Just wanting to hear everyone's experiences (for those who are nearing the end or have finished) on how long your supervisor took to get your full draft back to you with feedback? I have been waiting quite a while, but this may be the norm(?)

A friend of mine waited 3 months but I dont know how common that is.
When I hand mine in I will talk to him about expected dates etc. He has a track record of being pretty quick though and I would expect feedback within a few weeks. Agreeing dates in advance might help.

I guess it varies. I am in the social sciences and it took my supervisor 6 months to return the first chapter of a full thesis draft.
He decided it was best we reviewed it chapter by chapter, but it did take him 6 months to make that decision I guess.

Thank you for your response pm133.

Yes I have been waiting about 5 weeks now, I just get told that they haven't had time to read it yet but it is frustrating.

Sorry to hear that, Zutterfly. Are you working to a particular hand-in date, i.e. do your supervisors have an idea of the overall timescale? I'm seeing mine soon to talk about a timeline from now on in, which I'm hoping will help as we'll all be aware of an 'end date' for the whole thing.

4 months and he didn't actually read it (I found this out in my viva). In the rewrite he's taking about 2 months a chapter. But, this time I can see a difference.

Hi Chickpea, Yes it was supposed to be officially submitted in November. I handed it to my sup in enough time for this, I just feel like I am being held back now.

Muspectrum- oh my goodness, that is terrible! Did he not give any explanation as to why he did not read it? I feel angry for you, I would have found it hard to hold my tongue in that situation.

Oh, that is very annoying that they have let it go past your proposed hand-in date - I would have thought they might have felt a bit more pressure to get on with it, or at least to negotiate dates with you!

I also know someone whose supervisor didn't read their thesis - another member of the department ended up helping out on the quiet, just to support the student.

Hope you hear from them soon, Zutterfly, and hope it's good to go when they get back to you.
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Zutterfly-no explanation given. However, I think the embarrassment of being called out in the viva (examiners asked who had looked or even proof-read my thesis as it was shocking) has made him buck up his ideas.Well, that and my threat not to do corrections as I was so peeved off with him and the uni for, charging me a fortune for a rewrite. If you read my previous posts I've had a lot of problems over the past couple of years.

I had agreed a hand in date of 30 September for the rewrite, taken my entire annual leave around this and didn't hear from him for 10 weeks. Ended up being billed another £1600 (long story). So might hand in end of January. The External goes abroad for months before the end of my corrections period so under a bit of pressure if I ever want to graduate.

Keep your chin-up. Mine is a bad experience but I'm pretty sure you'll be fine!

I waited three months, even then they only read a few chapters. Honestly I have no idea how supervisors get away with it. My sympathies are with you. The only person who has the read the full thing is me and my fabulous proof reader.

My supervisor never read mine either. She told me that 'supervisors don't read the thesis' - which didn't sound right to me, but I wasn't confident enough of that to argue on the spot (actually was so confused and embarrassed that I think I actually apologised for assuming she would).

Oh my goodness! Then WHAT does she think supervisors do!? Mine likes to make it clear that my thesis is pretty low on their list of priorities.

Hugh- I was wondering how you were getting on...so did they just return it to you with only 3 chapters read? I'm so angry for you :(

I was angry too, but there's not much i can do.

Most of my chapters were read by one supervisor as I was writing up, and I had made changes based on that. However, I was expecting both my supervisors to read the full thing as a full draft. They didn't, and I am just going to have to go ahead and submit it.

Have you given your supervisors a deadline? Maybe say you have the proofreader booked for X date, and therefore need it back by then.

Mine took a week to read final full draft, but they had already seen each individual chapter.

I don't think mine actually commented on the whole draft (and seeing as I only completed the last chapter hours before submitting, this is hardly surprising!) but they did give extensive comments on each individual chapter.