This program profile describes a restructure of the PhD exam intended to enhance graduate-level instruction and advisement within the Rhetoric and Composition program at Georgia State University. We explain how a mix of institutional constraints and mentorship opportunities drove revisions to our doctoral exams and processes of doctoral advisement. Shifting away from a gatekeeping model to a heuristic-based approach, the revised exam is intended to decrease time-to-degree and to better support students' job preparedness. Our reflections on these programmatic changes speak to the necessity of graduate programs in Rhetoric and Composition to not simply replicate the models of doctoral studies through which we were educated and to instead imagine new possibilities.