Senior Degree Audit 101

The date is set (May 19th), and with Spring Break next week, it's safe to say that we are almost on the home stretch to graduation! When I think of graduation I think of celebrating and being care-free... but there are a lot of things that you need to do before walking to the stage and getting your diploma! The requirement that has created the most confusion among my fellow seniors is the Senior Degree Audit.

The Senior Degree Audit is a process where you sit down with the Registrar and go over your academic plan to make sure that you've done everything necessary in order to get your degree. Ideally, you would have been continuously doing this with your academic counselor along the way, so this meeting is more of a formality then anything else.

The process for this audit is a bit funky, so I thought I'd lay out the steps I went through:

1. Fill out the Graduation Audit Form which can be found online or outside of the Registrar's office
2. Look for your name on the white board outside of the Registrar's office
3. Once your name is written on that board, go inside to the Registrar's office say your name is on the board and you'd like to meet with the Registrar for a degree audit. 
4. At this point, you'll sit down in the Registrar's office (if she's available) and discuss your status and any actions you need to take from there depending on your situation.

Once you've met with the Registrar, she'll be able to tell you what your graduating GPA will most likely be (depending on how you do this semester) and let you know if you're going to be graduating with any type of Honors (cum laude, magna cum laude or maxima cum laude).

Once you've checked the Degree Audit off of your to-do list there are a bunch of other steps you need to do, like purchase your cap & gown, your financial aid exit counseling, paying your graduation fee, filling out the mandatory participation form if you'd like to walk on graduation day...  the list seems overwhelming at first, but don't despair, the end is almost here and you can always check back here for some more graduation tips!

What about you, does your school make you do a ton of things before graduation or is it a fairly simple process?