I'm currently going through the process to extend my award past May 2020, hopefully to December 2020 or May 2021. As many know it's hard to gauge how long a PhD will take and with this I'm needed to extend my award from 3 years to 4 total.
My real questions are really for those who had their awards successfully extended:
1. How long did it take to process your request?
2. How did you word your personal statement and what was your "extenuating circumstance" for increasing the award?
Thanks in advance.
PhD Award Length Increase Request
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smart_dude123
- Posts: 3
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Re: PhD Award Length Increase Request
Process can take an arbitrary amount of time to approve, as SMART is not known for being on the ball with paperwork.
SMART basically has no understanding of what a PhD actually entails or how things can go wrong, see my post history and others who have done a PhD in this shitshow of a program.
Just be honest and explain that research goes at the pace that research is able to go (and/or your potentially dysfunctional department/college/etc...).
Typically you're only able to get one year of extra funding to complete a degree, if even that nowadays (it was only one year way back when I was still funded and the program was not nearly as miserly as it is now).
If not given additional funding, you can then go on unfunded Leave of Absence (LoA) from SMART to finish your degree on your own then transfer to your SF - but this is ANOTHER approval process you'd have to jump through (and if you need funding to do lab work or the like gods help you).
Extra important to note is that upon LMI taking over there is now a hard maximum, regardless of initial funding duration, of 2 years in LoA status before you are summarily thrown out of the program and put in default even if you have demonstrated continued progress towards completing your PhD.
I was stabbed in the back by SMART in exactly this way upon the changeover to LMI management. NO ONE should do a PhD through this program. It's a literal con job based on the completion times vs. averages for the STEM fields.
This would be a point to emphasize to your advisors if they are dragging their feet/constantly wanting to see more work before they've decided you've had enough academic hazing.
SMART basically has no understanding of what a PhD actually entails or how things can go wrong, see my post history and others who have done a PhD in this shitshow of a program.
Just be honest and explain that research goes at the pace that research is able to go (and/or your potentially dysfunctional department/college/etc...).
Typically you're only able to get one year of extra funding to complete a degree, if even that nowadays (it was only one year way back when I was still funded and the program was not nearly as miserly as it is now).
If not given additional funding, you can then go on unfunded Leave of Absence (LoA) from SMART to finish your degree on your own then transfer to your SF - but this is ANOTHER approval process you'd have to jump through (and if you need funding to do lab work or the like gods help you).
Extra important to note is that upon LMI taking over there is now a hard maximum, regardless of initial funding duration, of 2 years in LoA status before you are summarily thrown out of the program and put in default even if you have demonstrated continued progress towards completing your PhD.
I was stabbed in the back by SMART in exactly this way upon the changeover to LMI management. NO ONE should do a PhD through this program. It's a literal con job based on the completion times vs. averages for the STEM fields.
This would be a point to emphasize to your advisors if they are dragging their feet/constantly wanting to see more work before they've decided you've had enough academic hazing.