All graduate students who receive merit-based graduate assistantships and fellowships must be full-time students in the term in which they receive the aid. Graduate students who receive only merit-based tuition scholarships from the Graduate School are not required to be registered full time.

Graduate assistants and fellows who need to maintain full-time status but are enrolled in fewer than the required course work credits may do so by registering for a continuous enrollment course (9974, 9975, or 9976) matching their specific award. These zero-credit courses provide full-time standing and are graded on a Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory (S/U) basis. For more information, see the Continuous Enrollment page.

Students may use their assistantship funding to pay for Graduate Assistant Teaching, Graduate Assistant Research or Graduate Fellowship course fees. Continuation course registration is not mandatory for all TAs and RAs; if a student already meets full-time status through their standard course work, they do not need to enroll in a continuation course.

Students are responsible for registering themselves via CheckMarq on or before the Add/Drop deadline specified in the Graduate Academic Calendar. Failure to register by this deadline may result in inaccurate enrollment records, potentially delaying verification requests processed through the Office of the Registrar for entities such as lending institutions and insurance providers.