Faculty Services, Division of the Academic Registrar, receive and process unit of study applications from students, and assist in resolving issues when students have problems with unit of study selection.

This includes:

• standard unit of study selection
• non-standard unit of study selection
• departmental permission applications
• unit of study withdrawals
• unit of study discontinuations
• enrolment exception requests

What’s our role?

• Receive applications and complete eligibility checks in Sydney Student
• Ensure completeness of submission and follow up with students as required
• Complete pre-assessment and provide recommendation to faculty
• Forward to faculty for final decision making and follow up/escalate if  required for a decision
• Complete assessment of requests (approve/reject) in line with pre-approved rules/guidelines provided by faculties
• Update decision matrix with guidelines provided by faculties
• Record decision in Sydney Student
• Communicate with the student including responding to any Tier 2 student administration enquiries and assist with Tier 3 enquiries
• Provide reporting on decisions to faculty
• Identify common themes regarding Tier 2 enquiries to potentially resolve issues

Enrolment exception requests

Process overview

As part of enrolment, the process notifies a student in real time, via a pop-up message, if the unit they have just selected as part of their enrolment breaks a course or unit rule.  

If the student decides to proceed with their unit selection, they can submit an enrolment exception request.

Through the task, a student will see clear information around the degree or unit rules they are trying to break and will need to select from a list of acceptable reasons for applying. They will be guided to student website information covering the different rules, eligibility information and supporting document requirements.

If the student does not want to seek an exception, they can always go back and vary their initial unit selection so that no enrolment exceptions are required.

Many students’ selection of units will be within the course rules, so no pop-ups will appear. These students can proceed with finalising their enrolment.

For other students, the exception process will be very simple, where a single unit choice breaks a single rule e.g. prerequisite or co-requisite requirements.

Then, there will be students whose combined group of units selected could lead them to break a collection rule (e.g. maximum), course rule (e.g. limits or load), or in some instances both.

 The on-system process:

• provides one-stop resolution of a student’s enrolment for each teaching period by combining any exception requests with the unit of study selection choice
• provides clearer transparency around the degree/unit rules they are trying to break and acceptable reasons for applying
• better contains student requests within formal degree, collection and unit rules, thereby aligning student choices within approved academic pathways.

What this means for students

• A student’s enrolment will now be resolved as a total package of units at one time, including any approved exceptions, in the system 
• Students will need to meet a set of criteria and evidence requirements in order to put through a request
• If a student puts through any requests, they will not be able to complete enrolment (including any departmental permissions) or unit of study selection, until all exceptions are resolved (approved/rejected).

What this means for faculties and central staff

• Awarding grades must be timely to ensure students do not encounter unnecessary prerequisite rules breaks
• Faculty will gain higher visibility and insight to upstream causes of enrolment issues
• All valid requests will be sent by Faculty Services to an approved academic delegate

For Academic delegates - managing student requests

If you’re a delegate for a student’s request, SAS will contact you through your Sydney Student in-tray (on the home screen) with a link to the student’s request.

You’ll be able to view:

• the student’s supporting information

• details about the rule proposed to be broken

• any comments or advice provided by SAS.

You’ll need to select the ‘Recommended decision’ button to respond to the request.

If a student’s unit of study selection breaks multiple rules, you’ll be able to see the other rules being broken, however you will only be able to respond to the requests sent to you as the delegate.

You’ll also receive an email notification each time you receive a new request.

Scenarios not covered by the enrolment exception request process

The system process will only capture requests for on-diet units & rules. Transitional, fixed diet and certain students/degrees will remain off-diet and so need to be manually supported for now. 

Just like in-system requests, these also need to be for eligible reasons and approved by the correct academic delegate.

If a student has a valid off-diet request they will need to submit a Service Now request through the Unit of study selection issues form.

Examples include:

• units not made available to manage off system processes for projects, Honours or placements

• units are not listed in tables due to transitional changes to course

• student is enrolled in a fixed diet or non-award course.

Help and support

For students

Students will be able to find information on unit of study selection, unit and course rules and exception requests on the student website: https://www.sydney.edu.au/students/selecting-units-in-sydney-student.html.

For University Staff

More information

A short video is available for staff outlining the changes and criteria for valid requests.