Interesting. I went to a friends in the physic's department (ok, aerospace? something like that...) and there were only three of us there besides the committee. In my dept. they're pretty big. Most faculty try to attend, I believe.

I've been in for 6.5 years. I'd been shooting for 5 or so, but it just crept up! Anyway, that's perfectly normal in my department, but they'd like to bring it down a bit.

Yup. We're all hopelessly devoted.