Hi, I recently submitted my PhD thesis and my uni received both examiner reports back. My university didn't show me reports but just said that they were divergent. Now they appointed a third examiner. From what I heard from my chief supervisor one examiner recommended just minor corrections and another said its not ready for viva and needs major rewrite and renrollment. I can't see reports until third examiner will provide theirs report back to uni. Might take several months. I tried to ask uni to show me reports but they declined. I am so really worried what's going happen. Anybody has ideas? Thank you.

Sorry to hear what happened. I think in cases where there is a disagreement like that, they have to appoint a third examiner, who will either side one way or another. So: at best you will get a minor corrections, at worst a R&R.

Could be worse right? You definetly have not failed. You will get either 3 months or up to a year to revise your thesis. Nothing much you can do now. You may try to appeal on a technicality, but it seems that your Uni is doing it right, so not much you can really do!

It sucks that you didnt get a unanimous report, but on the other hand, it could have been worse! Either way, now it's not the time to stress, as you cannot really do anything until you know precisely what is the issue with your thesis.

I can only echo Mattfabb and suggest that you occupy yourself with something else otherwise you will just worry - maybe there is a paper you could be writing or some area of your subject you've always been interested in but never had the time to study. I wouldn't recommend endlessly picking over your thesis as it will only lead to you thinking it is awful. I'm afraid patience and keeping busy is the only answer.

Thank you for your kind words. I am following a new to our university and country a model of PhD with publications. All work in my PhD thesis is either published or under review or has been submitted. Some papers has been cited already. That's why I was really surprised by one of the decision to renrol and resubmit. I have only one small part of my thesis which I'd like to upgrade from workshop paper to a journal publication. I suspect that it might be the case that one of the examiners was not familiar with this structure.
Do you think that if I will have viva I will need to respond to all 3 examiner questions?
To make thing more interesting I've secured an academic position in order to take which I need to finish by very earlier next year. That puts huge strain on me.

I am not sure, it may be the case thst you will have 3 examiners. But really, They will tell you soon, so just be patient, amd be positive! I am sure everything will work out for the best!

Yeah, I think it should be all good. I am trying to keep myself busy as I work full-time and do sports but still sometimes it makes me feel very tense as I am not sure what sort of critique I have received.

I think sometimes it is the lack of control over the final outcome and the long spaces of time to wait, that really get under the skins of PhD candidates. You do just have to wait long periods of time throughout the PhD and it is hard, no matter how disciplined you are or how well you structure your time during the wait.

Infinity cat, you mentioned starting an academic position which requires your completion next year-chances are you will meet the deadline. However, even if the dates are a little extended, if your current employer likes your work, I would imagine that they will be supportive and understanding about minor extensions.It will have happened to others before and, based on what you have written, it seems very unlikely that you would not be awarded a PhD. The worst outcome would be, as Mattfab noted earlier, is that you might have the R & R with a probable and expected pass awarded at the end of the process.

Thanks Pjlu. Definitely, it's particularly hard not to think about it when it sits in the background all the time. It certainly caused lots of anxiety. I was on a brink to ask for help to combat it in student health centre.

Probably the issue is that my topic is cross-disciplinary and the examiner was too far into one discipline. However, again, I cannot see their comments.

I kind of managed to regain my composure meanwhile as I am starting a new exciting research project with good funding I've secured. =)))