If you do not register on time, you may not be able to register at all.  You will also be assessed a $50 late registration fee if you do not enroll in a timely manner.  You may ask to have the fee waived if you registered late because of circumstances beyond you control.  Usually this means that you were admitted too late to meet the registration deadline.  Forgetting to register, not knowing that there is a late fee, not knowing the registration deadline, not knowing that continuous registration is required, waiting until the last minute and then not having enough time to resolve problems, changing your mind about a course, and shopping for courses in the first week are NOT adequate grounds for waiving a late registration fee, nor is not taking care of tuition, immunizations, or graduate school paperwork far enough in advance of term to get registered.
If you wish to have a late registration fee waived, ask your graduate program director to make a recommendation to the assistant dean.  She will either forward this recommendation to the Bursa's Office, or decline the request.  Please do not contact the assistant dean directly.

The Dean’s Office will no longer accept late registration requests and changes of registration. No one is permitted to attend any class without first officially registering for that class. Students may not register for classes after the late registration period. A fee is charged for late registration. These are University-wide policies, and all students are subject to them.

Students wishing to drop a course after week two no longer need to contact the Dean’s office. Until the University’s posted WF deadline, you can simply log into LOCUS and drop yourself from classes. The date on which you do this is the effective date for your withdrawal, and the Office of the Bursar will use it to calculate your partial refund, if any. The withdrawals refund schedule is posted by the office of the Bursar.

If you do wish to drop a course, you MUST log into LOCUS and drop; simply not going to class anymore is not sufficient. If you forget to take this step, there may be fiscal and academic penalties, and the Dean’s Office will not backdate your drop request for you.

This schedule may change from term to term. This is the Bursar's policy, and not the Graduate School's. Students who wish to make appeals should go to the Bursar rather than the Dean's Office.  You should know, too, that the Bursar is not likely to grant even a partial refund unless you have a genuine medical or personal emergency; please do not go to the Bursar with the false expectation that this will result in a refund.  The Dean's office does occasionally provide the Bursar with information it will use to make these decisions; such information-gathering is the province of the Associate Dean.  In some cases, few, the tuition has been calculated incorrectly and in these cases the Dean's office can, if the student has provided a written drop request as described above, provide the Bursar with the correct drop date.

There are also academic consequences for dropping a course after the term begins. If you drop before the posted deadline, no record of the course will appear on your transcript, though a charge may still be assessed. If you drop after the W deadline, but before the WF deadline, the course will appear on your transcript with a W (for withdrawal). This is neither a grade nor a penalty, and such courses do not figure into your GPA.  If you withdraw after the WF deadline, you will receive a WF, which is a penalty grade, and is figured into the GPA.  Students who wish to appeal a WF grade should contact the Associate Dean.

The deadlines are posted on the academic calendar.

If you wish to withdraw from a course and replace it with another, you may, with the program's permission, do so without either a record of the original course or a charge.  Your total hours must remain the same in these cases, and the course must be a genuine replacement (you should not be shopping several courses in the first week).  If you were registered in error, you may have a course and its charges completely erased.  Please make these requests in writing, using the change of registration form and attaching any relevant explanation or documentation, to the Assistant Dean.  Finally, if you withdraw because of an emergency such as a serious medical situation or military service, you can request to be considered for a full or partial refund by going through the Associate Dean, though these requests are not always granted.

You can view any blocks on your account through LOCUS. To view blocks, navigate to: Menu > Personal Portfolio > Holds. The resulting list includes, for each block, the office that placed the block and the term for which the block has or will become active.

On other LOCUS screens, a block will show up as a red "universal no sign" like the symbol on a no smoking sign. Click this icon to get some basic information about what kind of block it is.  Not all blocks stop registration, and not all are for the current term. The most common block-related registration problems, as well as all blocks placed by the Graduate School, are described below. You may also have more than one block; you should look at each one.

Important: A block does not become active until registration begins for the term listed for that block. Only contact the Graduate School about a block it placed if you actually tried to register but were not able to.

DTM (Dean's Time Limit) Block

This block helps us police time-to-degree. It is placed in advance when you enter a degree program, and will stop registration in the first fall or spring term after your time to degree or previous extension of time to degree expires. You will not be permitted to register for that term until you request and are granted an extension of time to degree. To apply for an extension, complete the Extension of Time Form (PDF). In the future we expect that ALL students will have this block on their records for a future term; it is important, therefore, to check and see when the block begins and whether it is really preventing registration in the current term before calling and asking to have it removed. You may not be able to tell what term the block is for unless you look at the "details" part of the message.

Blocks related to low grades/GPA

These come in two kinds. Two (DPB "Dean's Probation" and DCP "Dean's Continued on Probation") simply indicate that you are on probation; these blocks are meant to force you to meet with your Graduate Program Director and talk about your grades, progress, and plans. We are especially concerned that students whose grades are slipping talk to their program directors about what they will register for in upcoming terms, and whether those courses are the most appropriate choices. This conversation also serves as a reminder for everyone that you are having grades trouble, and an impetus to address the problem earlier rather than later.

To remove the block, you must have a conversation with your GPD that s/he finds acceptable. Your GPD will then e-mail the Assistant Dean to this effect, and she will either remove the block so that you can register or enroll you in the courses you and your GPD have agreed on.

The second kind of block (DGD "Dean's Grade Deficiency") is placed in advance for the term by which you must raise your grades back to a 3.0. Students on probation are given two terms to raise their GPAs back to 3.0; if they do not, they are dismissed from their programs. This is a minimum requirement, your programs may have stricter guidelines, and may choose to dismiss a student with exceptionally poor performance a little sooner. In any case, this block will only be removed if the your grades are acceptable. If not, the student will not be permitted to register, and will be dismissed from your program for poor scholarship.

Transcripts from previous degrees

 AOT (Admission Outstanding Transcript) Block

 Students who were admitted conditionally because they have not provided documentation required as part of their applications (usually this is a final transcript showing a previous degree) will not be permitted to register for a second term if they do not provide these materials. Students will not be allowed to graduate until all required transcripts are on file. Students may have this block removed only by providing these credentials to GPEM at the following address.

Graduate and Professional Enrollment Management

Loyola University Chicago

820 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite 800

Chicago, Illinois 60611

Telephone: +1.312.915.8950

Fax: +1.312.915.8905

E-mail: GradApp@luc.edu

DCB (Dean's Credentials) Block

 This block also indicates that your Graduate School file is still missing one or more final official transcripts from your previous institutions.  Students may have this block removed only by providing these credentials to the Graduate School at the following address.

Graduate School

Loyola University Chicago

6525 Sheridan Road

Chicago, Illinois 60626

Telephone: +1.773.508.3396

Blocks placed by other offices

Offices other than the Dean's may place blocks which stop registration (or transcripts, or diplomas). They may also place blocks which do NOT stop registration, but perform some other function. In all cases, however, the Dean's Office cannot and will not remove a block placed by another office. You must deal directly with the office which placed the block. The most common of these blocks are:

Blocks placed by the Office of the Bursar

Some are designed to prevent registration as a means of inducing students to pay an outstanding balance or meet other fiscal arrangements with the University. Some of these blocks, however, are designed to keep track of special situations (the Do Not Bill block, for example, or the blocks used to keep track of students whose tuition is being paid by the Jesuit order). These latter blocks do not prevent registration, and are not something to panic about or ask to have removed. For those that do prevent registration, paying the outstanding balance is usually the means for resolving the situation.

Blocks placed by the Wellness Center

The most common is the Incomplete Immunizations block. Students will either need to provide the wellness center with evidence that they have been immunized, or agree to undergo a course of vaccinations in order to register.

Blocks placed by the Library

These are usually outstanding fines. While most do not prevent registration, they do stop transcripts and diplomas. Students should settle these financial obligations to the university.