Seniors receive graduation audits

At the beginning of D-term the Registrar's Office sent out approximately 200 notices warning potential graduating seniors that their degree requirements were not met. The majority of these notices were taken care of by the department offices allowing one class to be substituted for a different one. This resulted in many near heart attacks as students who thought they were graduating reached into their mailboxes to find the blue slip of paper. They found relief when they came to the Registrar's Office and were told that everything was fine. Some of the students had to tweak their D-term schedules in order to set things right and a small handful (approximately five to seven percent) of this year's candidates found out that they would not be able to 'walk' in May.

This last minute notification prompted many questions from the seniors. "Why are the audits reviewed so late? How come I was notified if there wasn't really a problem?" The answers to these questions stem from two things: timing and caution. The timing of the audit reviews is set so that the students are able to work out their schedules as best as they can with the help of their advisors. If the audits were reviewed at the end of B-term, then they would have to be re-reviewed at the end of D-term to make sure everyone made it through what they registered for.

According to Nikki Andrews, Registrar of WPI, as recently as a few years ago the senior audits were only reviewed at the end of D-term. That meant that there was no warning until it was too late for the students. As for the students who received a notice and then found out that there wasn't a problem; that was erring on the side of caution. If there was even a potential problem with the degree requirements, a notice was sent to the student. This was done to prevent any especially nasty surprises that might arise at the end of D-term.

All students can check their own audits at any time on the Web. Just follow the links from http://registrar.wpi.edu. Also, if everything goes according to schedule, new audits will be rolled out next year. These new audits will be more clear and readable than their predecessors. System Dynamics and Technical Communication majors will finally have official audits. Hopefully, this will make it easier for next year's seniors to find out sometime before D-term what they need in order to graduate.