DEGREE COMPLETION REQUIREMENTS
A student approaching the end of a degree program must meet all program, LGS, and university requirements and deadlines. Failure to do so may result in receiving the degree the following term. All deadlines are published on the LGS Events Calendar. Details are on the Degree Completion page on the LGS website.
Registration and Awarding of Degrees
Students must be registered full-time in the term they receive their degrees. If doctoral students have not yet defended their dissertation, they should enroll in course 599R if they are not in candidacy or 799R if they are in candidacy. If the student has defended, they should enroll in the appropriate course to satisfy the requirement. Master’s students should enroll in course 599R.
Application for Degree
Students must submit a formal Application for a Degree to be awarded a degree in a particular term: spring, summer, or fall. The application must be completed online in OPUS if the student’s record indicates that the current term is their anticipated graduation term. If the current term is not correct in Opus, the student can submit an Update Expected Graduation Date form in the Laney Connect Hub.
Paper applications are only accepted after the deadline and can be found on the Degree Completion website.
Degree applications are valid only for the term in which they are filed. Therefore, a student who applies for the degree and does not complete all requirements must reapply and register for the term in which the student will receive the degree.
Graduation Forms and Dissertation/Thesis Submission
The Intent to Complete form lives in the Laney Connect Hub and allows students to submit graduation documents that certify that the student has completed all requirements. Detail instructions and links to these documents can be found on the Degree Completion Website. All dissertations and theses are submitted electronically through the ETD Repository. The electronic copy submitted to the ETD Repository becomes the official and archival record copy. The LGS reviews the dissertation, and the Dean must approve it before a student can be certified for graduation.
PhD candidates should be aware that once their ETD record is submitted, the library shares the files with ProQuest, a research platform for scholarly and academic content. The agreement is detailed in the Emory Thesis and Dissertation Repository Submission Agreement form.
Master’s Degree based on Candidacy
Some doctoral programs award master's degrees to students who have reached doctoral candidacy. Students receiving a master’s based on candidacy must submit Candidacy, Application for Degree, and Degree Clearance forms to LGS by the published deadlines. (See the LGS Event Calendar)
Financial Obligations to the University
All financial obligations to the university must be cleared before a student graduates. These obligations include tuition, student health charges, parking fines, and library fines, if any. Failure to settle outstanding charges will place holds on diplomas, transcripts, and other student records. Eligibility for the stipend expires.
Commencement Ceremony
University commencement is held annually at the end of the spring term.
Students who graduate in the summer and fall should indicate whether they expect to return for commencement in the spring and update their OPUS record to ensure it contains a permanent email address, which will confirm their attendance plans.
Students with a Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) information suppression hold on their personal information should be aware that their names will not be printed in the commencement program. Names will be published only if the FERPA hold is removed; the hold can be removed by the university registrar’s office or in the student’s Opus account.
Diploma Notation and Name
Students should note that while transcripts will show majors and degrees received, diplomas will only display the degree received. Only the degree obtained is displayed on the diploma, not the major field of study. For example, a student receiving a Ph.D. in English will receive a diploma stating that they have been awarded the Doctor of Philosophy, not the Doctor of Philosophy in English. The same applies to master's diplomas.
Before graduation, students should update their permanent mailing and email addresses in OPUS.
The diploma from Emory University will be printed with the student’s official name as it appears in OPUS. For more information, see Emory’s name policy on the Registrar’s website.