Final Steps of your Ph.D.

Please read this resource on Dissertations and Theses that the University provides to familiarize yourself with the process of submitting your theses and the deadlines for the quarter you are planning to graduate.

Schedule a degree audit meeting with the Assistant Director of Student and Academic Services to confirm you have fulfilled all the requirements necessary to graduate with a Ph.D. in Stanford Physics. 

Once you have decided on which quarter you would like to defend, please begin recruiting your Orals Examination Committee.  This should be composed of Five Stanford Faculty Members, typically the Dissertation Reading Committee, one additional examiner (if necessary), and one out of department chair.

At least one member of the examination committee must be affiliated with the Department of Physics (typically your co-advisor if your Faculty advisor is from another Department). Please collect their signatures on the University Oral Examination Form. You are only responsible for information in the form from the beginning until the end of the "Orals Committee Composition Information". 

For more information about Oral Examination Committee Composition, please see the GAP 4.7.1

Your University Oral Examination Form must contain the date/time and location of your defense. We recommend that you poll your committee with a scheduling tool like when2meet or doodlepoll. 

Please work with your advisor's administrator to book a suitable room that can accomodate in-person attendance as well as hybrid. As a reminder, the Dissertation defense typically takes 2 hours total, so the venue should be booked for 3 hours to accomodate. 

Once you have completed the University Oral Examination Form, please submit the following to physicsstudentservices [at] stanford.edu (physicsstudentservices[at]stanford[dot]edu) to announce your defense to our faculty and student lists: 

1.  The University Oral Examination Form 
2. Your abstract
3. A zoom link for hybrid attendees for your defense
4. A private zoom link (if necessary) for your committee members who are remote to attend the post-defense with your in-person committee members.

Once you have finalized your dissertation for submission, please follow the steps outlined in this resource, Dissertations and Theses in order to submit your thesis by the submission deadline of that quarter. 

In order to submit your dissertation through Axess Dissertation and Thesis Center , you will need to apply to graduate first. Please make sure to familiarize yourself with the application to graduate deadline for the quarter you are intending to graduate.

Typically, the dissertation submission deadline falls on a friday. I highly recommend beginning the process of submitting your dissertation no later than the monday of that week, as it will give you and the Student Service Team a chance to catch any errors that may arise. Consider giving yourself more time (especially for collecting signatures from your committee) if you know that there will be members on sabbatical, break, or are generally lax in checking their emails. 

 You should submit your dissertation no later than 48 hours before the quarterly submission deadline, as your advisor will need to sign-off on it in axess as well. 

Your official degree conferral date can be viewed by looking at that quarter's Academic Calendar Dates. 

Please check https://commencement.stanford.edu/graduates to determine your eligibility to attend that year's Commencement Ceremony.

Congratulations!