Graduate Advising

The department uses a variety of portals to process petitions, depending on your case, please submit a petition that is the most appropriate to you. 

• Intranet: Submit department-level petitions, including Exam Extension, Course Waivers, Thesis Agreements.
• Student Portal: Submit Leave of Absence, Half-time Study, and other GEPA-level requests. Access academic and financial support letters from the Dean of Graduate Education and Postdoctoral Affairs.
• Enrollment Authorization System (EASy): Submit for Prerequisite clearance, Drop a course after week 2, or Late Add. Submitting an EASy request does not guarantee that you will be allowed to enroll in the course.

• Requests to drop individual classes after week 6 will be considered if you were unable to drop by the deadline due to significant circumstances outside your control (WebReg down, hospitalization, family emergency). These petitions need to be approved by the instructor and the department. This drop would be granted with a grade of W.
• Requests to withdraw from all of your classes after week 6 will be considered when students have issues that prevented them from dropping, had serious health or personal issues that arose during the quarter preventing successful completion of the quarter and you were unable to get a grade of incomplete. These drops would be granted with a grade of W.
• Request to drop courses after week 4 without a grade of W are almost always denied unless you request as soon as possible and you were unable to drop by the deadline due to significant circumstances outside your control (WebReg down, hospitalization, family emergency).
• Requests to change grading option either from pass/no pass to letter grade or from letter grade to pass/no pass, are almost always denied unless you were unable to change by the deadline due to significant circumstances outside your control (WebReg down, hospitalization, family emergency).

Holds are placed on your account by different offices. Each hold lists a start date, notes on what the hold prevents you from doing, and information on who to contact to remove the hold. 

If you have questions about a hold on your account, contact Student Affairs.

• UCSD Catalog
• Academic Regulations & Policies 
• Grading system
• How to check your grades
• Incompletes
• Academic Standing
• Academic Probation information
• Repeating Courses
• Appealing a grade 
• How to request verification forms for insurance, work, or other purposes.

Students access the online form and may submit a leave of absence or withdrawal request through the Division of Graduate Education and Postdoctoral Affairs' (GEPA) Student Portal.

• Leave of Absence is for students who discontinue graduate study with the intention of resuming during a later quarter. 
• Withdrawal is for students leaving the University and not planning to return. A withdrawn student may return only to defend and submit thesis. 
• You should talk to an advisor before you withdraw or go on a Leave of Absence to go over impacts. 
• Refunds for withdrawals follow the schedule of refunds, which is based on calendar days into the quarter, which may have a financial impact on you, too. 

"Auditing" means sitting  in on a class without enrolling in it.

• You may audit any class with the consent of the course instructor. Some instructors may not allow students to audit classes depending on the size of the class, the type of instruction, liability issues, workload, or because of academic integrity concerns. 
• Instructors may allow you to sit in on a class but still deny you access to Canvas. 
• Since you are not enrolled, you will not submit work to be graded or evaluated. However, since you are still part of the campus community, you are held to the same standards of conduct as enrolled students.
  
• Since you are not enrolled and are not turning in assignments, there is no official record when you audit a class.