Ensuring you have completed all the necessary academic and administration steps it takes to finish your time at UT can be stressful.
Set yourself up for success by taking advantage of the resources available to you.
- Talk about academic graduation expectations with your PI and the rest of your dissertation committee. (Your Annual Committee Meeting is a great time to ask, but also feel free to reach out to them anytime.)
- The semester prior to your planned semester of graduation schedule an office hours appointment to meet with the ILS Admin staff. They can help make sure you have the information you need to complete administrative and employment expectations of your departure from UT.
Graduation Requirements
Please review the following information below regarding dates, deadlines, and instructions for graduation.
-
1
APPLY TO GRADUATE
The first step to graduate is to apply for graduation by submitting the Doctoral Graduation Application Form. The application form typically opens following the start of the respective graduation semester. To find specific deadlines per semester, please read the Graduate School's Deadlines & Submissions Instructions.
-
2
CHECK YOUR RECORDS FOR INCOMPLETE/INCORRECT GRADES
Check to make sure that you have received correct grades in all prior courses. If you have incomplete grades (e.g. X or I) for any past courses, please contact ilsgrad@austin.utexas.edu for assistance.
-
3
FILE YOUR INTERNATIONAL INSURANCE WAIVER (IF APPLICABLE)
If you are an International Student graduating in the Spring, you will need to submit a Spring Graduate Insurance Waiver form, even if you have another waiver on file for summer. Failure to change your waiver type from “Graduate Student with an Academic Assignment Waiver” to a “Spring Graduate Insurance Waiver” will result in summer insurance charges being retroactively added to your spring tuition fee bill during the summer insurance audit. Additionally, a financial bar will be placed on your record preventing you from getting your diploma and final transcripts.
How to Submit the Waiver:
- Download the waiver. Students can download the waiver on the insurance waiver webpage and request confirmation from their academic department of their eligibility to graduate in spring.
- Upload completed form. Students will then upload the form using the insurance secure document uploader found on the waiver webpage.
Additional details about this are available from ILS upon request. If you have questions, reach out to us, or to intlinsurance@austin.utexas.edu.
-
4
SCHEDULE YOUR DISSERTATION DEFENSE/FINAL ORAL EXAM
Contact your committee to arrange a time/date to hold your defense. Defenses are open to the public and held on campus. Students must make a room reservation for their defense. A student can opt to add a virtual component (e.g. on Zoom).
Once your time and date have been set, (defenses must be held before a specified deadline each semester), you must submit the Request for Final Oral Examination, which will route to the Graduate Coordinators to review and then through DocuSign to your committee members to sign electronically. Once this form is completed, you must submit the form to GradStudentSvcs@austin.utexas.edu at least 2 weeks in advance of your defense.
Once the Graduate School has approved your Request for Final Oral Exam, you and your committee chair will receive instructions from the Graduate School for the Report of Dissertation Committee form. The Graduate School will email you a PDF version of the form which you can print and bring to your exam; we have a DocuSign version of the form that we will send to you if you would prefer to gather signatures electronically. The completed version of the form will need to be submitted by the student via email to GradStudentSvcs@austin.utexas.edu prior to the final deadline, which is subject to change each semester.
Students may request at this time to make their defense open to others within UT’s community by requesting that the Graduate Coordinators send an announcement via the ILSGP student/faculty listservs. To make a public announcement, students must email ilsgrad@austin.utexas.edu with their request to make the announcement and include their dissertation title, PI(s), defense date/time, and a Zoom link or room location for the defense. We recommend you send this at least a week in advance to ensure it has time to be crafted and sent out prior to your defense.
-
5
SUBMIT YOUR FINAL DISSERTATION
After passing your final oral exam, you must submit your final dissertation and required print pages (see list below) to the Graduate School. You must upload your dissertation BEFORE submitting the required print pages, and then submit the print pages (via email) to GradStudentSvcs@austin.utexas.edu before the final deadline, which is subject to change each semester.
Required Print Pages
The Report of Dissertation Committee Form with signatures from all of your committee members and your program’s GSC Chair.
Submit any requests to Delay Publication.
-
6
EXIT SURVEY
The Graduate School asks all graduating students to complete the following surveys: 1) the Association of American Universities Data Exchange exit survey regarding your experience as a doctoral student. If you have trouble accessing the survey using the link above, please contact gmagharious@austin.utexas.edu, and 2) the confidential National Science Foundation (NSF) Survey of Earned Doctorates.
Leaving UT prior to the end of your final semester
Please note that your dissertation date is not the same as your exit date from UT. Students are expected to complete their full final semester at UT and deviation from this expectation may result in expenses to you, the student.
Academics
While students can defend at any point during the defense window of a semester, students do not graduate until the end of that semester. Leaving early, especially if you have not yet submitted all the required graduation documentation can result in students forgetting to submit required materials on time and missing the deadline. This will result in you not being allowed to graduate in the given semester and you will have to enroll, almost always at your own expense, for the next semester in order to once again apply for graduation.
Employment
Leaving mid-semester especially impacts students who are currently employed (GRA/TA) with UT. As a number of the supports that student employees receive are conditional on employment with the university for the duration of the semester. These requirements are set by the university and we cannot alter them for you at the department level.
Please consider the potential impacts of exiting employment prior to the end of the semester when making plans for ending your time at UT.
Ending your employment prior to the end of the semester has the following impacts, which can result in multiple thousands of dollars in costs to you:
- The cancellation of departmental tuition cost coverage (TRB).
- The possible cancellation of your non-resident tuition waiver. (For students who are not Texas residents only)
- The ending of your employment based insurance coverage. (For any months of the current semester that you are no longer employed)
Some faculty may have funding available to help their students with these costs, but as the student is expected to stay and complete the semester and avoid these expenses it is not a required coverage and coverage is at the PI's discretion/availability.
Fellowships
Those on fellowships at the time of their last semester will need to reach out to see if there are any requirements or impacts to their fellowship should they wish to exit mid-semester.