The Graduate School at The Ohio State University specifies that at least 80 graduate credit hours are required after a BS degree for a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Degree.

Information for students who started prior to Fall semester 2012 can be found here.

BS-PhD

Students who have earned a BS degree and wish to pursue a PhD directly must meet the following credit requirements in order to graduate with a PhD degree: 

• At least 3 hours of letter graded Mathematics or Statistics courses 5000-level and above or program approved Math Equivalency courses

• At least 30 hours of graduate level letter graded coursework¹

  • At least 21 hours must be courses 6000-level and above

  • At least 12 hours need to be ME or other program approved courses 6000-level and above

• At least 47 hours of ME 8999 or a combination of level approved coursework and ME 8999 (at least 30 hours of ME 8999 is required)

• Seminar every semester until Candidacy

MS-PhD

If a master’s degree has been earned by the student, then a minimum of 50 graduate credit hours beyond the master’s degree is required. Students who have already acquired a MS degree must meet the following credit requirements in order to graduate with a PhD degree:

• At least 3 hours of letter graded Mathematics or Statistics courses 5000-level and above or program approved Math Equivalency courses

• At least 15 hours of graduate level letter graded coursework²

  • At least 9 hours must be ME courses 6000-level and above or other program approved courses

• At least 32 hours of ME 8999 or a combination of level approved coursework and ME 8999 (at least 21 hours of ME 8999 is required)

• Seminar every semester until Candidacy

*Note: ALL hours must be from College of Engineering, Bio/MAPS or College of Medicine courses. 

¹ As long as the primary requirements are met, any remaining courses needed to meet the required 30 hours for the BS-PhD program may be 5000-level departmental courses or 4000-level non-departmental courses.

² As long as the primary requirements are met, any remaining courses needed to meet the required 15 hours for the MS-PhD program may be 5000-level courses.