Is application to graduate school asking for period of study, or period from beginning study to graduation date? I'm applying for a graduate school. In the application there is a question about academic history. So I have to key in the schools that I have attended previously. It's in form of:

School:...
...
From:
To:
Grad:


Clearly it asks me to indicate my period of study and graduation date. It's not problem.

However, I realized that my other applications for other purposes (employment, etc.) didn't indicate clearly like this, normally it was just From-To. Therefore, I always listed as:

From:(Start of study) To:(Graduation date) [A]


I'm worried that what I have done previously is not accurate. I think I should do as:

From:(Start of study) To:(End of study) [B]


Please share some advice in this case. Moving forwards, should I use form [A] or [B] if I'm asked only From-To?

And please consider the case that if I change the approach now, would it cause confusion to the places that I have sent my other application to previously?
The form might phrase it this way to allow for differences in national education systems. Not all PhD programmes work on a cohort system where people start and finish at the same time. For example, I did my PhD in the UK and my revisions to the thesis were accepted in December 2011, so I was allowed to carry the title effective December 22; but there are only two graduation ceremonies each year and so I graduated in February 2012.

In answer to your specific question: Where data entry allows comments, I would go for Study start to Study end and manually ad a graduation date. For fixed fields, I would probably go with the date on your certificate as this would cause the least confusion.