Enrollment & Other Policies
Registration Policies
Please register for courses as soon as possible for the following term. Staying above a full time course load (5 credit hours in Summer, 9 credits in the Fall and Spring terms) without any gap between semesters will help you avoid having to lose and reinstate your UPASS privileges each term. To maintain U-Pass eligibility, students must be enrolled at least 9 hours in the Fall and Spring terms, and 5 hours during Summer.
Continuous Enrollment is required of doctoral students who have completed their preliminary examination requirements and may be required of all pre-candidate international students.
Leave of Absence must be requested by students wishing to take Fall AND Spring semesters off. Students must file a Graduate Student Petition for Leave of Absence form with the Graduate College for consideration. Most students can take either the Fall or the Spring off without requesting permission; international and doctoral candidates may be excluded from this option.
Zero Credit Hour Registration is an option available to students who have completed all coursework, examinations, and all degree requirements EXCEPT the MS exam or doctoral thesis. This requires a Graduate Student Petition Form approved by the DGS and submitted to the Graduate College for final approval.
Enrollment Policies
A full-time student is enrolled for a minimum of 9 credit hours.
Graduate College Fellowship or Board of Trustees Tuition and Fee Waiver (TFW) awardee requirements:
- 12 credit hours of enrollment for Fall and Spring awards
- 6 credit hours of enrollment for Summer awards
Minimum enrollment requirements for all students:
- 8 credits minimum for domestic students with assistantships
- 9 credits for any student who wants an I-Pass (5 credits in Summer)
- 8 credits minimum for international students with 50% assistantships
- 9 credits minimum for international students with 0-49% assistantship
Teaching and Research Assistants with 25-67% appointments are eligible for the assistantship TFW.
If you do not register for classes, or have less than the required credit hours for your award contract, you will receive a full-tuition bill, and have to be reinstated.
Managing your TA, RA, and Graduate Fellowship Contracts
It is critical that you read and manage your hiring contracts. If you accept another offer, please be sure to turn in a completed Resignation Release Form to our departments Human Resources Associate for the original offer.
For any new contract, your timeliness in completing and returning the document as instructed is also critical.
Please return BOTH pages of your contract, or it will not be valid.
Due to the high volume of contracts being circulated at any given time, your attention to detail is immensely helpful, and greatly appreciated.