What does it mean to be a “full-time matriculated student”?

You are considered a matriculated student if you have been accepted both by the department and by the Grad School into one of the university’s programs, and if you have enrolled in at least one graduate class. To be considered a full-time student, you need to be enrolled in 9 or more graduate credits each term. (However, read the next section below to learn about conditions in which you can be considered a full-time student when taking fewer than 9 credits in a semester.)

Some financial aid programs require students to be enrolled in at least 6 credits per semester. However, unless you are teaching as a GI, the Grad School does not require you to be enrolled in any more than 3 graduate credits each fall and spring semester—i.e., to fulfill the “continuous registration requirement” described in #6 above. If you only take 3 credits in a semester (perhaps because you are committed to full- or part-time employment elsewhere), you would be considered a part-time student.

You must be enrolled in at least 3 graduate credits during the semester in which you defend—even if you already have the requisite 30 credits to graduate. Let’s say you plan to complete your degree in the spring semester by taking a seminar and 3 credits of Engl. 6970: Thesis. You plan to defend your thesis that semester, but it takes longer than you expected and by the end of the semester you are still not ready to defend. You decide to work on your thesis over the summer and defend it early in the fall semester. At the end of spring semester your transcript would show 30 credits, but you would be required to register for 3 more graduate credits in the fall semester, when you defend. These additional credits might come from a seminar, or, if you don’t want to take any more seminars and all you want to do in the fall semester is defend the thesis, you could register for 3 credits of Engl. 6990: Continuing Graduate Registration. These are “empty” credits, fulfilling the graduate school’s requirement but not requiring any additional work from you.