Candidacy and Commencement

Students in a Certificate, MSEd, or PhD program MUST be registered as a candidate in the semester of graduation. In order to become registered as a candidate for graduation, students must email edgrad@purdue.edu (preferably before the end of the first week of classes). Students are recommended to copy their faculty advisor as faculty are sent a copy of the Office of Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Scholars (OGSPS) candidate list later in the semester and asked to confirm that students are on the list.

Failure to meet the deadlines to register for candidacy may result in a late fee or a delay of graduation. The OGSPS calendar webpage and the Graduation Deadlines section below provide information regarding the deadlines to register for candidacy.

Graduation deadlines are sent via the COEGRAD mailing list. Please make sure you are subscribed to this mailing list and receiving weekly emails on Fridays from the Office of Graduate Studies. All residential College of Education graduate students are strongly encouraged to self-subscribe to the COEGRAD mailing list in order to receive important communications, including the Graduation Deadlines PDF that is emailed to the COEGRAD mailing list at the start of each semester. Please email edgrad@purdue.edu for instructions on how to subscribe.

Deadlines can also be found on the calendar maintained by the Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Scholars (OGSPS). Please keep in mind that some deadlines found on the OGSPS calendar may vary since departments can set earlier deadlines, so students are highly encouraged to subscribe to the COEGRAD mailing list to receive the Graduation Deadlines PDF from the Office of Graduate Studies.

If emailing the Office of Graduate Studies about registration, plans of study, or candidacy, please email edgrad@purdue.edu.

All emails to our office on the day of a deadline must be received by 3:00pm.

NOTE: Doctoral Candidates – To be eligible to schedule the doctoral final examination, at least two academic sessions of 69900 registration must elapse between the semester of the preliminary defense and the final doctoral defense.

Please use the example chart on the Exams webpage for planning purposes, and contact edgrad@purdue.edu during the semester of your preliminary exam.

Purdue’s Commencement website provides information regarding the ceremony, tickets, cap and gown info, etc. After a student is registered for candidacy, the OGSPS will open the Commencement Task List that will appear on a specific date (see OGSPS calendar) in the student’s myPurdue account. It is recommended that all students registered for candidacy respond to the task list to indicate if they will participate in the commencement ceremony. There is a deadline each semester for when students must indicate if they plan to participate in the commencement ceremony.

For questions about Commencement, please email commencement@purdue.edu.