EDS Progress Report and Pacing

Each student determines their own “start” and “end” date regardless of their registration timeline. We do not have official due dates in the Exam-Dissertation Sequence (EDS).

EDS Progress Report

Maintain your progress report at least once per term. Use this to share successes and challenges to help your advisors stay informed of your progress and to support you throughout your EDS Journey.

This form also asks you to share some additional details to help us understand your research interests as they evolve throughout the sequence.

Your Report

Timelines and Registration Policies

Overall Timeline: It is anticipated that it may take you at least three years to complete the full EDS. Review our detailed information when mapping out your milestones and registration.

While registration is based on a single term (set up for 8 weeks for Fall and Spring and 6 weeks for Summer), students should expect to spend at least a full semester on each seminar and its corresponding milestones. Completion dates are at the discretion of each student and vary based on your capacity and time commitment, mastery of the literature review genre and scholarly writing, and the volume of reading required to become well-versed in your general and special fields and selected methodology.

Resource

Incompletes and your Next Registration

You will earn an incomplete until all work is finished for the relevant seminar. You may enroll in a single credit of EPOL 595 or 599 (depending on your stage in the EDS) as you continue working on your incomplete. We will approve your registration request form for the next course once you demonstrate reasonable progress on your current milestone. We will assign a final grade for the course once your work is ready for peer review.

EDS Email List

After you fill out the status report, we will add you to our EDS email list so that you can begin to acclimate yourself to our process and community. While some of the updates in the emails may feel irrelevant, we encourage you to still read them as they will be useful in some capacity in the near future.

Refer to the following related pages for requirements and additional information.

Courses
Forms
Final Thesis
Thesis Office Calendar
Awarding Grades during the EDS

A grade does not mean that you have passed your examinations

  • 586/587/588: Once the relevant milestone has been approved for peer review
  • 591: Once you are approved to proceed to your preliminary exam (this will change in the Fall when we eliminate the 588 course code)
  • 595: Demonstration of active progress on your incomplete (or working ahead) milestone – you must submit something to us during the term/semester when you registered that shows us that you were actively progressing – this could be a copy of your annotated bibliography, your in-progress milestone draft, etc. – we won’t formally grade it, but it serves as evidence of your effort. 
  • 599: You do not earn a grade for this until you graduate; it will show “deferred” on your transcript until you graduate.

Note that 595 is a letter grade while the 586 series is pass/fail.