How common is failing your dissertation defense?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can defend again. You don’t defend until you are prepared, and your major professor should be sure you are prepared. It isn’t a test in the usual sense. Im sure difference disciplines do it differently, but I think if you get to the point of defending your dissertation you generally are going to finish. Many people never defend, though - that is the real danger.

This. Generally, dissertation advisors gatekeep defense. If the professor allows it and you fail, that reflects poorly on the advisor. If I was a committee member, I'd be pissed as a lot of preparation goes into preparing for a defense and a not ready for prime time dissertation is a massive waste of everyone's time.

Correct. Lots of people fail Ph.D. comps (and Masters out or retake them). It is rare in the US to fail a dissertation, and generally the advisor's fault for not recognizing the student is not ready. Some corrections are normal, though, but this essentially counts as 'passed'.

Yes, this.

[Anonymous]

DH's defense was more like a presentation with a celebration at the end.

He presented. The committee "deliberated" and then came back and announced that he'd passed and we had snacks. DH invited his parents and a couple of close mentors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just curious. I don’t know if there are hard and fast percentages out there, but for anybody who has been in a PhD program, how many of your colleagues were successful with their dissertation defense? How many or not? If you fail it, are you permitted a second chance to present? Or is it one and done? What happens with the degree status if you don’t pass?

My program had a high fail rate both at our university and compared to similar programs at similar universities. It is also has a high rate of people dropping out. I’m ABD because I dropped out. The same year, a friend transferred (unheard of!) and started over again at another local university. Even with having to retake comps a year later, she was happier. Three of our classmates failed within the next two years. It was a toxic environment.

For your colleagues that failed, did they go back to continue work and present again? You can’t claim a PhD on a résumé or call yourself Dr. with ABD, right?

NO, you cannot "claim a PhD on a resume or call yourself Dr. with an ABD". I'm not clear why this is even a question. You can't claim credentials that you haven't earned. If you're in a field that includes licensing and/or a member of a professional organization with an ethics code, doing so will likely torpedo your career in very wide-reaching ways.

The ABD is such a crock because the D is the hardest and most difficult part. I would never admit being ABD, either PhD or nothing.

Writing the dissertation, and particularly including all the references and notations and images and charts that are important is difficult but the research is the fun part. You're doing your project where you are THE expert. Nobody in the room knows your subject better than you. Heck they're attending your presentation and getting information / understanding from you. So if you confuse one of the definitions that you came up with, they may ask for clarity and you can go back and say you misspoke and continue. You're not going to fail because your presentation said "image on the left" when you were referring to the right.

Comps / Quals / whatever else they're called are brutal. There are lots of other experts in there. So if you confuse the fundamental theorem of abelian groups and apply it incorrectly, they'll notice and you won't pass that qual and you may not get to the ABD state. You go in there thinking that comps are just easy and the hard part is the dissertation and you may never get to that state. I knew several people with that on their resume. Smart people but couldn't buckle down and get past comps. One guy went from UMD -> GW -> I think UGA or somewhere in GA before he finally got to ABD. I knew several who went from MIT -> Cornel -> UMD (many without the Cornel part but at least one who did). Its not an easy path.

Plus while you're taking comps you're probably still teaching standard classes - grading 25 - 30 papers a night, while taking classes because you're not ABD, while taking tests in those classes, while still studying for comps. Its an uphill battle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband has a PhD and serves on people's committees. They just had someone fail her proposal defense and the committee reamed out her advisor for letting her go in front of her committee when she wasn't ready. And that was just the proposal. You'd have to have an absolutely awful advisor to fail your thesis defense.

Proposals are difficult and they're a stepping stone and failure is more common here (not expected but not unheard of). Its basically you starting your research, showing you have the ability to do research and bring about results and answer questions about the direction of this research. How well you do will depend a lot on your advisor but also how well you are with uncertainty.

Imagine you're giving a presentation on your child's success in school. You have an outline for the math courses, the books to read, a backup plan etc. You can comment on their worth because you've read them and enjoyed them and they helped develop you.

But this is your child and you don't know how he will respond to it. So one of the questions becomes "what if your child doesn't like 'Treasure Island' or '1984'" or "Have you taken into account things like discalculia or ADHD and how that may impact your child's learning". You may not have considered these things because this is your child and you don't have concerns about these things in your child. So suddenly your proposal which you've researched in and out is getting derailed and taken into another direction. Normally you can talk about adding that direction to your research, and your advisor may step in and talk about it in more general terms and try to bring the discussion back to you, but this is not always easy because some people have more dominating personalities (especially if said person does not like your advisor or their area of research but then why would they be on your proposal team).

If this were a defense and you were talking about this same subject and said topics hadn't been discussed for whatever reason then either they're not in the scope or if they are then its an area where you need to address. But its a lot easier to defend a dissertation than a proposal because you're talking about your work (I did X), not your want to do work (I will do Y).

[Anonymous]

We had someone fail because the committee was mad at the student's advisor. He'd won a big grant and wasn't sharing. The student was the casualty. It was politics.

I agree that the advisor typically let a student submit for a defense until they are ready.

[Anonymous]

I’ve never heard of someone failing their defense (engineering). If you fail, that’s on both you and your advisor since they didn’t make sure you were adequately prepared.