The University requires students to be registered in each quarter during which any departmental (i.e., GSE) or University requirement is fulfilled. This applies to the completion of milestones during any quarter, including summer. Milestones include the First- and Second-Year reviews, dissertation proposal, and oral exam. Enrollment in a minimum of 8 units is required during the regular academic year, with few exceptions, and a minimum of 3 units is required during the summer quarter.
Students who wish to complete a First- or Second-Year review or a dissertation proposal in the Summer Quarter without registering must contact the Doctoral Programs Officer to discuss their circumstances. Exceptions are considered by the Assistant Dean for Student Affairs only in rare and extenuating circumstances. In case of First- and Second-year reviews, the Area Committee must be first made aware of the student’s situation in Executive Session prior to the end of the academic year. In case of the dissertation proposals, the Assistant Dean for Student Affairs will directly consider those petitions. In either case, the student must establish that the review or dissertation proposal materials were essentially completed during quarters in which the student was registered, but the review committee cannot evaluate these materials in the following Autumn Quarter and, therefore, must do so in the Summer Quarter due to scheduling and/or administrative impediments, such as faculty member sabbatical leaves. The purpose of this process is to ensure that the student completed the relevant work and thereby used University resources during registered quarters only. Faculty time spent reviewing student materials is considered a University resource. Because most faculty member service is voluntary in summer, members of the student’s review or proposal committee must be willing to serve on a voluntarily basis. Students seeking a registration exception in Summer Quarter must have been enrolled in the prior Spring Quarter.
PhD students, please contact
MA POLS and MA/PP students, please contact
EDS, ICE/IEPA, Individually Designed, LDT, MA/JD, MA/MBA students, please contact
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