the Physics Vice Chair for Administration), and is making reasonable progress towards their degree (as determined by the Physics Graduate Studies Committee). Graduate School policy is that a student with a GPA in all graduate courses below 3.00 is put on probation by the Graduate School, and is not eligible for graduate appointment for the semester following their GPA falling below 3.00 without petition from the Vice Chair of Graduate Studies to the Graduate School.

Appointment titles and the semester stipends will be sent via Workday before the start of each semester. All graduate appointments are subject to good academic standing, prior performance as well as available funding per section 9.2 of the Graduate School Handbook.  

Graduate Student Stipends

Most of our students are supported for a full 12-month year that runs mid-August to mid-August for Autumn, Spring and Summer semesters. As of autumn 2025, the monthly stipend amount for students appointed through the Department of Physics is:

$2,682 per month

*Pay Dates are the last working day of month.

Semester dates:

• Autumn: mid-August through December 31st. August, September, October, November, and December (4.5 months)
• Spring: January 1st through mid-May (last business day before start of summer term.)   January, February, March, April, and May (4.5 months)
• Summer: mid-May through mid-August. May, June, July, and August (3 months)  

Date(s) per term by which unit expects to make reappointment decisions:  

 Tuition and Fees

The Department of Physics will make GA appointments in a manner such that students will not be billed for tuition. If a GA fails to register for classes according to the schedule published by the Registrar’s Office or class/registration information provided by the Graduate Program Coordinator, the student will be responsible for any late registration penalties that are assessed. 

The GA will also be responsible for obtaining student health insurance or waiving it if student is still on parental plan. Student Health Insurance is subsidized 100% by the University.

Primary Duties

Teaching Associates:

• Instruction of introductory physics course recitations and/or labs.
• Mandatory attendance for all associated preparation, training/organizational weekly meetings.
• Proctoring examinations as assigned.
• Duties also include grading homework and exams, record keeping, examination proctoring, holding 1 to 2 office hours
• per week, tutor room hours as assigned .
• Enroll and attend Physics 7891A teaching seminar for first academic year of teaching assignment. (Students who have already been a GTA are not required to register for this course.)
• Reappointments require satisfactory teaching performance in prior semesters.
• Other duties as assigned.
• Reappointments require satisfactory performance in prior semesters. Graduate students in our program are required by the department to maintain a 3.3 GPA in the core courses and a 3.0 overall GPA is required Graduate School policy as noted in their handbook
• *Must be available during entire term of contract.

 Research Associates:

• Responsible for conducting a directed scientific research project with a graduate faculty research advisor.
• Conduct experiments and/or performing calculations as well as organizing or analyzing data.
• Presenting findings in a publication and/or dissertation, collaborating with faculty in preparing publications, mentoring/coaching work of other GRA’s, or undergraduate students.
• Other research activities and other related duties as assigned.
• Other duties as assigned
• Re-appointments require satisfactory performance in prior semesters. Graduate students in our program are required by the department to maintain a 3.3 GPA in the core courses and a 3.0 overall GPA is required Graduate School policy as noted in their handbook.
• Please note that you must be available during entire term of contract as your tuition authorization and health insurance subsidy are both dependent on you being enrolled AND employed for the entire semester.

        *See Section 11 on Benefits in Graduate School Handbook for guidelines on short term absences.

                 Section 11.2 Time Off under Sick/Bereavement Leave 

Most graduate associates are part-time student employees (50 percent time) and therefore do not meet the eligibility criterion for the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) Policy 6.05(opens in new window). GAs, fellows and trainees do not accrue vacation or sick leave. Rules regarding time off during semester or term breaks or other times are determined by the GA’s appointing unit. GAs must check with their appointing units to determine when they are expected to be on duty. GAs that have held an appointment for more than 60.1 percent FTE for an entire 12 month period may qualify for leave under FMLA and should contact their local unit and FML Administrator(opens in new window) to determine eligibility. 

Legal Holidays. GAs are not required to work on legal holidays noted on the university calendar. When university offices are required to maintain services on certain holidays and GAs are scheduled to work on a holiday, they must be given an alternate day off.

Each program unit can determine the policy or guidelines for graduate student paid leave. Any leave additional to legal holidays is optional, but are strongly encouraged by the Graduate School. One day off for students working 20 hours per week is recommended to be assessed as 4 hours/day over 5 working days. The Graduate School has the following guidelines that are strongly encouraged for students holding a GA, fellow or trainee appointment. 

• Sick/Bereavement Leave. A period of one to three consecutive days at a time for up to a maximum of three times for personal and/or family illness each spring or autumn semester may be taken. Sick days do not accrue beyond a semester. Many GAs have nine-month appointments and thus sick leave would not be granted in the summer term. If the student is a summer GA, fellow or trainee, then 1-3 days off up to twice per summer term is recommended.
• Personal Leave. A period of up to 10 business days per year (two weeks per year) for vacation and/or personal reasons may be taken. Personal leave does not accrue.
• Professional Development Leave. It is recommended that at least 5 business days per year be allotted for professional development activities such as attending workshops, or attending and presenting scholarly work at national and international meetings.
• Parental Leave. Up to 3 weeks of leave may be granted for childbirth or adoption. Up to 3 additional weeks for health recovery of the birth mother is recommended (Appendix F). One suggested allocation would be to use remaining sick-leave, personal leave, and professional leave followed by paid leave for up to 3 or 6 weeks as applicable. Parental leave should be discussed and planned with the advisor and local unit.