The Qualifying (Preliminary) Examination for Admission to Candidacy for the PhD Degree should be held before the end of a student's 5th semester in residence (as stipulated in the current BMS Policy Handbook posted online at: https://libguides.tulane.edu/BMS/handbook).
The philosophy of the qualifying examination, as well as the guidelines for preparing for the exam are posted in the BMS handbook which can be downloaded from the website url posted above.