Improving Doctoral Time to Completion

What is Time to Completion (TTC)?

The amount of time that it takes a research-stream student to complete all program requirements and be eligible for graduation. For graduate students, reducing TTC can alleviate financial stress, creating the time and space to focus on launching a career.

About the TTC Best Practices

In 2015, the School of Graduate Studies (SGS) initiated a research project to better understand Time to Completion (TTC) in order to improve TTC and graduation rates for doctoral students at the University of Toronto. This project resulted in two research-informed and data-driven sets of Best Practices: one for Graduate Units and one for graduate students.

Further Reading

The following research studies about Time to Completion in graduate programs were consulted in developing the SGS Best Practices.

Council of Graduate Schools — PhD Completion Project Reports

• A Data-Driven Approach to Improving Doctoral Completion (2007)
• Baseline Program Data from the PhD Completion Project (2008)
• Exit Surveys of PhD Completers (2009)
• Policies and Practices to Promote Student Success (2010)

Examples of TTC Task Force Reports

Duke University
University of Texas at Austin
University of Michigan
University of Alberta