Forms and Petitions

Guide to Filing Theses and Dissertations

Degree Completion, Manuscript Archiving and Publication

After finishing a degree check, Graduate Division notifies the Office of the Registrar, which posts the degree to the student's transcript. Degree checks and posting can take up to two months from the end of the quarter of degree conferral. All students filing for degrees are sent congratulatory letters by the Graduate Division notifying them of their degree award and the date awarded.

Transcripts are not automatically sent upon degree completion; rather, they must be ordered from the Office of the Registrar. Students should mark their transcript order form "hold for posting of degree" and indicate the quarter and degree awarded.

Diplomas can take three to six months to be printed and mailed. The Registrar’s office will automatically mail your diploma to your permanent address as soon as it arrives; therefore it is imperative that you update your Permanent Address in GOLD immediately. If you wish to have your diploma sent to a different address than your permanent address, wait until after you receive your congratulatory letter from the Graduate Division, then enter it under DIPLOMA ADDRESS in GOLD. A $2.00 mailing fee will automatically be accessed to your BARC account when your degree is awarded.

If requested, Graduate Division will provide a letter of degree verification certifying the actual date of completion of requirements and guaranteeing that the degree will be awarded the last day of the next quarter. This letter will satisfy many employers and agencies but some insist on an official transcript showing the date of degree conferral. Students may request up to five such letters.

Graduate students filing for master's or doctoral degrees before the official conferral date who use the Filing Fee rather than registering for courses may request an official transcript before the conferral date, even though it may be weeks or months prior to the end of the quarter. Students who have an urgent need for an official transcript should make this known to both the Graduate Division and the Office of the Registrar at the time they file for their degrees.

Students who intend to submit their thesis or dissertation to a prospective employer should make their own copies. It may take up to one year before a published dissertation will be available through ProQuest Information and Learning (ProQuest/UMI) Dissertation Services.

The following steps describe the filing process:

1. Students submit their dissertations and theses directly to the Graduate Division. Questions about submissions (including deadlines, paper, margins, etc.) are handled by the Graduate Division staff.
2. The Graduate Division holds the manuscripts until all paperwork is completed. Questions, such as those about the status of paperwork, are handled by the Graduate Division.
3. When the paperwork is completed, the Graduate Division does the following:
1. Theses: Sends both copies to Special Collections in Davidson Library.
2. Dissertations: Sends one copy to ProQuest/UMI (the ProQuest/UMI copy) and one copy to Special Collections in Davidson Library (the archival copy). Questions about the status of a dissertation at ProQuest/UMI are handled by the Graduate Division.
4. ProQuest/UMI prepares master versions of the dissertation for publication in digital, paper, microfilm and microfiche formats. The digital version of the dissertation is available at the ProQuest (UMI) Digital Dissertations. Students can search for the availability of their dissertations on the ProQuest Web site from any computer that has a ucsb.edu domain. After the master versions are created, the original ProQuest/UMI copy is returned to Graduate Division. Graduate Division forwards it to Special Collections in Davidson Library.
5. Upon receipt of the copies, the Library does the following:
1. Theses: An unbound, uncataloged copy of the manuscript is processed for the UCSB University Archives. The second copy is sent to the Cataloging Department for processing for the library's circulating collection. The cataloged, bound copy is listed in Pegasus, the UCSB Libraries online catalog.
2. Dissertations: The unbound, uncataloged archival copy is processed for the UCSB University Archives. The ProQuest/UMI copy is sent to the Cataloging Department for processing for the library's circulating collection. The cataloged, bound copy is listed in Pegasus.