for official use only
Please review the instructions and information included on the Petition for Degree Modification form before proceeding. Please double check EID, unique numbers, course numbers, and rule numbers to ensure accuracy. If you are unsure if the information needs to be included, include it. If you are filling the form out by hand, please ensure that it can be read.
Any Petition concerning a graduating senior must be marked as such prominently.
All petitions must be turned into the Liberal Arts Student Division office (GEB 2.200) by the deadline specified each semester. Call (512) 471-4271 or check the College web for dates and deadlines.
This form must be downloaded, filled out and submitted to:
The University of Texas at Austin
College of Liberal Arts, Student Division
1 University Station, GEB 2.200; G6100
Austin, Texas 78712
Area A
RHE 306: Only transfer courses with “composition” titles are generally approved as substitutions (a petition would only be needed for E 3HRS/E 3FRMN evaluation.) Must have syllabus and course description attached. Must have recommendation of the Rhetoric and Comp faculty advisor, not the English dept.RHE 309K in transfer with “Composition” in the title must now be petitioned in order to count for RHE 306.If approved, it cannot also be used for the lower-division writing component requirement.
E 316K: Only survey of literature courses are generally approved as substitutions. Must have syllabus and course description attached. Must have recommendation of English dept. faculty advisor.
Note: E 3SLIT automatically substitutes without a petition but a petition is required if the course is evaluated as E 3SOPH, E 3LIT, or other generic abbreviation
Writing Components: Petitions to use courses that are not officially designated as SWC are usually denied.Transferred courses in general may not be petitioned to use as SWC. The one exception that comes to mind is for an English course that transfers in with the word "writing" in the title, but is assigned a generic transfer equivalency (i.e., a course titled 'Creative Writing" is evaluated as E 3HRS). In this case, since our Creative Writing course is upper-division, admissions could only give this lower-division creative writing course the E 3HRS designation.
- Requires course description and syllabus
- Must have recommendation of Writing Across the Curriculum faculty
Foreign Language Waiver: Only approved for a student with proof of fourth semester proficiency in a language for which UT offers neither an exam nor as a course of instruction (e.g., Hungarian). Refer to the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs for additional information regarding testing.
Gov 310L or Gov 312L: Substitutions using a transfer course: must have a course description and syllabus attached, and the petition must have a recommendation from the faculty advisor in the government department.
US History: Substitutions using a transfer course: must have a course description and syllabus, and the petition must have a recommendation from the faculty advisor in the history department.
Social Sciences: The most common petition is to prove social science content for a course other than ANT, ECO, GRG, LIN, PSY, or SOC (i.e., request to use a transferred HIS 3HRS as an ANT course.) Requires syllabus and course descriptionArea CRequirements are not waived, even if only one hour is lacking. Course syllabus and description are required.
Requirements are not waived, even if only one hour is lacking.
- Course syllabus and description are required.
Area D petitions are most common for the alternatives option.
General guideline for approval: content of transfer course either matches or is similar to content of course on "Alternative" list. Course syllabus and description are required.
Requirements may not be waived, but substitutions may be requested through petitioning. Substitutions require course description and syllabus, and petition requires recommendation from the identified department faculty. The syllabus should strongly support the requested substitution.
Note: Some departments require additional hours to be done in the major subject if a non-major substitution is made (i.e., PSY 418 is commonly approved as a substitution for SOC 317L, but does not count toward the total hours in SOC.) Economics has similar restrictions. The departmental advisor is supposed to notate restrictions in step 2 of the petition form when recommending approval.
Note #2: We do not approve petitions to accept a lower grade than that specified by the major requirements (i.e., English requires a C in every course, so we would deny a petition to accept a D.
Economics requires a C in three core courses, and we would deny a petition to accept a lower grade).
Residency reductions in major: Petition requires recommendation of the identified department faculty. However, we look at a student's entire degree audit when making the decision.
Major residency reduction to 15 hours: In general, if a student has room for electives, then we will not approve a major residency reduction.
If a student transferred in major coursework and has no room for electives, then this petition is regularly approved.
Cases when petitions are approved:
- if reduction is due to a UT Study Abroad program
- if taking the course would put student over the 36 hour limit in one subject.
Major residency reduction due to study abroad: This petition is generally only approved to allow up to 50% of a student's major coursework to be done through non-reciprocal study abroad programs.
Example: The Spanish department has a memo on file with the Student Division allowing residency reductions to 15 hours in the major for study abroad students; thus there is no need to petition.
Minor requirements may not be waived but substitutions may be requested through petitioning.We do not lower total number of hours or upper-division hours required.
Petitions are submitted and recommendations accepted by the identified department faculty, not the subject that the minor is in.
For example, for a sociology major with a HIS minor: to consider a substitution for the HIS minor we would require the SOC department to make a recommendation, not the HIS department. As with all substitutions, a course syllabus and description is required.
Minor residency requirement: We do not approve petitions to waive residency requirements. Residency reduction from six to three hours is generally approved if the student does not have room for electives.
Exceptions:
- if the hours in question are earned through non-reciprocal study abroad, we would reduce residency
- if student has an excessive number of hours in the other subject, (i.e., if student already earned a degree at another institution in ANT and is now using ANT for the minor here at UT), we would reduce residency).
Note: We allow minors in Business, Communications, and Education. This allows a student to count any combination of courses in one of these colleges for the minor. The degree audit automatically counts courses from these colleges for a minor.
36-hour limit in one subject: A *NRDEGR Override can be added without a petition to raise limit to 39 hours regardless of the subject.
For foreign language majors: A *NRDEGR Override can be added to raise the limit to 40 hours (or above if necessary) if the combined number of hours required for the introductory foreign language coursework (i.e., 16 hrs of French 506 thru 312L) and the number of hours required for the major (i.e., 24 hours of upper-division FR) justify it. In this case, the student would be required to do 40 hours in French just to complete the major, so we would add an override to allow 40 hours.
For a dual degree: As a rule, we automatically raise the number of hours allowed in another college to 60 when seeking a dual degree (except for Natural Sciences). This amounts to raising the limit by 24, which is the same number of hours we add on to the degree with the higher number of hours to get our total hours required for our B.A. for a dual degree (i.e., 144 hrs for B.B.A. and B.A.).
Note: Sometimes a student in a dual degree or double major situation may request to use additional hours in a single subject. We will allow as many hours to be used in one subject as the other major or degree allows. For example, if 50 hours in Chemistry were allowed for a B.S. in CH, then we would also allow that number toward our B.A. if needed.
