Manage Prerequisites

All about enrollment restrictions

Enrollment restrictions are designed to ensure students meet certain criteria in order to register for a course. Students who don’t meet these criteria are instructed to contact the department offering the course to find out what’s required to become eligible to take the course.

There are four types of restrictions.

During registration, any class that requires specific approval for a student to enroll will have department consent assigned. Departments should have information in the class note telling students where to obtain permission. Any student may seek permission to take the class. Departments may occasionally use class permissions to allow a student to enroll in a closed class.

Classes are sometimes restricted to students who are enrolled in the school offering the course. A student who is not enrolled in the school may seek permission to take the class.

In some cases, departments require students to have a certain class standing (e.g., sophomore, junior) to register for a class. Students whose standing doesn’t meet the minimum requirement may seek permission to take the class.

Undergraduate students are restricted from registering in graduate-level courses without specific permission from the graduate course department. This restriction is in place for two reasons:

  • Transcript statistics are sorted into undergraduate, graduate, medical, dental, and law categories. If an undergraduate student were to enroll in a graduate-level course, that course would be calculated in the undergraduate hours earned and GPA. Generally, students would want a graduate-level course included in their graduate GPA.
  • Undergraduate students pay less in tuition and fees than do graduate students, so they’re restricted to undergraduate courses as part of the registration system.

How to grant class permissions

University Information Technology Services IT Training provides resources that walk you through granting permissions in the Student Information System (SIS).

Learn how to grant permissions