PhD Student Exit Checklist

Approximately two months before you expect to defend your thesis, you should work with your committee to establish a defense date. This date, along with the names of your committee members, are entered into the Application for Final Examination Form, which must be signed by your Program Director and submitted to your program’s WCGS Coordinator a minimum of 30 days before the proposed defense date.

All international students must meet with the Senior Coordinator for Student Success at least 90 days prior to their scheduled defense date.

https://gradschool.weill.cornell.edu/Thesis-Dissertation-Guidelines

Approximately one month before your defense, begin collecting your committee members’ signatures for the Approval of Thesis for Defense form, which must be submitted to Denise Jenkins a minimum of two weeks before the defense.

The Major Sponsor must communicate to the student and to the Manager of Grants & Finance the date on which stipend funding will terminate. All students must terminate within 60 DAYS of the defense date. Once you submit the Application for Final Examination Form for the PhD Degree the Finance and Grants Administrator Dikaury Hernandez-Guner will contact you, your PI, Department administrator, regarding your termination and will confirm your termination date with you. Your termination date is the last day that you are officially a graduate student.

Institutional Grants Appointment Clearance: Students on T32 training grants or individual fellowships must contact the Grants Administrator Dikaury Hernandez-Guner at least ONE MONTH before the termination date. Follow the termination guidelines of the specific funding agency: a Termination Notice must be filed through NIH eRA commons for NIH awardees; science and financial reports are required for most fellowships.

Any outstanding balances to the Graduate School, WCMC, or MSKCC Housing must be paid.

Weill Cornell Medicine charges and invoices students by each term in their program.  Billing notifications from WCM will always come from the Student Accounting Office (student-accounting@med.cornell.edu) via email to the student’s Weill Cornell Medicine issued email address. Billing invoices are issued as needed starting one month before the payment due date.  It is each student’s responsibility to make payment arrangements to cover tuition and fees for each term by the payment due date provided. If you have debts, you will receive bills from Student Accounting. Personnel in Student Accounting, 1300 York room C-114 (del2015@med.cornell.edu) can affirm if your debts have been cleared. 

Please understand that any health, dental, and/or vision insurance coverage will end the last day of the month of your stipend termination date.  If you are enrolled in the SHP Health Insurance Plan, Dental Plan and/or Vision Plan you will need to make arrangements for coverage. Graduating students are eligible to extend their health insurance coverage for 3 months for an out of pocket cost. If your stipend termination date changes after submission of your PhD Exit Checklist, please understand that insurance coverage will remain terminated on the last day of your original stipend termination month.Please see the Student Accounting Graduating PhD FAQ page for complete details. 

Your stipend termination date marks your deadline for vacating housing. After this date, your rent can no longer be deducted from payroll and you must move out of your apartment. Please make sure to email the Housing Office (housing@med.cornell.edu) of your vacate date at least TWO WEEKS prior to moving out.

Insurance Coverage Termination – Please understand that any health, dental, and/or vision insurance coverage will end the last day of the month of your stipend termination date.  If you are enrolled in the SHP Health Insurance Plan, Dental Plan and/or Vision Plan you will need to make arrangements for coverage. Graduating students are eligible to extend their health insurance coverage for 3 months for an out of pocket cost.  Please see the Student Accounting Graduating PhD FAQ page for complete details. 

The SED survey results are used by the government to make decisions about graduate education funding, developing and supporting programs. Register for the survey online at https://sed-ncses.org/login.aspx. Upon registering, you will receive an email with your PIN and password as well as a link to the survey. Once the survey has been completed, an email confirmation will be sent to you and the Registrar's Office.

a. You will be instructed by the Registrar’s Office to complete a Graduation Registration form in LEARN and provide an address for diploma shipping.  All diplomas are sent via postal mail, first-class for domestic (US) mailing, and airmail for international mailings. Please allow 30 days from the mailing date to receive your diploma.

b. Instructions about cap and gown orders will be announced at a later date. 

Submit the Alumni Information Form online. This form allows us to better understand where our alumni are going after they graduate and what they are working on. We want to ensure that you are updated on WCGS news, events, and professional opportunities.

Submit your Dissertation to ProQuest at http://www.etdadmin.com/med.cornell. You will be contacted by a WCGS representative, who will email you feedback to format your dissertation and answer any questions you have in reference to your thesis according to guidelines set forth by ProQuest and the college. Forms and formatting requirements are available on the ETD submission site and the Student Forms Page (Thesis Formatting Instructions). Follow the representative’s directions to ensure your dissertation is formatted correctly and ready for publication. Once revisions are completed, the dissertation will be approved and you will be notified via email. You can find the deadline to submit your thesis to Proquest on the WCGS Academic Calendar. In addition, the Final Abstract and Dissertation Approval Form should be returned to the Associate Director of Enrollment & Education Operations Heather DiTullio.

eCommons is a service of the Weill Cornell Medical (WCM) Library that provides long-term access to a broad range of WCM-related digital content of enduring value. Complete the eCommons Registration Form online to add your dissertation to this service.

If your phone, computer, tablet or any other electronic devices are tagged for use at WCMC, please make sure to bring them to the IT SmartDesk located in the WCMC Library to have them untagged. Also, return all additional library resources to the WCMC Library. 

Submit a signed Exit checklist and SED confirmation to the Senior Coordinator for Student Success in person or via email.