Are any of you being pressured to submit before Christmas or any other deadline?
My head of School has set me a "deadline" before Christmas at which I should submit although I had planned to submit in January. My guess is that the School wants the government funding for this financial year. However, I have only just had a change in supervision and have not even met the new one.

I find this strange. They hardly look after us around here (at uni, that is) and then the pressure. It is not as if we work for them or anything.... and are happy to take orders. Anyway, am I the only one?

Are you in the UK? I don't think government funding is decided on a yearly basis. For this academic year, universities will have their budgets. The massive budgets will be decided after/upon the publication of the RAE results in december which won't be influenced by PhD completion now.

Maybe they just want to increase their completion rate....apparently more uni's are publishing completion rates.

I should add...it's not uncommon to hear nothing from your university and then suddenly the pressure is put on to finish.

Thanks! Good to know that it is not uncommon to hear nothing. They have not even reviewed all my chapters yet. I think it is true what they say. Once you figured out how to do a PHD, you don't need it anymore. True, right till the very end.

I am in OZ. They get extra money for a completion but of course, a submission is not a completion.

I am under some pressure to sumbit by Jan and I'm aiming for Xmas for my own sake. Only one chapter has been read so far - and not checked very throroughly either.

Hi All

Am just starting but from what we hear around the department, (and this is actually VERBALLY said/spelt out) they "don't like to see faces lingering around for more than 3/4 years, because it makes everyone uncomfortable".

havent a clue what they mean by 'uncomfortable' and why, but this was spelt out v v clearly. so i guess, its the same everywhere. the faster you finish the happier your sups/dept is, what i wonder is WHY it is so?

WOW... I heard similar things, though, from other people. For all I know, they are worried that people chuck it in. Strangely, the drop-out rate apparently is highest towards the end because it is most difficult to sustain motivation then.

Also, my guess is that they want to see rewards for "all the hard work they have put into us".... I can somewhat understand that in theory. In practice, (a) they get paid for it, and (b) I have only had about 10 meetings with my sup altogether over the three years.

Thanks for your posts. It's consoling....

Both me and a fellow student who have just started our third years are being pressured by our supervisors to submit in MARCH next year - i.e. 2 years 5 months in! We both think it's a preposterous idea and are feeling totally confused about the whole business. The supervisors can't really give any justification for why they want us to meet such a daft deadline other than that it will 'give us time to do other things'. Our university regulations state that students aren't allowed to submit before 3 full years have passed, to which supervisors replied - just get it printed and bound and leave it on a shelf until the deadline passes! I can't think what possible reasons there could be for this sudden pressure. Any ideas?

The whole faculty got a lecture from the Dean last week about the fact that the regulations about paying fees for 'writing up' have changed. At out uni there is no longer a 'writing up year' but either "pending submission" (4th year) or "extended submission" (5th year). The fees for these years are £500/£2000 for the 4th year depending on whether you need labs or not; and a £2000 flat fee for everyone in their 5th year. When asked to justify raising the fee for 5th years the Dean had no answer other than "it shouldn't take anyone that long to do a PhD".