When are you a PhD Candidate?

Hate to break it to all the CV writers of the world, but when you enroll in a PhD program you're just a plain old student--the candidate part comes much later.

You don't reach candidate status until you've completed your studies and have been freed to work on your dissertation. Being a PhD candidate is just a really lovely way of saying that you're stuck in the middle between being a student and being a PhD.

So how to show that you're in a PhD program? Just mark the name of your school and your expected graduation date. That's all there is to it.