Hello!

I was just wondering what the average time scale was from submitting for your Phd and the VIVA. I am due to submit June but have been told that it may not be to the following year till the VIVA. Sound about right? :p

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it can be anytime between 1 month to 3 months, and i too have heard of one year later having a viva. someone on the internet wrote an article about his viva experience, and said he submitted his thesis and about 11 months or so had his viva!

it depends on examiners. usual time i've heard is a few months. but i wont be suprised if its a year.

i submitted my thesis in november last year. and i dont know when my viva is :p hehe but my situation might be very rare and not the norm. but in my personal case i say the more time the better!

source: http://www.geocities.com/andrewbroad/cs/cs710/viva.html



quote>>>>>>"The time between submitting the thesis and the viva varies greatly. I submitted my thesis on 28th September 2001, and had my viva on 18th September 2002! My thesis was very long (390 pages including appendices), and there was a delay in finding a suitable external examiner, but above all you have to remember that your examiners will be busy with other things too!

The shortest time I've heard of between submission and viva is three weeks (different subject, different university).

They have to give you at least two weeks' notice before the viva. I got five weeks' notice. My internal examiner suggested a couple of dates, I chose 18th September and asked for 14:00 in IT406, and this was officially confirmed a few days later." <<<<<<< end quote

I am registered in two departments in two different faculties at a single institution. In both departments/faculties the general timeframe is around 2/3 months after submission for the viva. I think this is pretty reasonable. Up to a year is totally unacceptable!

Hi Buzby,

Even if you submit at the end of June, early 2010 for a viva is about 7 months from submission which seems quite a long time. Even including the summer and Xmas holidays when academics might disappear, it still seems rather a long wait. I'd suggest checking your uni regulations for submission and examination procedures, and if that's no help, ask your research or post-grad administrator what usually happens and the normal time-scales. Maybe you could find out from your supervisors if they've already got examiners lined up, and if they have, then is there a problem in getting these people together for your viva at specific times and dates due to any pre-existing commitments.

Our regulations say about 1-3 months between submission and viva. My supervisors started discussing examiners at least 3 months before my submission date so the paperwork could go through the appropriate admin procedures. They started earlyish as I'm interdisciplinary and there weren't many people who would be suitable to examine my thesis, plus I needed 3 of them and my sup as observer, so it had to fit around their various research projects and globe-trotting stints. In the end, I waited a month from submission to find out my viva date, and that's left me just over a month to prepare for it. Maybe not ideal, but I'll be glad to get it over with!

in science, a wait of approx 6 weeks is ideal (and is the norm in my experience...)
I cannot believe you will wait so long for your viva! Do you not just want to get it done? I think the time when you are most fired up and ready to defend your research is as soon as you have finished writing it up.. no?

Buzby, that doesn't sound right, unless the examiners have already signalled there will be delays in examining the thesis. Examiners often don't exam over the summer months, so you could be looking at oct, nov, dec for a viva, but next year does sound excessive.

1-3 months is standard here - 6 mo-1 yr is just waay too long!

Mine took 7.5 months, which was incredibly annoying as it really ended up getting in the way of the work I was trying to do for my 12-month postdoc that was going on at the time.

Examiners must read thesis and have viva date within 90 days.

I always wonder does an examiner read a thesis cover to cover - now I'm sure most do, but I bet a few don't.