Academic Policy  1500.10 

Date of Graduation Policy

The University of Arkansas is committed to graduating students in a timely manner and has developed programs and policies to support this central goal. To this end, standardized application dates for graduation are established as follows:

Graduation date	December	May	August
Application due date	October 1	March 1	July 1

These deadlines will be advertised on the Registrar’s and academic college web pages. After the student applies for graduation, departments and colleges will have time to review degree audits, interact appropriately with prospective graduates, and prepare to clear students for graduation. All requirements must be completed and submitted to the Office of the Registrar no later than 20 working days following the final examination period of the semester of intended graduation. This includes transfer credit; AP, IB or CLEP credit; grade changes; honors designations; major or minor changes; and other graduation-related documents. Students not cleared for graduation during this time period will graduate in a subsequent semester. Departments, colleges, and relevant offices will implement and continue to monitor measures to ensure that student graduation dates are not delayed by processing procedures.

Requiring students to apply and be cleared for graduation in a consistent and timely fashion will assist them in graduating in the appropriate semester and will also allow the Registrar’s Office to report accurately each semester’s graduates to state and federal data collection agencies including the Arkansas Department of High Education (ADHE) and the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). These reports affect graduation rates, program viability, and national rankings.

The names of students cleared for graduation (following the guidelines identified above) through August of any given year will appear on the sidewalk for that year.

Reformatted for Web October 2, 2014
12/1/09