What it means

UW–Madison has limits on the number of credits that you can take in a term: for Fall or Spring, 18 credits for undergraduates; 15 credits for Graduate School students; it varies for other types of students (Law, Medicine, Veterinary Medicine, etc.).

Some types of students also have a minimum number of credits required for their program. In such cases, the students cannot drop courses if the action will result in enrollment in less than their program's minimum load.

Summer Term Credit Limit

Students are limited to course enrollment equal to one credit per week of session. The eight-week general session allows for nine credits over the session period.
In addition to the session credit limit, undergraduate students can enroll in a maximum of twelve credits across the summer term.

For more information:

• Student Center - Summer Session Credit Overload
• Session codes and dates

The enrollment system won’t let you enroll for credits outside the maximum or minimum allowed.

Course enrollment failed: You were not enrolled. Enrolling in this course would have exceeded your credit load maximum.

What to do

• Decide which classes fit your academic plan and still fall within your credit limit. Use the Course Search & Enroll - Save a Course for Later Enrollment option in Course Search & Enroll to take a class out of your cart and bookmark it for enrollment in a later term.
• If you have enrolled in classes that allow you to choose how many credits you earn (Course Search & Enroll - Enrolling/Editing Variable Credit), you may be able to change those credits to fit within your maximum
• Use the Course Search & Enroll - Swapping a Class feature to enroll in one class while dropping another. Swap won’t drop the other class until you have successfully enrolled in the new one.
• Contact your academic dean’s office if you want to request an exception to the maximum or minimum credit limit. Tuition is assessed according to your enrolled credits, among other factors. Your tuition rate may change if you enroll in credits above the maximum limit.
• If you are an international student on an F-1/J-1 visa, you would need to apply for a reduced credit load in order to enroll in less than a full-time load. For more information: https://iss.wisc.edu/students/current-students/reduced-course-load/.

You've received an exception to the maximum or minimum credit limit but you're still seeing an error message? You might still be seeing an error message from the last time you attempted to add the course to your cart or enroll.

To revalidate the course in your cart:

• Select the checkbox next to the course and click the Revalidate button.

If the validation error cleared, you can now enroll (even if there's still an enrollment error message). Check the checkbox next to the course and click the Enroll button.