IMPORTANT:
As of February 2026, Grad College has made major changes to their formatting requirements to increase digital accessibility and streamline the deposit process. SLCL Student Services no longer needs to review your formatting before you deposit your thesis or dissertation. To see the new requirements, please visit the Thesis Office website:
https://grad.illinois.edu/academics/thesis-dissertation/thesis-updates-digital-accessibility
Thesis and dissertation help
The Thesis Office, which is part of the Graduate College, has an extensive list of resources for students writing a master's thesis or doctoral dissertation, including a complete deposit checklist.
Be sure to speak to your graduate advisor and to SLCL Student Services if you have questions about any part of the process.
Dissertation and thesis deposit information
Deadlines
The deadlines for both defense and deposit are set by the Graduate College. These deadlines are firm; if you don't meet them both, your degree will not be awarded that semester.
Defense
Note: The Graduate College doesn't require master's students to defend their theses, although most of our departments do.
A PhD candidate must hold the defense on or before the Graduate College deadline for the semester in which they want to graduate. Even though the defense deadline falls relatively late in the semester, the number-one thing you can do to ensure you graduate when you want to is to hold your defense as early as possible. The earlier you defend, the more time you have for revisions and Thesis Office review.
Revisions
After the defense, you will likely have to make at least some revisions. They have to be completed before your committee will approve you for deposit. When your committee is satisfied with the revisions, your advisor will need to send an email to slclgradservices@illinois.edu and tell us you are ready for format review.
Student Services will then get signatures on all the necessary paperwork (TDA form you received as part of the final exam request in the Grad Portal) and upload it to Grad College. You can upload your thesis / dissertation at any time after your advisor emails us, but the Thesis Office will not begin their review until they have this paperwork.
Format review
Three main factors can help speed up this part of the process considerably. In order of importance, they are:
- following the Thesis Office's formatting and accessibility guidelines
- responding to any correction requests as quickly as you're able to
- filing your title page
They have a comprehensive deposit check list on their website with much more information.
Contact us
This is a lot of information to digest. If you have questions about this or anything else related to your program, don’t hesitate to contact us!
Graduate Student Services
3070 Literatures, Cultures & Linguistics Building
slclgradservices@illinois.edu
(217) 244-5783