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Term Change Information for Admitted Students
Term Change Policy
The Graduate School considers requests for term changes on a case by case basis. Term changes are granted for extraordinary circumstances outside the students control. Examples include:
- Unable to enroll in the academic term due to medical reasons, natural disasters, or other unforeseen, unpredictable circumstances
- Unable to obtain visa documents to successfully make it to the United States on time
Term change requests are not granted for voluntary or preference based reasons (i.e. gap year, started a full time job).
Term changes can be requested for adjacent semesters only. Spring is considered adjacent to fall or adjacent to summer.
If the student does not matriculate in the new semester, they must reapply and pay a new application fee. If a student requests a second term change, the request will be denied and the student will need to reapply when ready. An individual program can choose to reserve a spot for the student when they reapply, and communicate that to the student, however the Graduate School Admissions Office will need the applicant to fill out a new application.
Term Change Process in Applicant Review
Term changes can only be completed for admitted applicants (students) and must be completed before their initial semester is scheduled to start. The process is initiated by the applicant or student via written communication to the program. If the program approves the term change, follow the instructions below.
Request a term change in Applicant Review
Open the applicant page for the admitted student that is requesting the term change.
Click on the white Request Term Change button in the upper right corner of the "Application Information" box.
Fill in the information on the Request Term Change Form. (an asterisk signifies a required field)
- Requested Term: New term the student requests to start in
- Justification: A description of the reason why the student is requesting the term change. Ex. Student requested visa in March but it is still being processed at the embassy two weeks before classes start and will not be able to make it to campus before the first day of class.
- Completion Month: This information is no longer needed, but we can't remove it from this form. Fill it out with any month.
- Completion Year: This information is no longer needed, but we can't remove it from this form. Fill it out with any year.
- Proof of Request: the email from the student requesting the term change.
Click the submit button to make the request.
View or edit term change requests and view grad school approvals
On the Manage tab, click on the Term Change Requests button.
There are two tabs in the upper left of the Manage Term Change Requests page:
- Active: Applicant term changes that are waiting for Graduate School processing.
- Processed: Applicant term changes that have been processed by the Graduate School.
Click the "Edit" button to make any changes to the request.
Click the "Delete" button to discard this request.
View the final decision by the Graduate School
There are two ways to view the final decision by the Graduate School.
Manage tab
- On the Manage tab, click on the Term Change Requests button.
- Click the "Processed Tab"
- The decision by the Graduate School will show under the column "Decision." You can find more information by clicking the "View Decision" box in the Actions column.
Student Information Page
Click on the student's name from the Graduate School Review or Final Processing Tabs.
Click on the Action History button on the left hand menu and scroll to the bottom of the page.
In the "Term Change Requests" box, the information about the decision will be listed under "Decision" and "Decision Reason".