Year Five and Beyond

Dissertation Progress
After the Acceptance of the Prospectus, if so desired and accepted by the department, non-Harvard members (usually not more than one) may be included on the Dissertation Committee as secondary advisors. While the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences requires a student to complete the PhD program within ten years of entering the program, the target for all students is completion within seven years, and  under current rules no Harvard funding will be available to students beyond the seventh year. Beyond these requirements, the faculty is the final arbiter of what constitutes satisfactory progress.

In order to make satisfactory progress on the dissertation, the student must submit and have approved at least one chapter of the dissertation by the end of the first year after the approval of the prospectus (ordinarily by the end of the 5th year).