Dear students,
We hope your semester is going well. Please be aware that advance registration for graduate students
for the fall 2013 semester will begin on Friday, March 22 at 7am. Advance registration for the summer
2013 semester will begin on Monday, March 25 at 12am. The summer and fall ’13 schedules are
available now on the Registrar’s office Schedule of Classes website:
http://www.american.edu/provost/registrar/schedule/index.cfm. Please be aware that not all SIS courses
may be listed immediately on the fall Schedule of Classes, so you should keep an open mind as you are
planning your fall schedule in case one of these new courses fits your program, and please check the
Schedule of Classes for updates prior to and after registration begins on March 22. Also,
remember that you are not limited to classes in SIS, so feel free to look in other departments for courses
(500-level and above) that would fit towards your concentration.
All continuing SIS graduate students are pre-authorized to register for fall beginning March 22
(and for summer, March 25), so students are not required to meet with their academic advisor
prior to registering for classes.
For those students, however, who would like to discuss their spring registration plans, advisors are happy
to do so, and will be holding extended office hours Monday, March 18 – March 28 for this purpose.
Extended office hours for your advisor will be listed on the SIS Graduate Advising website as of
Wednesday, March 13 at: http://www.american.edu/sis/gradadvising
Please keep in mind that due to the high volume of student inquiries about fall and summer registration
you may have to wait longer than usual to meet with your advisor and/or receive a response to
email/phone inquiries. With that in mind, we strongly encourage everyone to register for fall on
March 22 even if you would like to discuss your fall schedule with your advisor or have
outstanding questions. This discussion may have to wait until after registration has begun, but there
will be plenty of time to make changes to your registration if necessary before the start of the fall
semester. We thank you in advance for your patience.
In the meantime, we would we would like to provide you with answers to important frequently asked
questions on the following topics:
 Summer Financial Aid (new)
 Stops
 Grade Options (A-F v. P/F)
 Prerequisites
 Waitlists
 SRP, Thesis, Independent Study Registration
 MA Professional Experience Requirement
 Internship (Academic Credit or No-Credit) Registration
 Tool of Research/Language Requirement
____________________________________________________________________________________
SUMMER FINANCIAL AID
 Students need to be registered half-time in order to be eligible for financial aid. Half-time status
for graduate students is defined as 2 credits for the summer semester.

Students applying for summer financial aid must submit the AU Summer Aid Application,
available starting April 1 on the Financial Aid website:
http://www.american.edu/financialaid/summeraid.cfm
STOPS

Students with a stop on their accounts (e.g. overdue library books, past-due account balances,
etc.) will not be able to register for courses. Students are encouraged to resolve any stops in
advance of spring registration beginning.

You can view stops on your myAU portal. Contact AUCentral (aucentral@american.edu, 202885-8000) with any questions about billing and stops.
GRADE OPTIONS

Effective fall 2012, graduate students must take all courses counting to fulfill degree requirements
for the letter grade option (A-F), unless the course is only offered P/F (e.g. thesis research, nocredit internships and some skills institutes).
PREREQUISITES

If you are planning to register for a course that has a prerequisite, please contact your academic
advisor regarding the process for requesting a waiver.

Students are encouraged to contact their advisor about the waiver of prerequisites, as applicable,
in advance of fall registration beginning.
WAITLISTS

Students may add themselves to the waitlist for any course that is Closed or Waitlisted (with the
exception of skills institutes, which do not have waitlists).

Students may only be waitlisted for 3 courses total, and may not be on the waitlist for multiple
sections of the same course.

If you are on the waitlist for one section of a course (e.g. SIS 600) and you register for another
section of the same course, you will be you will be automatically removed from the waitlist for the
other section.

The waitlist runs once daily. When a spot in a course becomes available, the first student on the
waitlist is emailed (at their AU email address) and then has 24 hours to register for the course. If
you do not register for the course within the 24 hour window, you are removed from the waitlist. If
you still wish to take the course, you may add yourself back onto the waitlist but you will be at the
bottom of the list. For this reason, we encourage you to be extremely diligent with regard to
monitoring your waitlist position. It is the students' responsibility to track their waitlist status. You
can also check your waitlist position through your myAU.american.edu account. Please keep in
mind that neither advisors nor faculty can adjust the order of the waitlist.

If you have technical difficulties with your registration from the waitlist, please contact us
immediately. Technical difficulties do not include missing your registration window.

The waitlist will run through the last day of the add/drop period, but not after.

Students may remove themselves from a waitlist using their myAU.american.edu account under
My Waitlisted Sections.
SRP, THESIS, INDEPENDENT STUDY REGISTRATION
 SRPs, theses and independent studies must be registered via paper forms.
Thesis/SRP/independent study registration instructions and forms are available on the Graduate
Advising website: www.american.edu/sis/gradadvising. Please make sure to include any required
attachments with your registration paperwork (for a thesis, submit a full thesis proposal; for an
SRP or independent study, submit a one to two page description of the project).

The last day to register a SRP, thesis or independent study project for the fall 2013 semester is
Monday, September 9 and for the summer 2013 semester, Friday, May 24. Students are
required to submit their completed registration materials (including any necessary approvals and
attachments) to the Graduate Advising office at least two days in advance of the deadline in order
to allow time for processing. Incomplete paperwork will not be processed.
MA PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE REQUIREMENT
 Under the new MA program requirements effective fall 2012, students are required to
demonstrate that they have professional experience relevant to their degree program prior to
graduation. Students may fulfill this requirement by either demonstrating that they have
prior/current professional experience or previous internship experience, or by completing an
internship during their MA program. For more information:
http://www.american.edu/sis/gradadvising/professional.cfm

Students have the option to register internships completed during their MA program either for
academic credit (regular tuition applies) or for no-credit (no tuition cost). In order to register an
internship for academic credit or no-credit, students must fill out the internship registration forms
available on the Graduate Advising website: www.american.edu/sis/gradadvising

Students fulfilling the Professional Experience requirement based on prior/current professional or
previous (pre-fall ’12) internship experience must submit the Professional Experience Certification
form available on the Graduate Advising website:
http://www.american.edu/sis/gradadvising/professional.cfm
INTERNSHIP (academic credit or no-credit) REGISTRATION
 Internships (for academic credit or no-credit) are registered via paper forms. Registration forms
and instructions are available on the Graduate Advising website:
www.american.edu/sis/gradadvising. Please make sure to include any required attachments
when submitting your registration paperwork.

The last day to register an internship (for academic credit or no-credit) for the fall 2013 semester
is Monday, September 9 and for the summer 2013 semester, Friday, May 24. Students are
required to submit their completed internship registration materials (including any necessary
approvals) to the Graduate Advising office at least two days in advance of the deadline in order to
allow time for processing. Incomplete paperwork will not be processed.

Internships being used to fulfill the MA Professional Development requirement must be
registered (either for academic credit or no-credit).

We encourage you to work with the Career Center while exploring your internship opportunities,
as they have many resources available to graduate students.
TOOL OF RESEARCH/LANGUAGE REQUIREMENT
 For ways in which to fulfill the MA Tool of Research/Language requirement, please visit the
Graduate Advising website: www.american.edu/sis/gradadvising

If you are planning to take the Tool of Research Exam to fulfill the MA language requirement, the
Center for Language Exploration, Acquisition and Research is still offering exams for the spring
semester. For more information: http://www.american.edu/cas/clear/index.cfm
o
When you register for the Tool of Research exam, you will be told that you need to
bring an “"Application for Certification in a Foreign Language." The form is available
outside of our office in SIS 250 and can be picked up any time before you take the
exam.
Have a great spring break and we thank you in advance for your patience during advance registration.
Please let us know if you have any questions.
Best,
To schedule an appointment or confirm office hours , please call (202)-885-1690. Please visit the
Graduate Advising website at : www.american.edu/sis/gradadvising