Registration Holds

If you started at Cal as a freshman, you must complete Reading & Composition by the end of your fourth semester. If you have not completed both halves of your Reading & Composition requirement before the start of your 5th semester, your enrollment may be blocked for future semesters. 

If you have an R&C hold placed, you will need to meet with an L&S College Adviser to discuss your plan for completing the requirement in order to have the hold removed.

Due to limited seat capacity in R&C courses on campus, students in their 5th semester or later will may experience difficulty in accessing enrollment in R&C courses. You may need to explore alternate options to complete this requirement, for example, through a UCB Summer Sessions course or through an approved course at a California Community College.

This hold may be placed when you are currently enrolled in an unapproved reduced course load (meaning you are enrolled in fewer than 13 units without College permission) and have previously been enrolled below the unit minimum without approval in at least one prior term. 

A habit of taking unapproved reduced course loads can be an indicator that there are unaddressed extenuating factors that are impacting your ability to take a course load of 13 units each semester. There are many cases in which a student may be eligible to take an approved reduced course load each semester. To remove this hold, meet with an L&S College Adviser

In an effort to ensure that all students have a plan to declare their major by the beginning of their junior year, this hold is placed if you have not declared a major by the time you have 90 units in progress or completed. Any transfer units you have earned will be included in this calculation, but high school exam units such as AP or IB will not counted against you. 

Transfers in their first semester will not receive this hold.

INSTRUCTIONS TO REMOVE THE HOLD:

• If you are eligible to declare your intended major: Declare your major as soon as possible and contact your L&S Undergraduate Major Adviser to release the hold.

• If you are on track to complete the prerequisites for your major, but not yet eligible to declare: Contact your intended major department. If the L&S Undergraduate Major Adviser believes that you are making good progress to declare the major, they may release the registration hold.

• If you are not yet able to declare and the L&S Undergraduate Major Adviser has concerns about your progress to declare your intended major: Meet with an L&S Undergraduate Major Adviser to discuss your plan to declare the major and ask them to sign and complete Conditions to Declare and Program Plan forms. Then meet with an L&S College Adviser to review the Conditions to Declare and Program Plan forms and discuss releasing the registration hold. If the L&S College Adviser has concerns about your ability to declare and complete your intended major in your remaining time, you may be asked to bring a Conditions to Declare and Program Plan form from an alternate major department.

• If you are pursuing a major outside of L&S, you will also need to have an alternate major within L&S: Meet with both the Undergraduate Major Adviser of your intended, non-L&S major and with an L&S Undergraduate Major Adviser for your alternate L&S major to discuss your plan to declare the major.
  • If the L&S Undergraduate Major Adviser believes that you are making good progress to declare the major, they may release the registration hold, but the Undergraduate Major Adviser for the major outside of L&S will not do so. 
  • If the L&S Undergraduate Major Adviser has concerns about your ability to declare, and ask them to sign and complete Conditions to Declare and Program Plan forms.  Then meet with an L&S College Adviser to review the Conditions to Declare and Program Plan forms from both the non-L&S major and the L&S major and discuss releasing the registration hold.

• If you have received this hold due to the fact that you earned a high number of college units before high school graduation, and are not yet eligible to declare a major: please email asklns@berkeley.edu and include your SID in your email. You are still encouraged to meet with an L&S Undergraduate Major Adviser to explore options for your area(s) of interest! 

If you would like support in exploring areas of interest, we encourage you to meet with a L&S Undergraduate Major Adviser or an L&S College Adviser for support. Additional resources such as the Career Counseling Library are also available to help you find the best major for you. 

If you are approved for excess units for study abroad only, you will receive this hold to prohibit enrollment in UC Berkeley campus coursework. This hold still permits the Berkeley Study Abroad office to enroll you in the appropriate PSEUDO placeholder units and will be removed when you are ready to receive the transfer credit for the individual study abroad coursework that you have completed. If you receive this hold and have any questions about its placement or removal, you can meet with an L&S College Adviser to clarify. 

If you reach 12 or more pending  Incomplete units you will receive this hold, which prohibits enrollment in the next spring or fall semester after the term when the hold is placed. The Excess Incomplete Units hold is intended to help you prioritize successful completion of the pending Incomplete grades before pursuing additional coursework. Once you have worked with your instructor(s) to resolve or retain (freeze) enough pending Incomplete units to move below 12, here are the ways that you may have this hold removed:

• L&S College Advisers will run periodic reports through the semester to determine whether students who previously had 12+ Incomplete units have resolved or retained (frozen) any of those units. If we see that you have moved below 12 units of pending Incomplete grades, we will remove the hold for the future term. 
• If you see in CalCentral that your pending Incomplete grades have fallen below 12 units but the hold is still in place, you can connect with L&S advising through our Virtual Front Desk or by meeting with a College Adviser to have your units reviewed and the hold removed if appropriate.