GPAS Website - Degree clearance

Degree clearance

What is degree clearance?

Degree clearance is the process of reviewing and approving students’ degrees in order for them to graduate. Students, faculty, and staff all play a part in the degree clearance process. The main roles are listed below.

- Graduate program coordinators (GPCs) review audits, submit exceptions, and work with students and instructors to help students complete requirements needed for degree clearance.
- Graduate Student Services and Progress (GSSP) serves as the primary contact for degree clearance inquiries and communications. Contact GSSP for assistance.
- The Graduate Education Records Team (GERT) in the Office of the Registrar reviews students’ degree progress and clears students based on the completion of degree requirements.

When does degree clearance happen?

Degree clearance happens on a monthly cycle. Timing may vary depending on the volume of student degrees to review, but the following is a general timeline:

- Beginning of the month:
  - - Students receive a “you are being reviewed” email notification.
    - GPCs receive an email reminder to run and review the GPAS Degree Clearance report in the Reporting Center.
- Throughout the month:
  - - GERT reviews GPAS audits and clears students as requirements are completed.
    - GPCs run and review the GPAS Degree Clearance report as needed to ensure requirements are complete.
- End of the month:
  - - All requirements must be complete by the last business day of the month. This includes grades, form submissions, GPAS exceptions, etc.
    - GERT finishes clearance review and posts degrees 7-10 days after the last business day of the month.

Review the GPAS clearance process guide for more detailed information.

How can GPCs help ensure students' timely graduation?

Submit exceptions and communicate

GPCs can help ensure timely graduation by submitting exceptions as early as possible in a student’s career. GPCs should also communicate with students throughout their career about the student’s responsibility to apply to graduate and submit required materials.

Notify GSSP if a student cannot graduate

If a student applies to graduate for a month that they will not be able to graduate, email gssp@umn.edu and indicate the first month the student would be eligible to graduate. For example, if a student applies in March but is still taking classes and won’t have grades until May, email GSSP that the student won’t be able to graduate until May.

Utilize GPAS resources and reports

To help students’ timely graduation, it is imperative GPCs understand how to review students’ degree requirements and submit exceptions. Refer to the GPAS website pages and training on exceptions support and understanding the GPAS audit.

In addition, GPCs should utilize reports to analyze student degree progress data and guide work. The GPAS Degree Clearance report, degree applicant report, and official degree granted report listed on this page are intended to support degree clearance. Use the GPAS student degree progress report to analyze data throughout a student’s career.

GPAS Degree Clearance report

The GPAS Degree Clearance report is available in the Reporting Center. GPCs can run the report at any time to get updated information about degree applicants in most master’s, certificate, doctoral, and minor programs using GPAS. At this time, MBA, JD, and LLM degrees are not supported.

When to review the GPAS Degree Clearance report:

Review any time you need updated information about degree applicants. We recommend running each of your programs (master’s, certificate, doctoral, minor) at least three times per month:

Near the beginning of the month to see how many students have applied, determine if any students who should have applied are missing or need to update graduation months.
Near the middle of the month to see what requirements are still outstanding, complete any necessary form submission, GPAS exceptions, etc.
One to two days before the end of the month to wrap up any remaining form submission, grades, GPAS exceptions, etc.

Navigate to the GPAS Degree Clearance report:

Reporting Center > Student Services > Degree Clearance > GPAS Degree Clearance

Review the help doc or contact GSSP with questions about the report.

As a reminder, students will not graduate if they have not fully satisfied both their major and minor requirements within the GPAS audit.

Degree applicant report

The degree applicant report lists students who have applied to graduate in the specified term and students whose degrees have been posted. The report can help staff analyze and track the status of all degree applicants. The degree applicant report contains degree information about students who:

Planned on graduating for the selected term
Applied for specific months within the applied graduation term
Applied to graduate since the last report
Have not cleared for their degree in the applied graduation month
Have been discontinued since applying for graduation

A degree applicant report information guide is also available for more details. Access the degree applicant report with the following path: Reporting Center > Student Services > Degree Clearance > Degree Applicants

Official degrees granted report

Colleges, departments, and University administration can use the official degrees granted report to confirm which students have been awarded degrees. The report lists all of the degrees that have been awarded for the specified college and term(s) with majors, minors, and sub-plans.

Access the official degrees granted report by taking the following path: Reporting Center > Student Services > Degree Clearance > Official Degrees Granted.

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