Policies, Procedures, and Information for Seniors

All academic advisors in the SAS Office of Advising and Academic Services can answer general advising questions about your academic status and help you develop an academic plan to graduate. However, if you have a specific issue regarding missing degree credits, incomplete term registration, ineligibility to declare your intended major, planning to register elsewhere in your final term, or other mitigating circumstances that affect tracking your graduation you should speak to a Senior Team Academic Advisor. You can schedule an academic advising appointment online using RU-SCHEDULER.

If you complete your degree during the summer session, you will earn a degree dated August. As an August candidate, you should:

1. Be sure you are declared with an August graduation date (go to  myGradDate).
2. View your Senior Dashboard and Degree Navigator to see progress toward graduation requirements.
3. Visit your major/minor departments to verify your progress toward completion of requirements.
4. Check your online transcript for credits and GPA. You must have 120 credits and a 2.00 or higher GPA to graduate. See an academic advisor if this is questionable.
5. Complete your online diploma application between April 1 and August 15.
6. If you have ever received financial aid, contact them during the summer to complete exit counseling.
7. Write to seniors@sas.rutgers.edu if you see something you believe to be an error.

After your initial graduation date is determined upon admission to Rutgers, you must request a change if you wish to graduate sooner or later. Do this at myGradDate.

You are expected to graduate once your degree requirements are complete; graduation date adjustments beyond what is needed to complete your degree will be denied. 

We only review students in the graduation cycle for which they are declared. If you have plans to complete your degree earlier or later, you must let us know!  Otherwise, you won’t be tracked for the appropriate graduation cycle and may be blocked from registering for classes in future semesters.

Information about the commencement convocations, including date, time, location, preparation, and participation policies will be posted on the Commencement page when it becomes available.

You must maintain full-time status and register for a minimum of 12 credits per semester (unless you have been awarded nontraditional status). You can be granted a Senior Exception your final semester if you need fewer than 12 credits to complete the degree. See Senior Part-time Status.  If you wish to take 21 credits, please see policy on Credit Load.

The degree requires a minimum of 120 credits. If you have repeated courses, it is your responsibility to make sure that you have sufficient credits to graduate.  If you have any questions, please email seniors@sas.rutgers.edu.

Students earn one degree and one diploma regardless of the number of undergraduate majors or credits completed. 

The diploma lists the degree granting school and the degree earned (B.A. or B.S.) It does not list majors. College honors, based on cumulative GPA, are noted on the diploma.

For information on B.A. vs. B.S. and majors completed in other schools, please visit Completion of a Major and a Minor.

If you are completing a major which resides in the School of Communication & Information, School of Management and Labor Relations, Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, or the School of Social Work, you will receive a diploma issued jointly by the professional school and the liberal arts college. If you complete more than one major, you must declare the professional major as the primary major in order to receive the joint diploma.

You need to provide diploma information in your final semester to the Registrar’s online diploma system according to the following schedule:

If you have any financial or personal obligation to the university, your diploma will be withheld until it is resolved.

If you have been admitted to the five-year dual degree program between the School of Engineering and SAS, you are primarily affiliated with the School of Engineering.

In addition to completing your engineering curriculum, you must also complete an SAS major and the SAS Core, as well as a minor in a Humanities or Social Sciences subject if you have a Science or Math major for SAS, even if the major is defined as "credit-intensive."

Please schedule an appointment with an academic advisor from the Senior Team prior to the beginning of your final semester for review of your record and inclusion on the arts and sciences list of degree candidates. Both degrees must be conferred at the same time or the dual program is forfeited.

If you will not be registered at Rutgers in your final semester before graduation, you must make contact with the SAS Office for Senior Advising to be sure you are manually included in the list of degree candidates. This can be done by email to seniors@sas.rutgers.edu with a brief description of how degree requirements are being satisfied. All transfer courses must be preapproved. Further information about transfer preapproval can be found on the Transfer Courses page.

Visit Office of Career Exploration and Success or browse their website for information about graduate school applications, references, and exams.

Plan ahead to request references from faculty members!

Visit the Graduation Honors page for information.

The Office for Senior Advising reviews students for graduation based upon your declared graduation date, which is determined upon admission to Rutgers. Students who wish to be reviewed for graduation earlier or later than their declared date must submit a formal request at myGradDate in a timely fashion. Failure to change your graduation date will result in not being tracked for the appropriate graduation cycle and possibly being blocked from registering for future coursework.

There are three graduation cycles:

You are expected to graduate once your degree requirements are complete. SAS will review and forward the names of students whose requirements are done by their declared graduation date to the Registrar’s office, which will post the degree to the transcript. If you need to stay beyond your declared graduation date, you must submit a request to change your date at myGradDate PRIOR TO the end of the semester. It is the student’s responsibility to ensure that their graduation date is correct; SAS does not rescind degrees that have been sent to the Registrar.

If you complete your degree requirements in the fall or winter session, you will earn a degree dated January. It is your responsibility to declare the January graduation date by the beginning of the fall semester in order to be reviewed for graduation. This can be done online at myGradDate.

As a January candidate, you should:

1. Be sure you are declared with a January graduation date (go to myGradDate).
2. View your Senior Dashboard and Degree Navigator to see progress toward graduation requirements.
3. Visit your major/minor departments to verify your progress toward completion of requirements.
4. Check your online transcript for credits and GPA. You must have 120 credits and a 2.00 or higher GPA to graduate. See an academic advisor if this is questionable.
5. Complete your online diploma application between September 1 and January 15.
6. If you have ever received financial aid, contact them during the fall semester to arrange for an exit interview.
7. Write to seniors@sas.rutgers.edu if you see something you believe to be an error.

If you complete your degree during the spring session, you will earn a degree dated May. As a May candidate, you should:

1. Be sure you are declared with a May graduation date (go to myGradDate).
2. View your Senior Dashboard and Degree Navigator to see progress toward graduation requirements.
3. Visit your major/minor departments to verify your progress toward completion of requirements.
4. Check your online transcript for credits and GPA. You must have 120 credits and a 2.00 or higher GPA to graduate. See an academic advisor if this is questionable.
5. Complete your online diploma application between December 15 and May 15.
6. If you have ever received financial aid, contact them during the spring to complete exit counseling.
7. Write to seniors@sas.rutgers.edu if you see something you believe to be an error.

You must be declared with correct majors and minors in your final year so certification requests can be sent to your departments. If your transcript does not correctly reflect the subject(s) you are pursuing, you needs to change this immediately at myMajor.

If you are completing a designated credit intensive major, we recommend but do not require that you also declare a minor. If you change your major to one that is not defined as credit-intensive you will be required to also declare a minor at that time. Please visit the Majors and Minors page to review the list of Credit Intensive Majors.

If you need fewer than 12 credits to graduate in your final semester, you only need to register for the number of credits required to complete the degree. See Senior Part-time Status.

Seniors who are recipients of a University Merit-Based Scholarship (Presidential, Trustee, James Dickson Carr, National, Henry Rutgers, Scarlet or Dean's) who are registered for less than 12 credits are required to contact the SAS Scholarship Office to ensure the continuance of their scholarship. Request for a scholarship review should be sent to scholarships@sas.rutgers.edu with the following information:

• Name
• RUID
• Name of merit-based scholarship(s)

Part time registration, even when approved by exception, may impact non-academic areas such as medical insurance, financial aid and scholarships, on-campus housing, international student status, and NCAA eligibility. Please check any of these areas that may affect you. 

If you have completed 90 or more credits, you may take up to two elective courses (8 credits maximum, one per semester) on a Pass/No Credit basis. Grades of A, B, and C correspond to Pass; grades of D and F to No Credit

Details can be found on the Pass/No Credit page.

You will not be permitted to register for a semester beyond your declared graduation date. If you need additional time to complete your degree requirements, see Changing Your Graduation Date (Reclassifying).

The repeated course policy can be found here.

If you have a question or concern about how the repeated course policy applies to your transcript, contact the SAS Office for Senior Advising immediately. 

You must have a 2.00 or higher cumulative grade point average in order to graduate.
Even if you will not have completed your requirements by May, you must have a 2.00 cumulative grade point average at the end of the spring semester to avoid possible academic suspension or dismissal and to earn your degree. Further information about academic standing policies can be found here.

Thirty of the final 42 degree credits must be taken on the Rutgers-New Brunswick campus. Courses that carry New Brunswick course numbers, even if offered off site, such as Washington Internship and Rutgers-sponsored study abroad programs, are included in the senior year residency. If you transfer from outside RU or from Newark or Camden, you must complete your final 30 credits in New Brunswick as a member of one of the New Brunswick degree-granting units.

Transfer students (for transfer courses taken prior to admission to RU):

• Review your Rutgers transcript to be sure that all semesters of transfer credit are included.
• Speak to your major/minor advisors about how your transfer courses fit into your program, and request that Degree Navigator be updated to reflect transfer courses that can be applied toward specific requirements.

Transfer courses taken by continuing Rutgers students:

• All courses must be preapproved by the SAS Transfer Center.
• If you intend to take your final course work at another institution, you must notify the SAS Office for Senior Advising so you can be properly tracked for graduation.

These are approximate target dates for the various stages of degree processing:

Your final transcript with the degree posted is the official documentation of graduation. In rare instances when this information absolutely must be communicated to a third party earlier or a valued opportunity will be lost, please contact the Senior Team. We will provide you with one verification letter that must be sent directly to the third party (e.g., employer, graduate school, military). How quickly we can honor your request will depend upon where we stand with the overall certification process.