Postgraduate FAQ

You are required to complete the application form for course add/drop and send it to the FBA Postgraduate Office during course add/drop period. After getting the decision from the Programme coordinator/director concerned, the FBA Postgraduate Office will inform you of the result.
Note:

http://www.umac.mo/fba/pgrad/download.html

You are required to submit the leave application form to the instructor(s) concerned together with supporting document(s) for approval. After getting the approval from instructor(s) concerned, the form together with the supporting document(s) should be sent to the FBA Postgraduate office for getting further approval from the Dean’s Office. The FBA Postgraduate Office will then inform you of the result.
Note: The leave application form is obtainable from: http://www.umac.mo/fba/pgrad/download.html

You are required to fill in the Course Retaking Form which is available at the website of the Graduate School and send it to the FBA Postgraduate office one month before the commencement of classes. You may check with the FBA Postgraduate Office when the course you would like to retake will be offered.
Note: 
– Only the course grade of the latest attempt will appear on the transcript and will be included in the calculation of the GPA.
– A student who has failed a compulsory course more than once shall be required to discontinue studies.
– The FBA Postgraduate Office does not guarantee the course you would like to retake will be offered again.
– Tuition fee has to be paid for retaking any course. Please refer to the Finance Office website for the details concerning “fees and charges”: http://fo.umac.mo/student/fees_and_charges/

The Thesis Topic and Proposal Form together with your thesis proposal should be submitted to the FBA Postgraduate Office at the end of each month except July (as most academic staff is on leave in August, no thesis proposal will be handled in due course) for the approval from FBA Graduate Studies Committee.
The FBA Postgraduate Office will inform you whether your thesis proposal is approved once the decision is got from the committee.
Note: .
–     Signature from your supervisor is needed on the Thesis Topic and Proposal Form and the first page of your thesis proposal.
–     It usually takes 2 to 5 weeks for FBA Graduate Studies Committee (FBAGSC) to review every thesis proposal. 
–     Thesis Proposal should be made according to the guidelines which are available at corresponding webpages of programmes.

You should inform the change of thesis supervisor to the FBA Postgraduate Office by submitting a letter endorsed by your previous supervisor and your new supervisor. If the contents of your thesis proposal have been changed, please send a new/revised thesis proposal and a new Thesis Topic and Proposal Form together with a letter informing us the change of supervisor to the FBA Postgraduate Office. Endorsements from both supervisors are necessary.

The thesis must be typed in Times New Roman, 12-point type, double-spaced throughout the text, using (½-inch) indented paragraphs, which are to be continuous (having no blank lines between paragraphs), on A4 paper, on BOTH side of the page.
Note:

If there is a substantial change in the thesis title, you are required to send the revised thesis proposal, a completed Thesis Topic and Proposal Form, together with a cover letter stating the reason of the change of thesis title to FBA Postgraduate Office. We will then forward your documents to the FBA Graduate Studies Committee (FBAGSC) for approval. For minor change, you should send a letter to the FBAGSC for the approval of the change. The reason of the minor change(s) should be stated clearly in the letter. Endorsement from your supervisor for the minor change(s) is needed.
Note: .
–     Signature from your supervisor is needed on the Thesis Topic and Proposal Form and the first page of your thesis proposal.

Your thesis supervisor will nominate an examination committee for you if your supervisor considers your thesis is ready for oral defence. You are required to send a soft copy of your thesis in word format to your supervisor for plagiarism detection. If your report from the Turnitin system is fine, you are required to send three hard copies together with the completed Thesis Declaration Statement (GRS/Form/032) to the FBA Postgraduate Office. After receiving the hard copies of your thesis, we will forward your theses to members of the examination committee. The oral defense will usually be scheduled in several weeks. Your supervisor will inform you the proposed oral defence date and time if all examiners think your thesis is ready for oral defense.
Note: If some dates are inconvenient for you, it is suggested that you may let your supervisor know about that beforehand.
Note:
–     Usually it is difficult to schedule oral defences for students during recess periods uch as summer vacation (June – August), Christmas (the last two weeks of December) and Chinese New Year (mid-January to mid-February) as most academic staff will take annual leave or conference leave during recess periods. You should check with your supervisor when your oral defence would be arranged.
–     Panel members need 2 to 5 weeks to read your thesis before the oral defence. If a member of the examination committee will take a long leave before your oral defence, the thesis hard copy should be sent to him/her through the FBA Postgraduate Office before his/her leave.
–     Every student should submit three hard copies of his/her thesis to the FBA Postgraduate Office at lease 2 weeks before the thesis oral defence. 
–     The Thesis Declaration Statement is obtainable at: 
http://www.umac.mo/grs/forms/GRS-Form-032.pdf
–    Double-sided printing should be adopted for thesis draft and final version. 

You may be informed by members of the examination committee to revise your thesis after the oral defence. After sending the revised copy to your supervisor or a member of the examination committee, you will be informed if the revised thesis is acceptable. If your revised thesis is accepted, you are required to submit 3 hard copies of the final version of your revised thesis to the FBA Postgraduate Office. Among the 3 copies, one will be kept by your supervisor, the remaining will be checked by our Postgraduate Office before students’ submission to the library. If other panel members of the examination committee would like to have a copy of your revised thesis, you are required to submit more copies. The FBA Postgraduate Office will inform you how many copies of your thesis should be submitted.
After receiving the final versions of your thesis, the FBA Postgraduate Office will send the necessary documents to the committees concerned for graduation approval. It usually takes 2 to 3 months for graduation approval.
Note: 
–     In case of the need for revision of thesis, the time allowed for the revision will be:
a) No more than 2 weeks (for business/applied thesis)
b) No more than one month (for academic thesis)
–     The completed Thesis Declaration Statement should be the 1st page of every thesis hard copy.
–   Please complete the Master/PhD Thesis Submission Form and submit it with a disc (in which the PDF format of your thesis are saved) to the FBA Postgraduate Office. 
–     Double-sided printing should also be adopted for thesis hard copies.
The sample of the thesis final version can be viewed from the following link: http://www.umac.mo/fba/pgrad/docs/thesis/Thesis_Sample_Final_Version.pdf
The color of the cover of the thesis is light gray (菱彩畫紙– 014 should be adopted).

Since it takes around 2 to 6 weeks to go through the required procedures for getting the graduation approval from the committees concerned, and students may be required to take 2 weeks (applied thesis) or one month (academic thesis) to revise their theses, we suggest that students should made oral defence by late June if they would like to get graduation certificate by late September. Students could visit https://www.um.edu.mo/grs/en/graduation.php for more details concerning the workflow for issuing graduation certificates and the UM Senate meeting date.

You may apply to take one or more elective courses or retake one or more courses to raise your GPA.
Note: 
–     For students admitted in academic year 2014/2015 or afterwards, the minimum GPA requirement is 2.7. For students admitted before academic year 2014/2015, it is 2.3.
–     A student who has failed a compulsory course more than once shall be required to discontinue studies.

The graduation ceremony is usually scheduled in November or December every year. Provided you have been approved to graduate by September, you would be invited to attend the graduation ceremony of the immediate year. The Graduate School will send the information to you in due course.  If the graduation ceremony is held in early October, students who are approved to graduate in September may be invited to attend the graduation ceremony next year.

If you have completed all required course and successfully pass the thesis oral defence, your supervisor will send documents to the FBA Postgraduate Office for graduation approval. It takes around 1 to 3 months to get approval from several committees concerned. Then the Graduate School will inform you when you can collect the graduation certificate once it is ready. If you cannot receive the notification for collecting of your graduation certificate 3 months after you have sent the final version of your thesis hard copies to the Postgraduate Office, you may check with the Graduate School directly when you could collect your graduation certificate.
Note:

You may apply for such testimonial at the Graduate School. But you should check with the FBA Postgraduate Office when you can apply for such testimonial after you have made thesis oral defence.

Note: For application procedures for withdrawal, deferment of study, resumption of study, etc., students may refer to the handbook for pgrad studies made by the Graduate School for details. The handbook is available at the following link: 
http://www.umac.mo/grs/leaflet&handbook/Handbook%20for%20Postgraduate%20Studies.pdf

Students are required to submit the following documents for application for study deferment:
– Check-out Form (GRS/Form/001)
– Deferment of Study/Withdrawal from Study (GRS/Form/003)

First application
– Justification for the application and supporting document(s)

Second application and onwards
– Strong Justification for the application and supporting document(s);
– Study plan after resume study

Note:
– If a faculty member is guiding your thesis, endorsements from the supervisor is needed.
– The above two forms are obtainable from: http://www.umac.mo/grs/en/download.php