Graduate Student Registration

Important Dates

  • Student enrollment for CS MS and PhD students: November 12-15
  • First day of spring classes: January 30
  • Last day to add or drop any class with no record: February 12
  • Last day to drop with "DR": April 3
  • Last day to enroll in an Independent Study: April 3

Course Registration and Add/Drop

For additional important academic and registration dates please visit the Graduate School Academic Calendar. After the add/drop period ends, all students must submit an add/drop form signed by the instructor to the graduate school in order to drop a course. Students should send the signed form to the Graduate School at gradrec [at] grad [dot] umass [dot] edu (gradrec[at]grad[dot]umass[dot]edu); if you have any questions, please email Kyle Skemer at ehamel [at] cs [dot] umass [dot] edu (kskemer[at]cs[dot]umass[dot]edu).

Registration takes place online using the University's SPIRE student information system. Degree-seeking graduate students are required to maintain continuous enrollment each semester until the degree is awarded. Students receiving tuition waivers may only enroll in UNIV sections and not UWW sections.

Credit Overload Request

If you would like to enroll in more than 12 credits, please make this request by sending an email to Eileen Hamel at ehamel [at] cs [dot] umass [dot] edu (ehamel[at]cs[dot]umass[dot]edu).

Master's Project *

Submit the appropriate form to enroll in the master's project. After project approval from your faculty readers and the program director, your project will be circulated among the faculty for a period of seven days. Upon the seventh day, a staff member will enroll you in CMPSCI 701Y or 701 (701Y is 6 credits over two semesters while 701 is 6 credits over one semester). 

At the end of the semester(s), your two faculty readers will submit either an agreed upon grade if completed or INC if the project is not completed.

*The Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences does not have a Master's Thesis option.

Waitlist

Some classes will offer automated waitlists through SPIRE while others will not. If you see that a class is full, enroll yourself onto the automated waitlist if one exists (you can tell because the class will show a non-zero waitlist capacity in the SPIRE Schedule of Classes) or wait until the start of the term approaches to see if new spaces are freed.

You will be assigned a position number on the waitlist, but departments and instructors may exercise their own judgment in altering students' positions on the waitlist. A position on a waitlist indicates a possibility, not a promise. You will never move from the waitlist to the class if the move would cause a time conflict in your schedule, if you are fully registered into another section of the same course, or if you are already registered for the maximum number of credits in your unit limit!

If you are on a waitlist and there is a time conflict in your schedule, you may be removed from the waitlist without notice if your position number on the waitlist prevents others with no time conflicts to register. Once classes have begun, CICS is in total control of which students, if any, will be moved from a waitlist into newly-opened seats in classes. Students still seeking admission to a full class after classes start should attend the first class meeting and continue to seek admission to the class via SPIRE.

More information about waitlists can be found on this webpage.

SAT Grade and Audit

You do not need to contact the graduate programs staff about earning a SAT grade or auditing a course; this is a discussion you have with the instructor of the course. Graduate student policies are different than undergraduate Pass/Fail and audit policies.

 Steps you need to complete for Pass/Fail:

  1. Ask your course instructor if they will permit you to take the course for a SAT grade which is recorded as SAT (satisfactory) or F (failure) on your transcript. Your instructor is under no obligation to say yes and may tell you it is too late in the semester for a SAT grade option.
  2. You must complete the requirements of the course.
  3. Remind your instructor at the end of the course about your agreement so the correct grade is entered in SPIRE. 
  4. Your instructor is under no obligation to retract the Pass/Fail if you request it at the end of the semester.

Steps you need to complete for Audit:

1. Before the end of the add/drop period, you can enter audit in SPIRE when you enroll in a course. If you have already enrolled in a course for a grade and would like to change it to audit before the end of the add/drop period, you will need to complete an add/drop form.

2. After the end of add/drop period fill out the late Add/Drop form.

3. After the Instructor signs the form, send it to gradrec [at] grad [dot] umass [dot] edu (gradrec[at]grad[dot]umass[dot]edu).

Please note: Once you've enrolled in a course as an audit, you can't change back to a letter grade.

Penalty for Late Registration

If you do not register by the last day to add classes for the semester, you will be withdrawn from the graduate program. If you wish to enroll after the deadline, you will be required to obtain readmission authorization from the graduate program office and will be required to pay the readmission fee of $150.00 in addition to any course fees or retroactive continuous enrollment/program fees. Readmission under this condition is subject to graduate program approval and is not guaranteed.

Independent Study Enrollment

Complete the graduate independent study form found here. Follow the instructions included with the form. 

No course enrollment

Degree-seeking graduate students are required to maintain continuous enrollment each semester until the degree/certificate is awarded.

If you are not enrolling in any courses during an academic semester, you must enroll in Continuous Enrollment/Program Fee, GRADSCH 999 using the University's SPIRE student information system. You can find this Continuous Enrollment course in the Schedule of Classes under GRADSCH 999. The cost for Continuous Enrollment/Program Fee is $285.00, which will be billed by the Bursar's Office. Students on Continuous Enrollment are also assessed half of the Graduate Student Senate Tax.

An incomplete course from a previous semester does not maintain your enrollment. First semester students are not eligible for Continuous Enrollment. All students enrolled in fewer than 5 credits must submit a registration form for health insurance to UHS.

UWW Course enrollment

PhD students and Bay State Fellows must enroll in the University section of every graduate course in order to obtain a tuition waiver. If a student enrolls in a UWW course section, the student will be required to pay the tuition for the UWW course.