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Master's and doctoral degrees are awarded in May, August, and December. Once you decide upon the semester in which you wish to be awarded your degree, you will have several deadlines to meet in order to be awarded the degree. These deadlines are established by the College of Arts & Sciences and change slightly from year to year.

Please contact the Assistant Chair for Graduate Studies or the College of Arts & Sciences for the schedule established for a given academic year. The dates will be for the following deadline:

1. Registration: You must be registered in any semester in which you receive service from the university. The meeting in which you defend your thesis or dissertation counts as a service. Turning in the final copies of the thesis or dissertation, however, does not count as a service. Master's or doctoral candidates must be registered for at least one hour (i.e., typically either one thesis or dissertation credit hour).
2. Last day to apply for graduation and pay fee for conferral of degree: Go to the second floor of Chubb Hall and tell them that you wish to graduate. They will have you fill out a short form and pay the graduation fee.
3. Last day to arrange the dissertation defense meeting: You must report the time and place of the dissertation defense to the dean's office. Please complete the form Arrangements for the Oral Examination on the Dissertation in the Appendix and submit it to the department's Administrative Assistant (Rita Miller, in Porter 200). There is no comparable form for students defending a thesis.
4. Last day to defend dissertation or thesis (i.e., oral exam).
5. Last day to turn in the final copies of thesis or dissertation to College of Arts & Sciences: See the Assistant Chair for Graduate Studies for a copy of the pamphlet that tells you how to prepare those copies. This information can also be found online.
6. Date degree candidates must have all required work completed: This date corresponds to the last day of the semester.

A few pointers: Be forewarned that it may be difficult to schedule a meeting in the summer. Most faculty members are not on contract during the summer and so are not obliged to be available for thesis and dissertation meetings. Some faculty will make themselves available even though they are not on contract. If you think you will need a summer meeting, it is wise to find out as far in advance as you can whether your committee members will be available.