Registration Policies

Law School students, see the School of Law registration polices.

For a printable, two-sheet handout of vital registration information, download the:

• FAST FACTS SPRING 2009
• FAST FACTS FALL 2008

To view the document, you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader, which you can get for free from Adobe.

Golden Gate University expects all students registering for classes to have access to a computer, the Internet and an active e-mail address. Most, if not all, classes offered at GGU will have some degree of course work required to be done through the Internet, and we communicate registration, payment and other administrative information by e-mail.

All registration transactions, including drop requests, must be submitted either via:

The following kinds of requests are insufficient, and will not be processed:

• Oral/spoken requests
• Requests submitted to instructors, deans, or academic department chairs
• Request submitted by anyone other than the student

You will not be officially enrolled until you have paid for the courses for which you registered or made other payment arrangements. You must pay your charges or make other arrangements within one business day of registering or your registration will be canceled.

All Students
Before registering, you will need the approval of your enrollment services advisor (first term) or your student services advisor and/or respective faculty advisor if you are:

• An undergraduate student (advising with your student services advisor required every term)
• A graduate student registering for the first or last term of your program Recommended
• Admitted conditionally
• On academic probation
• Registering for a course in Credit/No Credit (pass/fail) status Recommended
• Registering for a directed or independent study
• Registering under Open Enrollment (advising with your enrollment services advisor required every term)

International Students
Before registering, you will need the approval of your international student counselor if you:

• Are registering for your first term
• Want to drop a course
• Have not submitted verification that you have health insurance

Students Admitted Math or English Conditionally
If you have yet to satisfy the math or English requirements under which you were admitted, before registering you will need the approval of your student services advisor.

To schedule an advising appointment, you may request an advising session online (login required), or contact your student services advisor.

If you want to register for a course after the registration deadline, you must submit along with your registration request:

• Written or e-mailed approval from the course's instructor; AND
• Written or e-mailed approval from a senior administrator in the school or division in which the course is housed, such as a dean, director or department chair. Click below to see contact information for administrators in the:
• Ageno School of Business
• School of Accounting
• School of Taxation
• Undergraduate Programs
• A late registration fee of $100. This fee will be charged only once per term, regardless of whether you've already registered for courses within that term. This fee will only be waived if you present written evidence of an extenuating circumstance beyond your control which prevented you from registering before the registration deadline. Only the Office of Records & Registration can authorize a waiver -- not the course instructor or senior administrator. To request a waiver, contact the Office of Records & Registration.

The university classifies your enrollment status based on your academic level and the number of units in which you are enrolled during an enrollment period. Enrollment periods include the terms listed below.

ENROLLMENT PERIOD	TERMS INCLUDED
Fall	Fall Trimester (16 weeks), Fall B (8 weeks), Fall C (8 weeks)
Spring	Spring Trimester (16 weeks), Spring B (8 weeks), Spring C (8 weeks)
Summer	Summer Trimester (16 weeks), Summer B (8 weeks), Summer C (8 weeks)

ACADEMIC LEVEL	LESS THAN HALF-TIME	HALF-TIME	THREE-QUARTER-TIME	FULL-TIME
Undergraduate	5 or less	6 - 8	9 - 11	12 or more
Graduate	3 or less	4 - 5	6 - 7	8 or more
Doctoral	2 or less	3 - 6	N/A	7 or more

Please note, these classifications do NOT apply if you are registered in only one eight-week term (e.g., Fall B). You must also register for another term, which can be either the other eight-week term or the trimester. If you do not, you will be reported as enrolled as "Less than Half-Time", regardless of the number of units you are registered for.

All Students
The limit on the number of units you may register for within a term depends upon your academic level:

• Undergraduate: 17 units
• Graduate: 14 units
• Doctoral: 8 units

You may register for additional units provided you supply the Office of Records & Registration with the written approval of the appropriate academic dean.

Conditionally Admitted Students
The limit on the number of units you may register for while you remain on conditional admission status depends upon your academic level:

• Undergraduate: 12 units
• Graduate: 9 units

It is strongly recommended that conditionally admitted students take only one or two courses per term until their conditional admission requirements are satisfied.

If a class you are wanting to take shows a "Waitlist" status on the Course Schedule, you cannot register for it, but may add yourself to its waitlist. You will not be charged for doing so, and may remove yourself from the waitlist at any time through GGU4YOU's Manage My Waitlist link or by e-mailing registration@ggu.edu.

If a seat becomes available, you will be e-mailed, and will have three days to register yourself into it. If you do not, the seat that had been reserved for you will be offered to another students. Because e-mails may be delayed or thwarted, we recommend that if you put yourself onto a waitlist, that you confirm that we have your correct e-mail address on record by checking your profile.

Please note that the Course Schedule may show that a class has a waitlist even through the capacity of the class is greater than the number of students registered. This is because at one point the class was full, a waitlist was created, and then some students dropped. It is not possible to bypass the waitlist, as there may still be students on it. If you wish to take the course, add yourself to the waitlist.

Waitlists are purged after the last day to register for the term. Check the Academic Calendar for these dates. If you have not received notification by then, you will not be added to the class.

You may register for a course after it has begun up through its second week for trimester term courses, and through its first week for eight-week term courses. For specific dates, please consult the Academic Calendar.

If you wish to register for a course after these deadlines, you must acquire the written or e-mailed approval of the instructor and a senior school or regional administrator and pay a $100 fee. This fee is charged even if you've previously registered for courses that term. The fee is only assessed once per term, regardless of the number of courses for which you're registering late. Registration constitutes a financial contract between you and the university, and you will be responsible for paying all charges associated with your registration. If you drop a course within the first three weeks of the course's instruction, you will receive a 100 percent reversal of the tuition charge. If you drop after the third week of instruction you will receive no reversal of tuition charge, even if you add a class for the same enrollment period. This applies even if you are adding a different section of the dropped class.

You may drop a trimester course or change to audit status up through its tenth week; an eight-week term course may be dropped or changed to audit up through its fifth week. You may drop a course up through the third week to receive a full reversal of the tuition charge. For specific dates, please consult the Academic Calendar.

Financial Aid Recipients
If you are a financial aid recipient, you must contact a Financial Aid advisor BEFORE dropping if:

• The remaining number of units after the drop will be below the amount for which you were packaged; OR
• less than 60 percent of the term has passed and the remaining number of units after the drop will not qualify you as a half-time student (defined below):
• Undergraduate - 6 units
• Graduate - 4 units
• Doctoral - 3 units

In both of these instances, some or all of your loans will be returned to your lender. Call the Financial Aid Office at 415-442-7270 or e-mail finaid@ggu.edu before proceeding.

International Students
If you are an international student on an F1 or J1 visa, you must contact an International Admissions & Advising counselor BEFORE dropping. Your counselor will need to ensure the drop will not put you out of compliance with US Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement regulations. Contact your counselor for assistance.

Refunds
If you drop before the refund deadline, the tuition charge for the course will be reversed, and your account will be credited. This credit will be used toward your future registration charges. If instead, you would like this money refunded to you, send a request to Student Accounting Services via fax (415-442-7819) or e-mail sas@ggu.edu. Verbal requests will not be processed.

Refunds After Deadline
If you are dropping after the refund deadline, and can show evidence of serious, unforeseen circumstances beyond your control which prevented you from continuing with the course, you may still be eligible for a refund. Submit a Student Financial Petition to the Office of Student Accounting Services.

The university reserves the right to administratively withdraw you from a course if you fail to:

• Meet your financial obligations with the university.
• Meet the course prerequisites.
• Attend the course regularly or at all.
• Adequately progress academically.
• Adhere to academic or administrative policies.

If you received any form of federal financial aid, including federally guaranteed loans, for the term in which they're being withdrawn, and the withdrawal reduces your enrollment status to below half-time, you must return that funding to your lender. The date of withdrawal will be the last date you attended the course.

If you do not intend to continue with your academic program, submit a written request to the Office of Records & Registration stating that you are withdrawing. You may use any of the following methods of sending the request shown under the "Submission Requirements" section above.

The date the university receives the notification will be the official date of withdrawal. Should you subsequently decide to return, you will need to reapply for admission.

Students withdrawing from their program are still subject to normal drop and refund deadlines. For specific dates, see the Academic Calendar.

If you are a financial aid recipient, you must also notify the Office of Financial Aid by letter, fax (415-442-7819) or by e-mail to finaid@ggu.edu. They will calculate a Return of Title IV Funds and, based upon this calculation, you may be required to return funds. If you withdraw after the 60% point of your term, the Return of Title IV calculation will not indicate any adjustment to your financial aid award.

If you want to change your academic program, do not withdraw, but instead submit a "Change of Degree Program/Major" request form to your student services advisor. This form can be found on the Index of Forms Web page.

If you audit a course, you are not required to participate or to take examinations and do not receive academic credit or a letter grade. An "AU" is recorded instead of a grade, which has no effect on your grade point average.

You may register in audit status or change your registration to audit status through the tenth week of the trimester, or through the fifth week of an eight-week term. For specific dates, please consult the Academic Calendar. You may not change from audit status to credit status.

The tuition charge for audited courses is two-thirds of non-audited courses. This deduction is only applicable at the time of initial registration, and students who change their status to audit after initial registration are not eligible for this discount. Specifically, a change to audit status after initial registration will not result in a tuition adjustment.

International Students with a student or scholar visa may audit courses; however, these units are not included in their full-time unit load calculation.

Doctoral courses may not be audited.

GGU uses the term "Credit/No Credit" interchangeably with "Pass/Fail". If you register for a course in Credit/No Credit status, you have the opportunity to receive academic credit for it without the risk of its grade impairing your GPA. You must obtain the permission of an academic adviser and register for the course in CR/NC status. You may not change to or from CR/NC status after registering. The CR/NC option is only available under the following conditions:

• Undergraduate Students -- For general elective courses only; a C- must be achieved in the class for it to count for credit.
• Graduate students -- For 200-level foundation courses or courses used to fulfill a proficiency; a B- must be achieved in the class for it to count for credit.
• Doctoral students -- For dissertation course only.

If you are admitted with an academic conditional admission or are on probation, you may not register to take a course for CR/NC.

International students with a student or scholar visa may elect the Credit/No Credit option according to the policy notes above; however, these units are not calculated in their full-time unit load.

You must register for your internship, and internships are subject to all of the same registration, financial and grading policies as regular courses. Before registering, establish your internship through Office of Career Planning, which is housed in the Center for Academic and Professional Success. See the Internship Program page for more information.

You may study a topic not covered by a course the university offers by taking a directed study. Directed studies are taken individually under the guidance of a faculty member, and may substitute for a required course in your academic program. To register for a directed study, obtain the signatures of the faculty member and the appropriate academic dean on a Directed Study Form, and submit both this form and a registration form to the Office of Records and Registration. Directed studies are subject to the following restrictions:

• Undergraduate students may register for only three units of directed study coursework per term.
• Graduate students may register for only three units of directed study coursework per degree program.
• Directed studies must be taken for letter grades only (not pass/fail).

Directed studies may substitute for requirements in an academic program and are subject to the same administrative and academic policies as regular classes.

Occasionally the university will need to alter the meeting times of a class after you've registered for it. At that time, the university will present you with the option of dropping and receiving a full reversal of the tuition charge or continuing on the altered schedule, one that is agreed upon between the instructor and the students. Such a class is referred to as a "Custom Study", as its meeting dates and times are customized by the participants. This change may result in less frequent contact between the instructor and students, but in no way alters the class' learning objectives, unit load, tuition, or administrative requirements.

If you are a DBA student, you can qualify as being enrolled full-time for one term without actually registering for academic units by taking a DBA Dissertation Hiatus. Submit a DBA Dissertation Hiatus Request to Office of Records & Registration. The hiatus will be approved only if:

• You have previously registered for at least one term of dissertation units (course number DBA 899); and
• You have not taken a dissertation hiatus previously; and
• You are not on academic probation; and
• You have no outstanding financial obligations with the university.