by current_recipient » Wed Jun 20, 2012 9:19 am
smart_hopeful wrote:Yes, I originally applied for graduation in January 2014. Turns out I'm actually graduating in December 2013. The difference is literally a matter of days and it won't affect SMART's expenses (since Fall 2013 will be my last enrolled semester regardless). I'm hoping it'll be approved without a hitch.
Keep in mind your graduation date is the date when your degree posts to your official transcript. For my university, it could be as little as 1 week after finals (December) but as many as 3 weeks. Accounting for holiday breaks, that put my graduation date as mid-January. My completion date was actually September/October! But because of university timelines for PhD completion, I had to wait several months to get a degree on my transcript.
As well, SMART is only concerned with the those dates insofar as your service commitment is concerned. Further, they're only concerned as to whether you are going to school for either a partial academic year, or a full academic year. If you only are registered for Fall semester (December completion) they don't care that you put down a graduation date of January as long as you are not registered/attending classes for the Spring semester (the one which begins in January).
The only people in this scholarship mechanism who would care about graduation in December as opposed to January is your SF. And they will likely not care too much as the process to hire you is so complex that nailing down the specifics of a hiring timeframe to +/- within a week of your degree completion is near impossible.
In short, submitting a change form to switch your graduation date from January to December, unless explicitly told to do so by your Cohort Administrator, is a gigantic waste of everyone's time.
Also, you may go out of program compliance if your school cannot get your degree posted to your transcript by December, and you have to wait until January to submit transcripts. There's a deadline to get your transcripts (with completed degree) submitted and processed to the SMART Program after your graduation date. I believe it's 2 weeks (pretty tight) though it could be 30 days. In my experience, SMART would tend to be understanding in that situation, but maybe not. New management is in town.
[quote="smart_hopeful"]Yes, I originally applied for graduation in January 2014. Turns out I'm actually graduating in December 2013. The difference is literally a matter of days and it won't affect SMART's expenses (since Fall 2013 will be my last enrolled semester regardless). I'm hoping it'll be approved without a hitch.[/quote]
Keep in mind your graduation date is the date when your degree posts to your official transcript. For my university, it could be as little as 1 week after finals (December) but as many as 3 weeks. Accounting for holiday breaks, that put my graduation date as mid-January. My completion date was actually September/October! But because of university timelines for PhD completion, I had to wait several months to get a degree on my transcript.
As well, SMART is only concerned with the those dates insofar as your service commitment is concerned. Further, they're only concerned as to whether you are going to school for either a partial academic year, or a full academic year. If you only are registered for Fall semester (December completion) they don't care that you put down a graduation date of January as long as you are not registered/attending classes for the Spring semester (the one which begins in January).
The only people in this scholarship mechanism who would care about graduation in December as opposed to January is your SF. And they will likely not care too much as the process to hire you is so complex that nailing down the specifics of a hiring timeframe to +/- within a week of your degree completion is near impossible.
In short, submitting a change form to switch your graduation date from January to December, unless explicitly told to do so by your Cohort Administrator, is a gigantic waste of everyone's time.
Also, you may go out of program compliance if your school cannot get your degree posted to your transcript by December, and you have to wait until January to submit transcripts. There's a deadline to get your transcripts (with completed degree) submitted and processed to the SMART Program after your graduation date. I believe it's 2 weeks (pretty tight) though it could be 30 days. In my experience, SMART would tend to be understanding in that situation, but maybe not. New management is in town.