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My fellowship should cover my full tuition charges, but my student account has a balance due. What should I do?
If you are a GRS PhD or MFA student with a full fellowship and you recently added or dropped a course, your scholarship may need to be updated. GRS generally applies the same amount of scholarship to the fall and spring semesters assuming the student will continue to enroll in the same number of credits in both semesters. Once the initial scholarship has been applied, we wait until the end of the semester’s add/drop period (mid-October/late February) to manually reconcile everyone’s registration and scholarship.
The majority of our PhD & MFA students continuously add and drop classes over a six-month period which is the reason why we wait until the end of the add/drop period before we start to manually reconcile scholarships. Please feel free to contact us at grsaid@bu.edu to request an immediate adjustment of your scholarship once you have finalized your course selection for the semester; otherwise, we will adjust it in late October/early March.
Important reminder: If any changes are made to your registration after the add/drop period ended for that semester, you must email the GRS Financial Aid Office at grsaid@bu.edu to request an adjustment of your scholarship. This is a manual process; it is not automated.
Please include your BU ID when emailing our office.
Does my scholarship cover physical education (PDP) courses or other classes that are not required by my degree?
No, it does not. Your graduate scholarship does not cover the cost of:
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- Courses that are not required by your degree (refer to the GRS Bulletin for degree requirements)
- Credits in excess of 18 credits per semester (over-enrollment)
- Undergraduate courses (499 level or less)
- Physical education (PDP) courses
- Music courses or lessons
- Study abroad programs
- Courses taught outside of Boston University (with the exception of Boston Area Consortia cross-registration)
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Your graduate scholarship only covers the cost of courses that are:
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- Required by your degree (refer to the GRS Bulletin for degree requirements)
- Taken as co-requisites or prerequisites by special permission from GRS with approval from your advisor and director of graduate studies
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If the course is necessary for your research, or the total number of credits exceeds 18 credits per semester, your advisor and director of graduate studies must submit a “Petition for Financial Aid Coverage” to the graduate school to have this covered by a graduate scholarship. These petitions must be submitted by the program directly. It is an internal form and not for student use. It is not possible to petition for scholarship coverage of PDP courses.
The cost of one credit is $2,083 (AY24-25). If a course carries zero credits, then it does not incur any charges (0 credits x $2,038/credit = $0); in this case, you may remain registered for this course without being charged for it.
Please note that there is one scenario in which registering for a non-required course will not result in additional charges. Students who register for 12-18 are considered full-time by enrollment and the registration cost for 12-18 credits is a flat fee:
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- As long as you are enrolled in at least 12 credits that are required by your degree, adding a non-required course will not cause additional charges as long as you have not exceeded 18 credits overall. Any tuition above 18 credits is assessed on a per-credit basis and will be your responsibility.
- If your regular degree credits fall below 12, your tuition will be assessed on a per-credit basis and your scholarship will be adjusted to cover only the courses required by your degree. In this scenario, the cost of the non-required course will be your responsibility. Please be aware of this if or when you decide to drop a course.
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