When the student completes his/her course work by getting at least 24 credits or 8 courses with a mininum GPA of 3.00, he/she must take the qualifying examination before the end of the semester following the completion of the course work. The general framework of the qualifying examination is in Lisansüstü Yönetmelik Madde 18.

Standing Doctoral Qualifying Committee (SDQC) (Doktora Yeterlilik Komitesi) organizes qualifying examinations. SDQC members are suggested by the department and are permanently appointed by Institute for Graduate Studies in Science and Engineering (Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü, Yönetim Kurulu).

Candidates who want to take the qualifying examination must apply to the Chairman of the SDQC at the beginning of the semester that they want to take the examination. Candidates must demonstrate that they have successfuly passed either the KPDS (Kamu Personeli Yabancı Dil Bilgisi Seviye Tespit Sınavı) or the ÜDS (Üniversitelerarası Kurul Yabancı Dil Sınavı) by submitting their score cards to the Institute for Graduate Studies in Science and Engineering (Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü) before they take the qualifying examination. The qualifying examination consists of written and oral sections, which are described below.

Written Qualifying Examination

The written qualifying examination is administered by the SDQC for all the candidates around the end of each semester (during the last weeks of lectures or the final exams). The exact date and time of the examination is announced approximately one month before the examination.

The written qualifying examination includes topics of the six areas covered in the undergratuate core courses and are listed below. Each candidate must get a grade of at least 50 out of 100 from each of the six areas. In addition, the average of the grades of all areas must be  at least 70 out of 100. The following areas and topics are included in the written qualifying examination:

1. Algorithms and Data Structures (Topics from CmpE 250 and CmpE 300)
   • Basic data structures
   • Abstract data types
   • Recursive algorithms
   • Complexity analysis
   • Sorting and searching
   • Parallel algorithms
2. Computer Architecture (Topics from CmpE 344)
• Digital logic and digital systems
• Machine-level representation of data
• Assembly level machine organization
• Memory system organization and architecture
• Interfacing and communication
3. Operating Systems (Topics from CmpE 322)
• Tasking and processes
• Process coordination and synchronization
• Scheduling and dispatch
• Physical and virtual memory organization
• Device management
• File systems and naming
4. Software Methodology and Engineering (Topics from CmpE 450)
• Fundamental problem solving concepts
• The software development process
• Software reguirements and specifications
• Verification and validation
5. Database Systems (Topics from CmpE 321)
• Entity-relationship model, relational model
• Physical database design
• Relational query languages (SQL, relational algebra, relational calculus)
• Query processing
• Normalization for the relational model
• Concurrency control
6. Theory of Computation (Topics from CmpE 350)
• Strings, languages and grammars
• Finite state automata and regular expressions
• Pushdown automata and context-free grammars
• Turing machines

Oral Qualifying Examination

The oral qualifying examination is administered by the Qualifying Examination Jury (QEJ, Yeterlilik Sınavı Jürisi), which is different than SDQC and appointed separately for each candidate. QEJ members are suggested by the candidate’s PhD advisor to SDQC and are appointed by SDQC. SDQC then informs the Institute for Graduate Studies in Science and Engineering (Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü, Yönetim Kurulu) about the QEJ members. QEJ is composed of five members as follows.

• Candidate’s PhD advisor (Chairman of the committee)
• One member from outside Boğaziçi University (plus one spare member)
• >Three members from the SDQC (plus one spare member)

The oral qualifying examination must be taken after the written qualifying exam. The oral qualifying examination consists of a single session of questions and answers. The candidate is expected to successfuly answer the questions of the QEJ members on the intended area of research and the graduate courses the student has taken.

Following the oral qualifying examination, QEJ determines the success of the candidate by taking into account both the written and oral qualifying examinations and informs the SDQC in writing.SDQC considering the decision of the QEJ determines the success of the candidate by majority voting and informs the Institute for Graduate Studies in Science and Engineering, in at most three days following the oral qualifying examination