Advising Holds

105 Credit Hold

Western is committed to student success and timely completion of graduation requirements. Therefore, Western reserves the right to restrict students who are not making sufficient progress toward a major by placing a registration hold on those students’ accounts. The Insufficient Progress Toward Degree and Registration Holds policy is available in the University Catalog.

Advising Support:

The Academic Advising & Student Achievement Center utilize the 105 credit hold process to support students in their progress toward choosing and declaring a major. Our goal is to support timely major declaration which results in timely graduation.

Students who do not declare a major, pre-major, or Phase I major by the time they reach 105+ quarter credits are required to meet with an advisor, submit a 105 credit hold plan, or declare their major prior to registering for classes.

Quarterly Process:

105 credit holds are placed at the beginning of each quarter, providing students ample time to take appropriate action to address the hold prior to registration beginning for the following quarter. Students who have completed 105+ quarter credits will go through this process every quarter until they have declared a major, pre-major or Phase I major.

To remove the registration hold, students must complete one of the actions listed below:

• Submit a 105 credit hold plan. A link to the online plan are sent to the students’ Western email at the beginning of the quarter and reminder emails are sent on a weekly basis until Phase I registration for the following quarter begins. 
• Meet with an academic advisor in the Academic Advising & Student Achievement Center.
• Meet with a departmental advisor from the academic department of your intended major and request they email your name, W#, and a note confirming you met and are on track to declare to: aacforms@wwu.edu.
• Declare a major, pre-major or Phase I major. Your 105 credit hold will be removed once the academic department has approved your Student Academic Declaration & Change form and the Registrar's Office has processed it.

Students needing to make changes to their current quarter schedule will need to complete one of 4 options above in order to have the 105 credit hold lifted.

Communication to Students:

Once a student reaches 75 quarter credits and is declared, they receive quarterly notification emails via their Western email address that they are approaching the 105 credit mark and should seek out advising related to their major planning if they haven’t already.

If a student transfers into Western with 105+ quarter credits, they will not receive a hold until their second quarter of enrollment, if still undeclared at that time.

Email notification to students who have received a 105 credit hold, along with instructions regarding having the hold removed, are sent to the their Western email address early in fall, winter, and spring quarters. Reminder emails for students who have not had their hold removed or connected with an advisor are sent on a weekly basis up until Phase I registration begins for the following quarter.