The Senior Thesis is your final general education requirement and the capstone of your undergraduate career. It is a serious exercise in the organization and presentation of written material related to your major. You select a topic for your thesis in consultation with your faculty reader(s). If you are pursuing honors in your major, consult the appropriate department chair for any special requirements or guidelines related to honors.

Senior thesis is a regular course for which students must register in person at the CMC Registrar’s Office. The Senior Thesis Topic Form must be completed before students can sign up for thesis. The Registrar’s Office conducts a mandatory Senior Thesis meeting on the first Thursday of the fall semester. You’ll learn about all of the administrative requirements for registration, production, submission, and upload of your thesis, along with information about resources to assist with each step of the process. Be sure to attend.

• Thesis Syllabus 2016-2017
• Senior Thesis Topic Form – You must submit a signed topic form in order to register for thesis.
• Senior Thesis Topic Exception Request Form – Use this form to request permission to write a thesis outside your major.
• Claremont Colleges Library Research Guides – Information about everything from checking out library resources to the research process itself.
• Institutional Review Board (IRB) – Information for students engaging in research involving human subjects.
• Keck Science Thesis Information – Science majors follow the Keck Science Department guidelines for the entire science thesis project. *

* Science majors must complete a science thesis (Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Analysis, Neuroscience, or Physics 188L and 190L; or Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Analysis, Neuroscience, or Physics 191).

All two-semester science theses include labs and lab fees. Science majors make all thesis arrangements through the Keck Science Department and must register for the appropriate course.

Formatting and style expectations depend on the discipline in which you’re writing. Check with your reader to settle on a style guide and stick with it throughout your entire project. Be sure to visit The Center for Writing and Public Discourse (CWPD) for help with everything from developing your thesis topic to final formatting.

Students wishing to view previously submitted theses for formatting ideas and examples can visit the online repository at Scholarship@Claremont and browse or search for any CMC thesis. Searching for “Best Senior Thesis” (including the quotation marks) will pull up the highest quality theses.

• The Center for Writing and Public Discourse (CWPD)
• CWPD Online Resources – Look here for style guides, documentation guides, and other useful tools.
• CWPD Thesis Session FAQ
• Sample Title Page – Your title page should look like this.
• Fair Use Analysis tips and tools – Use an analysis tool to check if your use of any content that you do not hold the could qualify as Fair Use.
• Guide – Look here for information including templates for getting permission from holders.

The Registrar’s Office collects a bound paper copy of every CMC senior thesis, records the date/time of submission, and then distributes theses to faculty readers for grading. Thesis collection takes place on the 13th instructional Monday of every semester. Refer to the Senior Thesis Syllabus for specific due dates and times. Early submissions are welcome: late submissions incur grading penalties.

We’ll return the bound copy of your thesis to you after grading.

CMC maintains its senior thesis collection in the Claremont Colleges Library’s online scholarly repository, Scholarship@Claremont. Students upload electronic versions of their Senior Theses to this repository within 48 hours of the paper thesis submission. The upload is a mandatory part of the senior thesis process for all CMC students, including science majors and students with off-campus majors.