Priority Registration

What is Priority Registration?

Standard enrollment windows are assigned based on academic level and completed credit hours. Priority registration allows approved groups of students to enroll in classes earlier than the typically assigned window, either before all other students within the same academic career (example: graduate, undergraduate, etc.) or prior to their peers within the same academic level (example: senior, junior, sophomore, freshman).

Approval Process and Timeline

All requests for priority registration will be reviewed annually during the spring Registration, Records and Calendar Committee meeting.

Campus partners will need to submit the official request form by the fall semester’s last day of classes to qualify for consideration. No exceptions can be made beyond this deadline. Requestors of all expiring approvals will be notified by Registration and Records in August that resubmission is required if they would like to continue to be considered for priority registration.

Requests can only be submitted by faculty or staff associated directly with the group for whom they are submitting the request.

Requestors should expect a notification regarding the status of each request in early February each year. This will occur ahead of the enrollment calendar publication for the upcoming fall registration period.

The standard approval lengths will be between one and five years, fully dependent on the committee’s review. No approved groups will have permanent priority registration permissions in order to ensure groups, and any related regulations or policies, are reviewed and considered regularly.

Priority can be granted in two ways: either overall priority or level priority.

• Overall priority will allow students within the approved group to register before all other students in their academic career (example: graduate, undergraduate, etc).
• Level priority will allow undergraduate students to register only ahead of other students within the same academic level (example: senior, junior, sophomore, freshman), but after other levels may have started.

Considerations

Requestors should provide a detailed justification regarding each request, considering the elements mentioned below.

Considerations for approval include:

• Students vulnerable to academic challenges;
• Regulation or accreditation registration requirements;
• Requests justify that students within a particular group are disadvantaged through standard registration practices; and
• Scheduling demands of university sanctioned activities provide significant limitations on students’ academic schedules.

Items to consider in developing a rationale:

• Are there required activities that make it difficult for students to schedule courses between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday?
• Are your students required to take any specific coursework for their activity? When are those courses offered?
• Do members of the student group participate in all activities?
• Do your students have required study hours? If so, when?

Remember: Please be as detailed as possible to provide support that the considerations listed above apply to all students within the requested group. Members of the committee can only review requests and make a decision based on the information provided, and will not necessarily have additional knowledge regarding your students’ activities.

Questions?

If you have additional questions regarding this process or form submission, please contact Kyle Pysher, Senior Associate Registrar, at kepysher@ncsu.edu.