Student Enrollment

Course Enrollment

FAS students register for courses during the prior term. Spring registration occurs in fall semester; fall registration occurs in spring semester for returning students and summer for incoming students. FAS registration offers students the ability to set their class schedules ahead of time and therefore be more thoughtful in their planning. Students have the opportunity to make final adjustments to their schedules during the add/drop period at the start of each term.

Drop, Add, Withdraw 

No undergraduate may drop or add a course after the fifth Monday of the term. Undergraduates have until the eleventh Monday of the term to change their grading basis or withdraw from a course. Exceptions to these rules may be granted only by the Administrative Board of Harvard College. Any course that a student drops by the deadline is removed from the student’s transcript. If a student withdraws from a course, that course remains on their transcript with a notation of “WD.” Students officially enroll through my.harvard.  

Graduate students have until the seventh Monday to add a course or change grading basis (SAT/UNS) in a designated language course. To add a course after this date, an approved Petition to Add must be submitted to the Harvard Griffin GSAS Office of Academic Programs. Graduate students have until the ninth Monday of the term to drop a course in my.harvard. To withdraw from a course after this date, an approved Petition to Withdraw must be submitted to the Harvard Griffin GSAS Office of Academic Programs. A notation of “WD” will be recorded on the student’s transcript for the course if the petition is approved.  

After the eleventh Monday of the term undergraduate students are not allowed to change their grading basis in courses from or to Pass/Fail. 

Instructor’s Permission and Petitions

Students may not enroll in courses that require instructor permission until the instructor has approved their petitions in my.harvard.  The instructor’s permission must be obtained for all undergraduate enrollments in graduate-level courses and for those that require the permission of the instructor.

Undergraduates adding a course after the Open Add/Drop deadline or changing grading status to Pass/Fail must request permission via my.harvard. Permission is not required for dropping or withdrawing from a course. For graduate students, the instructor’s permission is required for adding or withdrawing from a course and is not required for dropping a course. For instructions on how to respond to petitions in my.harvard, please review Responding to Petitions in my.harvard.

Instructors may not delegate their responsibility for approving course enrollments, change-of-course petitions, or submitting grades. Instructors are therefore asked to be available to students to discuss their course enrollment status and, when necessary, to grant permissions.

Limiting Enrollment in Courses at the 100- or 1000-Level and Below

As a general principle, students should be able to study the topics they want and for which they have the appropriate background, with the exception that concentration tutorials, including junior seminar programs, are ordinarily limited to concentrators. Nevertheless, there may be courses in which enrollment must be limited because of resource constraints or special instructional needs. The decision to limit enrollment for either or both of these reasons, as well as decisions about appropriate prerequisites, should be made by the instructional unit’s curriculum committee. The committee should be mindful of the general principle stated above, perhaps creating other venues where interested students can study the material in question.

When enrollment in a non-tutorial course is to be limited, the reason for the limitation should be reported to the Office of Undergraduate Education and the enrollment ceiling should be noted in the course catalog. The criteria for selecting among appropriately-qualified students for space in limited enrollment courses should be based on the curricular needs and interests of the students and on whether a student will have other opportunities to take the course. Selection on the basis of other criteria is inappropriate.

Enrollment of Non-FAS Students

Cross Registration

Students cross-registering from other Faculties or other institutions are allowed to enroll in FAS courses if they have obtained the instructor’s permission via my.harvard. Cross registration petitions will be visible in my.harvard under the Petitions button. Students registering from other Faculties or other institutions are subject to all of the FAS regulations and deadlines, including the examination schedule, and are graded according to the FAS system. The Pass/Fail option is not available to cross-registered students. The graduate student option to enroll in certain language courses on a SAT/UNS basis is also not available to cross-registered students.

Employees (Tuition Assistance Plan)

Employees of Harvard University may enroll in FAS courses through the Tuition Assistance Plan (TAP) administered by the Office of Human Resources. Employees are subject to all of the FAS regulations and deadlines, including the examination schedule, and are graded according to the FAS system. Employees are permitted to add or change a course once TAP and enrollment forms have been filed with the Registrar's Office at enrollment@fas.harvard.edu by the appropriate deadlines. The Pass/Fail option is not available to TAP students.

Auditing

Auditors are permitted only at the instructor’s discretion, and may not attend remotely. Faculty have a responsibility to protect student information that Canvas may provide, and they are responsible for informing auditors of University and FAS policies governing access to student and course information. The following may be admitted as auditors: students enrolled in any Faculty of the University, individuals holding teaching appointments in the FAS, and their spouses. No official record is maintained for auditors.

Simultaneous Enrollment/Courses with Overlapping Meeting Times

Active engagement in a classroom setting is essential to learning. Therefore, undergraduate students may not enroll in courses that meet at the same time or at overlapping times, except in two cases: 

• When one of the two courses has been granted a waiver from the Administrative Board petition process by a subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Undergraduate Educational Policy (EPC). Some of the courses approved for this waiver may establish limitations to such enrollment and/or delineate requirements that must be followed for a student to enroll simultaneously with another course. For a list of approved courses, please visit the OUE website: https://oue.fas.harvard.edu/simultaneous-enrollment.
• When a senior can meet degree requirements only by taking the two particular courses in question and will have no other opportunity to enroll in the courses before graduation, in such circumstances, the Administrative Board may approve reasonable accommodations in consultation with the instructors of the courses involved. 

It is the student’s responsibility to ensure that there is no overlap in the meeting times of their courses, including, but not limited to, discussion sections or labs.  

Undergraduates in Courses Designated "Primarily for Graduates"

Undergraduates may not enroll in courses numbered in the 300s or 3000s (Graduate Courses of Reading and Research). The only exceptions to the latter rule are students who are candidates for a concurrent master’s degree and in their fourth year of residence. They may enroll in such upper-level courses with the instructor’s permission. Incomplete (INC or INP) cannot under any circumstances be given to undergraduates. 

Pass/Fail Grading Status (Undergraduates Only)

In 1967 the Faculty extended the use of Pass/Fail in order to permit students to enrich their educational experience by enrolling in courses they might otherwise avoid because of material that was too advanced or too unfamiliar. Consequently, with an instructor’s permission any undergraduate may enroll in a course on a Pass/Fail rather than a letter-graded basis. There is no limit to the number of courses a student may take Pass/Fail as long as the student satisfies the requirements for letter-graded courses as outlined in the Harvard College handbook. After the eleventh Monday of the term students are not allowed to change their grading basis in courses from or to Pass/Fail. Students enrolled in courses on a Pass/Fail basis are also identified on the course roster and grade sheets.  

Instructors may not request that students enroll in a course on a Pass/Fail basis. The Pass/Fail option is not available to graduate, cross-registered, or TAP students.