Back to Registrar's Office

Registration Information

Process Information

Jump to a section:

Enrollment Appointments

Your enrollment appointments is determined by your current class year or, for IDP students, the number of credits you have earned plus the number of credits you are currently enrolled in for this term. Your specific registration appointment information can be found on the Enrollment Dates section of the Student Center page on TCOnline. If you have any questions about your enrollment appointment, contact the Registrar’s Office at [email protected].

Registration Process

You will register for courses online via TCOnline. Detailed instructions can be found on the Step-by-Step Registration Guide on Registrar’s Office website.

Course Load Standards for Fall and Spring Semesters

A standard course load is four to five course credits per semester or nine course credits per academic year. If you wish to enroll in more than 5.75 credits in a term, you must secure permission from your academic adviser and are generally charged an additional tuition fee.

To remain in good academic standing, you must maintain full-time enrollment (defined as attempting 4.00 or more course credits) unless authorized for less by an approved accommodation request from the Student Accessibility Resource Center or an approved reduced course load petition from the Academic Affairs Committee. If you do not register for at least 4.00 course credits by the add/drop deadline and do not have an approved accommodation or petition, you will be placed on Academic Probation immediately.

Enrollment Levels During Advance Registration

Your course schedule need not be completed by the end of Advance Registration. Register only for those courses you intend to complete and for which you expect to be billed by the College. Do not enroll in courses you do not intend to complete simply because you believe you need a complete schedule. During Advance Registration, you may not register for more than 4.75 credits, and during Open Enrollment/Add/Drop Registration, you not register for more than 5.75 course credits without approval from your academic adviser. An additional tuition charge is generally assessed in such cases.

Special Registration Types

Assistantship, Independent Study, Mentorship, Thesis or Tutorial

You must submit the online Special Registration Form to enroll in an assistantship (including Research in Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, and Neuroscience courses), independent study, and Senior Projects in American Studies, Music, and Theater and Dance), mentorship, thesis, or tutorial. You cannot register via TCOnline for such courses. You will not be enrolled until the Special Registration Form, bearing all appropriate approvals and credit information, has been received by the Registrar’s Office. To enroll in a two-semester course (e.g., Classics Senior Seminar, two-credit thesis), you must submit a completed Special Registration Form for each term of the course.

Internship

To receive credit for an internship, you must complete an Internship Contract. Information about this process is available at https://www.trincoll.edu/career-life-design/internship-job-search/#internships.

Language Across the Curriculum

You may earn supplementary foreign language credit in a wide variety of courses across the curriculum. This option is generally open to all students who have completed the Intermediate level (fourth semester, or equivalent) in any foreign language currently taught at Trinity, and who are enrolled in any course in which the instructor, in collaboration with a member of the Classics or Modern Languages faculty, approves a supplementary reading list in the foreign language. For example, those studying Aristotle in a Philosophy course, or the Roman Empire in a History course, might study texts in Greek or Latin; those studying European history, the economy of Latin America, or Freud, could do supplementary readings in French, Spanish, or German; those studying Art History or the Modern Theater might do further readings in Italian or Russian, respectively; there are many other possibilities. Subject to satisfactory completion of the assigned work, such students will then be awarded an extra half credit for the course for which the extra work is completed. For further information, contact the Chair of either the Language and Culture Studies or Classics departments.

To enroll in a Language Across the Curriculum course, you must complete a Special Registration Form, and the request must be approved by both the instructor of the course and the collaborating faculty member.

Graduate Course Enrollment by Undergraduates

If you wish to enroll in a graduate course (800-level), you should first verify in the Course Schedule if the course is open to undergraduate student enrollment. If so, you must secure permission of your advisor, the course instructor, and the Office of Graduate Studies.

MUSC 107 (Lessons)

If you wish to enroll in MUSC 107, you must register with a PIN number or a signed Course Override form provided by Prof. Jennifer Allen, the Coordinator of the Music Lessons Program. The prerequisite for taking MUSC 107 for credit is MUSC 101, Understanding Music 1. Students who already possess sufficient knowledge of music theory may be approved by Prof. Allen to receive a waiver of the MUSC 101 prerequisite. Lessons may also be taken not-for-credit, in which case the MUSC 101 prerequisite does not apply. Lessons instructors are area professionals invited to teach at Trinity. A fee to pay the instructor is required. Trinity Grant financial aid students taking Music Lessons for credit may apply for the limited number of awards available to cover instructors’ fees. To begin the registration process, request the “Lessons Pre-Registration Questionnaire and Guidelines” from [email protected].

Pass/Fail Courses

1.) A Pass/Low Pass/Fail course may not be used to fulfill requirements for your major, minor, general education/ distribution or rhetoric/quantitative literacy proficiency requirements. Courses
associated with the First-Year Gateway programs and First-Year Seminars must also be taken for a letter grade.
2.) You may only elect to take one course Pass/Low Pass/Fail in any term, for a total of 4 courses overall.
3.) Some courses are only offered on a Pass/Fail basis. You do not need to select this option, and they do not count towards the maximum number of Pass/Fail courses allowed.
4.) To change a Pass/Low Pass/Fail course back to a letter grade, you must complete a form and submit it to the Registrar’s Office no later than the last day of classes. You cannot make this change online.

Permission of Instructor Courses and PINs

All courses requiring Permission of the Instructor (PI) are indicated with a “Y” (yes) in the “Permission Required” column. To enroll in these PI courses, you must obtain a Permission of Instructor Number (PIN), a 6-digit number, that you will enter when registering for that course on TCOnline. You can obtain the PIN from the instructor during Advising Week and enter this number during the registration process. Some classes that have filled may be made PI after the start of the registration period, generally because the instructor is maintaining a waitlist of interested students. For these courses, you will need to contact the instructor to register.

Repeating Courses

A student who repeats a course in which they have received a passing grade will NOT receive credit for the second enrollment and will have both grades included in the calculation of the GPA. A repeated course will NOT be counted toward the 4.00 course credit enrollment requirement for a fall or spring semester, nor toward the courses required for the degree, even though the duplicated course may temporarily appear as an earned credit on the student’s record.

QLIT 101

If you are required to enroll in QLIT 101, Foundational Techniques for Quantitative Reasoning, you must obtain a PIN from the Quantitative Literacy Center. You MUST attend the first meeting of QLIT 101.

Wellness (WELL) Experiences

Students matriculating in Fall 2021 and thereafter are required to complete two wellness experiences. Most wellness experiences use the WELL subject code, but some are listed under other subject codes. These experiences can be found in the Course Schedule under the Wellness (WELL) subject code and by searching the Course Search using the “Distribution Requirement” filter with any of the drop down options with “Wellness” (ex. Art and Wellness, Humanities and Wellness, etc.). Most WELL experiences are available for registration while others (ex. WELL 297, 298, and 299) are listed in the course schedule, but enrollments are processed by the experience supervisor. Check the notes section for each experience on the Course Schedule for specific registration information.

All WELL experiences meet in the George M. Ferris Athletic Center (FAC), unless otherwise indicated. Some have prerequisites and some require a nominal fee. WELL experiences may not be repeated. You MUST attend the first meeting of WELL experiences.

General Information

Course Numbers

Courses are identified by numbers that range from 100 to 999:
100 – 299 = Lower Division courses
300 – 499 = Upper Division courses
800 – 999 = Graduate courses

Grading Systems

Undergraduate Grades are defined on the Grades page of the Trinity College Bulletin. You should become familiar with this publication and consult your academic advisor if you have any questions
regarding these policies.

Curricular Requirements

You are responsible for enrolling in courses that will allow you to complete all general education requirements. Consult the Trinity College Bulletin for a detailed explanation of those requirements.
Students entering Fall 2021 and thereafter are required to complete 35 course credits, at least 32 must be academic credits.

You may download this page as a pdf if you would like to print it out.