Registration

Students are expected to register during the designated registration periods for their next quarter on campus. Prior to registration, students are required to acquaint themselves with the class schedule, academic policies, procedures, and regulations in this catalog and the policies located on the Registrar’s website. The student’s advisor must clear the student to register before the student is allowed to register for classes. The Registrar’s Office reserves the right to move students from one section of a course to another to balance the sections (if requested by the department) or to accommodate the schedules of all students registered for a particular course.

A student’s registration is not finalized until the student’s fees are paid or arrangements for payment have been made with the business office. The College reserves the right to withdraw a student for failure to meet the designated deadlines of registration. Registration may be denied a student for failure to adhere to health center regulations (such as failure to provide proof of vaccinations or other health information as required), lack of tuition payment, failure to declare a major by the end of the sophomore winter quarter, or as a result of disciplinary action.

Registering for the Senior Integrated Project

SIP registration, including its impact on course load, is described in detail under Senior Integrated Project in the Kalamazoo Curriculum section of the catalog. The SIP counts as one or two course unit(s) for the term(s) during which it is counted, but the SIP is registered via a separate process from class registration. The SIP registration process involves a paper form (no online registration) that must be submitted to the Registrar’s office by the student. This paper form has its own set of deadlines:

SIP Quarter	Registration Form Due
All SIPs involving work over the summer (as part of an extended fall term)	Friday of 10th Week, Junior Spring Quarter
Fall and Fall/Winter SIPs	Friday of 1st Week, Senior Fall Quarter
Winter SIPs	Friday of 1st Week, Senior Winter Quarter

Any changes to SIP registrations must be made in the Registrar’s Office by the end of the drop/add period of the quarter of registration (end of the first week of Fall quarter for Summer and Fall units; end of the first week of Winter quarter for Winter units). These changes include dropping a SIP, changing the department or SIP supervisor, changing the number of units, etc.

Independent Study

A student may register for an independent study course (198/298/398/498) in an area of interest that is not available as a regularly offered course; under special circumstances (such as the unavailability of a required course), a student may take a regular course as an independent study. All independent study applications require the approval of the instructor, department chair, advisor, and Registrar. A student may register for an Independent Study for any unit increment from .2 units up to 1 unit. Students may not receive credit for more than one independent study course per quarter nor for more than two units in independent studies during degree completion. Independent Study applications are due in the Registrar’s Office by 5 p.m. Friday of the first week of the quarter.

Credit/No Credit Option Policy

Students in good academic standing may elect to take at most one letter-graded course on campus as CR/NC (Credit/No Credit) in any given quarter, for a total of up to four courses over their college career.

• Students may elect this option for at most one course in any one department. The CR/NC grade option is not available for Shared Passage Seminars or for the final course taken to satisfy the language requirement (i.e. 103 or 201).
• Letter-graded courses taken as CR/NC may not count towards any major, minor, or concentration (including required cognates), nor may they satisfy prerequisites for those course sequences that require a “C- or better,” without special permission from the department.
• Students who take a course for a CR/NC grade may retake the course for a letter grade.
• Students may choose to apply the CR/NC option at any time during the course up to the end of the withdrawal period (the end of Week 8). The professor will assign a letter grade as per normal procedure, but the Registrar’s Office will convert passing grades to CR and will convert an F to NC. (Professors will not be formally notified if students have taken this option.)

Registering to Repeat a Course

A course in which a student earned a grade of C-, D, F, W, CR or NC may be repeated. If the repeated enrollment is at Kalamazoo College, both attempts will appear on the student’s transcripts, but only the most recent attempt will be used to calculate the Kalamazoo College cumulative GPA, and only one total unit of credit will be earned. Any course repeated at another institution will not affect the original course grade on the Kalamazoo College transcript and is not used in the calculation of the Kalamazoo College cumulative GPA. A student may not transfer in credit for a repeated course if the student earned credit (D- or higher) for the original course. Students may not repeat a course, either at Kalamazoo College or at another institution, to replace a D or F once they have taken a higher level course.

Repeating Partial-Credit Courses

Partial-credit courses, such as ARTX 200, BIOL 200, and PE activity courses, may be repeated to earn a full unit of credit. Students may earn up to two units for Theatre Production (THEA 200), and up to five units for partial-credit courses within the Music department (music ensembles and applied music courses). Students may audit partial-credit courses in PE and the arts after reaching the maximum number of units, but will not earn addition units of credit toward graduation.

Drop/Add

The period during which students may drop and add courses begins shortly after priority registration is complete and continues through the first week of the quarter. A student who wishes to add a course during first week should consult with the course instructor to determine how the student will make up any missed assignments or activities. After the third day of the term, students must have the instructor’s signature to add a course. Certain courses, such as music ensembles, applied music courses, physical education activities, and theatre production courses, have an extended drop/add deadline of the end of the second week of the quarter to provide students and instructors time to make arrangements for the quarter.

All class and lab fees that are in addition to the tuition charge are nonrefundable after the end of the Drop/Add period.

The day after the drop/add deadline for a term is the official “census date” for the quarter, when a student’s status as a full-time or part-time student is determined based on the number of units for which the student is enrolled. All changes to a student’s class schedule must be on file in the Registrar’s office by this time. Students will receive grades for all classes that appear on the final class schedule and only for those classes.

Course Withdrawal

From the second week through the eighth week of a quarter, students may exercise their option to withdraw from a course. After eighth week students may not withdraw from a course, although they may withdraw from the College. When a student withdraws from a course the course remains on the student’s transcript with a grade of a W. Because the course remains on the transcript, the financial aid full-time enrollment requirement is still met for almost all programs. Note that Financial Aid Satisfactory Academic Progress standards must also be met (see the Financial Aid Policies section in this catalog). In addition to the implications for financial aid, students should be aware that course withdrawal may affect a student’s medical insurance coverage, athletic eligibility, study abroad eligibility, sequencing of classes, and timely completion of degree requirements.

Students may not withdraw below two units in any given quarter. Students experiencing serious health difficulties, a family emergency, or some other extraordinary circumstance outside the students’ control should meet with the Dean of Students to discuss possibly withdrawing from the College, Underloading, or other options. (See the sections on Underloading, Withdrawals, and Leaves of Absence for more information.)

Course Audits

Current Kalamazoo College students may audit a course with permission of the instructor. There is no official registration or notation on the transcript. There is no audit fee for registered Kalamazoo College students.

Registration and Study Abroad

See the section on Study Abroad for information on choosing courses while on study abroad and for information on how credit from those courses is applied to a student’s transcript. Students register for their first quarter on campus after study abroad in the usual way. They should contact their advisor for course selection approval and then register online during the registration period in the prior quarter.