Admission Requirements

Completion of an undergraduate degree in Nuclear Engineering or in another related engineering or science discipline is required for admission to the M.Eng. degree program in Nuclear Engineering. Students should have at least a 3.00 (4.00 base) junior-senior average to be considered for admission.

Provisional Admission

Provisional admission is a temporary classification in which an applicant may remain for a period of no longer than 2 semesters following admission or the time it takes to accrue 15 credits, whichever comes first. If the deficiencies that caused the provisional admission are not corrected by this time, the student may be dropped from the program.

Examinations for Admission

Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). To qualify for admission, an international student must achieve a minimum TOEFL score of 550 on the paper-based test, and a minimum score of 213 on the computer-based test. This requirement is waived if the student's native tongue is English or if the student received baccalaureate or master's degrees from an institution in which the language of instruction was English.

Graduate Record Examination (GRE). All students must submit scores on the general aptitude tests of the GRE prior to admission consideration.

Program Requirements

Each of the following requirements must be met in order for a student to be approved for graduation:

1) A minimum of 30 graduate credits must be earned. Only grades of A, B, and C are accepted for graduate credit.

2) A minimum grade point average (GPA) of 3.00 is required, not counting grades obtained in NucE 597C, Professional Topics in Engineering.

3) At least twelve (12) 400- or 500-level course credits must be taken as NucE courses.

4) At least twelve (12) of the 30 required credits must be in 500-level courses. This includes NucE 597C as well as any 500-level NucE courses taken to satisfy requirement #3 above. At least six credits must be NucE 500-level courses.

5) Specific course requirements

a) NucE 301, 302, 403, 450 or their equivalent. Students with an undergraduate or graduate degree in Nuclear Engineering will usually have completed the equivalent of NucE 301, 302, and 450. Some students may have the equivalent of NucE 403. You need to review this with your advisor. Students whose baccalaureate degree is not in nuclear engineering have two ways of fulfilling the undergraduate requirement. If they enter in the Summer Session, they take NucE 297A/497A, a four-credit reactor theory course, which is considered an acceptable substitute for NucE 301 and 302. The student can then proceed to NucE 403 in the Fall Semester. It is recommended that students who have not had reactor theory follow this path. If the student enters in the Fall Semester, NucE 301 must be taken in the Fall Semester and NucE 302 in the Spring Semester. Courses below the 400 level do not count toward the graduate program. The intention in the NucE 450 requirement is to make sure the entering student has had an adequate laboratory experience in (at least) radiation detection and measurement.

b) The NucE 597X courses are allowed to fulfill part of the graduate degree requirements. These typically are regular Nuclear Engineering classes which are being taught on an experimental basis (and thus have no official course number). This requires special approval by the Nuclear Engineering Graduate Faculty, for which a petition must be submitted.

c) NucE 596 and NucE 496 (Individual Studies) courses can be used in special circumstances to fulfill part of the graduate degree requirements. This requires special approval by the Nuclear Engineering Graduate Faculty, for which a petition must be submitted.

The petition must state clearly:

• the rationale for taking the Individual Studies course, rather than regular courses,
• the program of study defining the content of the course and the work to be performed by the student in taking the course, and
• the grading criteria whereby the student’ s work will be assessed.

The petition must be submitted by the end of the first week of class of the semester in which the course is to be taught. The graduate faculty will evaluate the petition and render a decision by the second week of classes. If the course is approved, the faculty member must document the student’s work and the grading in the student’s file.

No more than six (6) total credits of NucE 496 and NucE 596 courses may be applied toward the graduate degree.

6) No thesis is required for the M.Eng degree. Instead, the student takes three (3) credits of Professional Topics in Nuclear Engineering, NucE 597C, which represents formal recognition of the student's effort spent on writing a paper on an engineering subject. This paper corresponds to a typical first assignment an engineer might expect working in industry. It must be approved by the advisor, a faculty reader and the Program Chair.

7) The remaining credits must be courses at the 400- and 500-level as selected by the student with approval by the student's advisor as having significance and value for the degree program.

Establishing a Program of Study

Within the first month of enrollment in the Nuclear Engineering graduate program, students need to prepare a program of study in consultation with their academic advisor (see form on page 15.) Such a plan will specify which courses the students will take to fulfill their graduate degree requirements. The plan needs to be signed by the academic advisor and by the graduate program coordinator, and will be added to the student =s file. The program of study can be changed at any time, with the signatures of the academic advisor and the graduate program coordinator.

Maintaining Satisfactory Scholarship

A minimum grade point average of 3.00 (excluding NucE 597C credits) is required in order to be granted a graduate degree in Nuclear Engineering. In addition, at the end of the initial semester, a student with less than a 3.00 average will be notified by their faculty advisor of future grade point average requirements. These requirements will be developed by the graduate faculty early in the next semester. The Program will review each graduate student's grade point average at the end of each semester. The minimum grade point averages required for continuation as a regular graduate student in Nuclear Engineering are:

If in a review of the student's grade point average, the minimum requirements are not met, a letter (signed by the advisor) to the student from the Graduate Faculty of the Nuclear Engineering will state:

a) The requirement(s) which the student has failed to satisfy.

b) The requirement(s) which the student must meet by the end of the next semester.

c) If the next semester requirement(s) set forth in item b. is not met, the faculty will review the student's academic performance at a meeting convened prior to the end of the first two weeks of the subsequent semester. In the absence of extenuating circumstances, the student will be dropped as a regular graduate student immediately following the meeting.

If a student is dropped as a regular graduate student in Nuclear Engineering, continuing nuclear engineering study as a provisional student is possible. The student must be re-admitted into the Graduate School as a nondegree student. Such admission is subject to the recommendation of the Program Chair of Nuclear Engineering, who will act according to the recommendations of the Graduate Faculty developed in (c) above. During nondegree student status, no research credit (NucE 597C) may be earned.

The student may petition the Graduate Faculty of Nuclear Engineering for admission as a regular graduate student when their cumulative graduate course grade point average is elevated to 3.00 or greater. A maximum of 10 graduate-level credits earned while a nondegree student will be counted in satisfying the graduate degree requirements in Nuclear Engineering.

If, through the late drop process or other processes (e.g., auditing a course instead of taking it for credit), a graduate student receiving financial support falls below the proper credit load, that support will be lost.

*Every semester the Graduate School produces a calendar of deadline dates regarding graduation and thesis approval. This calendar will be posted on the bulletin boards in the Reber Building, or a copy may be obtained from the Graduate Records Secretary. This calendar is also posted on the Web at: http://www.gradsch.psu.edu/calendar/gradcal.html.

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