Drops and Withdrawals

Taking a student out of one course is either a drop or a withdrawal, decided by the date and the term's deadlines. (Leaving the institution altogether is a total withdrawal.)

The two deadlines

Each term has an Add/Drop Deadline and a later Withdrawal Deadline (Academic > Terms). Adding and dropping close on the same day: the add/drop deadline is the last day to add a course and the last day to drop one without a W.

... add/drop period ... | add/drop deadline | ........... | withdrawal deadline | ...
  ADD or DROP (no record on transcript)       WITHDRAWAL (W)                       closed

When the request is made	Result
On or before the add/drop deadline	Dropped. The course leaves the transcript. It stays in the student's enrollment history
After the add/drop deadline, on or before the withdrawal deadline	Withdrawn. The course stays on the transcript as a W, outside the GPA
After the withdrawal deadline	Refused, unless the registrar overrides the deadline

A term with no deadlines set is not restricted. Past terms often carry none, and registrars still correct their records.

The term form refuses an add/drop deadline after the withdrawal deadline, and the database enforces the same order. There is no separate drop date to enter: the stored drop_deadline always equals the add/drop deadline (migration 300), and the nightly Colleague import keeps it that way.

One exception survives from Colleague. On past summer terms Colleague set the add deadline to the end of the term, so students could add later summer sessions; that date falls after the withdrawal deadline. Those terms keep their own, earlier drop date. See Term fields.

Who can drop a course

• A student drops or withdraws from My Schedule with Drop / Withdraw. The dialog says, before they confirm, whether it will be a drop or a withdrawal, whether it will appear on the transcript, and both deadlines.
• Staff do the same from the staff Course Registration screen.
• A registration request can carry DROP items as well as adds. A request that is submitted in time is judged by the day it was submitted, so a slow approver does not turn a drop into a W.

After the withdrawal deadline the dialog offers no button. The student is told to contact the Registrar. The registrar puts the drop through a registration request and overrides the deadline (Override > Override registration deadline). That leaves the approval trail an exception needs.

Advisor approval

Under Admin > Academic Settings > Drops and Withdrawals, two switches decide whether a student's own request must wait for their primary advisor:

Setting	Key	Default
Advisor must approve drops	DROP_REQUIRES_ADVISOR_APPROVAL	Off
Advisor must approve withdrawals	WITHDRAWAL_REQUIRES_ADVISOR_APPROVAL	Off

When the matching switch is on, a student's drop is not carried out straight away. It becomes a one-course registration request waiting for approval, and the student's reason, if they gave one, is its first note. The enrollment does not change until the advisor (or the registrar) approves it in Registration Approvals. The student sees Send for approval instead of Drop course or Withdraw.

A drop by a registrar or advisor always applies at once. They are already the authority, and sending it to the queue would only ask them to approve themselves.

What else happens

• The seat is offered to the next student on the section's waitlist.
• An email goes to the student and each of their current advisors. It lists what came off, the reason, the student's remaining schedule with credits per term, and their remaining plans. The wording is in the COURSE_DROP_STUDENT and COURSE_DROP_ADVISOR templates under Admin > Email Templates. The same email is sent whenever courses come off a schedule or plan: a registration request applied or cancelled, a cancellation cascade, or a failed course (below). Sending is best effort and never blocks the drop.
• The drop date is recorded on the enrollment. Billing measures refunds from it.

Failed courses take dependent plans with them

When a student fails a course, plans for later courses that needed it as a prerequisite are cancelled, and so are plans further down the chain. A passing grade below a prerequisite's minimum (a D where C- is required) has the same effect.

This runs when a grade is entered, when final grades are released, and in an hourly sweep that catches grades imported from Colleague. Only plans that the failure made unreachable are removed:

What depends on the failed course	What happens
A plan not yet in a registration request	Cancelled, with the reason
A plan inside a registration request	Reported, left alone: a person must decide
A plan with a prerequisite override	Reported, left alone
A live enrollment	Reported, left alone: dropping it is a registrar decision

A student who failed a course and later passed it, or holds transfer credit for it, loses nothing. The student and advisors get the drop email listing what was removed.

Related

• Repeats and Retakes — whether a W counts as an attempt
• Withdrawing a Student — leaving the institution
• Registration API: drop