There have been some changes to the university-level rules about transferring to from an MA to a PhD program and about how to maintain your status as a PhD student. I provide the highlights here:

For students transferring from a master’s to a doctoral program:

• coursework requirement during the master’s program has been reduced from 12 credits to 9 credits
• all 9 required credits must be of first-class standing. (First-class standing means A- or higher.)

In order to maintain registration in the doctoral program:

• students must complete 12 credits with a first-class average
• at least 9 of the 12 credits must be at the 500-level or above
• at least 9 of the 12 credits must be of first-class standing

For more information (tons more, that is) about University-level rules about admission to doctoral degree programs, see this page.