Leave of Absence Policy: Master’s Degree, Specialist Degree, and Pre-Candidacy Doctoral Students

The university has a continuous enrollment policy for one category of graduate students, namely doctoral students who have achieved candidacy. For other categories of graduate students – pre-candidacy doctoral students, specialist degree students, and master’s degree students – while there is an expectation of enrollment each semester in order to make progress toward the degree, there is no specific continuous enrollment requirement. For that reason, The Graduate College does not require notification if a student decides not to enroll in a given semester. However, students may want to inform their program that they are stopping out for a period of time, and programs may find that information useful in tracking student progress. In those cases, students may complete the Leave of Absence Form for Master’s Degree, Specialist Degree, and Pre-Candidacy Doctoral Students form and provide it to their program. The program should then provide the form to The Graduate College to expedite processing readmit applications.

Leave of Absence is a separate process from withdrawing. Withdrawing is dropping all of one’s classes in a semester (going down to 0 hours). Submitting an online withdrawal request will only withdraw a student to zero hours from the specified semester. This will not interfere with additional semesters for which  a student may be registered . If planning to withdraw from the university,  a student will need to submit a withdrawal request for each available semester by the deadlines posted on the academic calendar. To withdraw from all classes, students must submit the Online University Withdrawal form. 

Process for Returning to the University after a Leave of Absence

Upon resuming graduate studies after a semester of non-enrollment, all students must submit reentry paperwork, regardless of whether or not a Leave of Absence form is on file. If the student is returning within the same academic year after an absence, only the Update Enrollment form is required. If the student is returning to studies in a subsequent academic year after an absence, it is necessary to submit new admission application and non-refundable application fee to the program through the admission portal. Other application documents may be required in certain circumstances.