How to Fill Out the USF Summer Hour Waiver Request Form

To request a waiver of the nine-credit summer enrollment rule at the University of South Florida, download the USF Summer Hour Waiver Request Form from the Office of the Registrar’s forms page, complete it with a written explanation of your hardship and supporting documents, and submit it to the Registrar during the same semester you apply to graduate.¹² Approval turns on a single standard set by Florida Board of Governors Regulation 6.016: “unusual hardship to the individual.”³

Does the Requirement Even Apply to You

Before you fill out anything, confirm you actually owe the hours. Regulation 6.016 applies to students who entered a Florida State University System school with fewer than 60 semester hours. They must earn at least nine credits during one or more summer sessions before graduating.³ The threshold is based on your credit total when you first enrolled, not where you stand now.

If you transferred to USF with a completed Associate of Arts degree from a Florida College System institution, the summer attendance requirement is already satisfied. You do not need to take summer courses or file a waiver.⁴ Transfers who brought in 60 or more hours without an AA should check with an advisor, since the rule turns on your hour count when you entered the system.

Your Degree Works audit shows a line item for the summer requirement with hours completed and hours remaining.⁵ Look at it before your final semester, not during degree clearance.

What Counts as Unusual Hardship

Regulation 6.016 lets the university president or a designee waive the requirement “in cases of unusual hardship to the individual,” and the regulation does not spell out what that means.³ In practice, successful requests tend to fall into a handful of categories:

Financial hardship. You cannot afford summer tuition and your aid does not extend to summer, or you need to work full-time over the summer to cover upcoming semesters. Note that at peer Florida institutions the simple absence of Bright Futures funding in summer is not treated as hardship on its own, because every Florida student faces the same gap. Your situation needs to go beyond that baseline.⁶
Graduation delay. Completing nine summer hours would push your graduation back because the courses you still need are not offered in summer.
Internship or professional training. You spent summers in a substantial internship, clinical placement, or similar professional experience that kept you out of summer classes.
Study abroad. You took part in a university-sponsored summer program that did not generate enough credit hours to satisfy the nine-hour total.

The operative word is “unusual.” A preference for working or traveling instead of taking summer classes will not clear the bar. Your explanation needs to show a genuine burden that sets your situation apart from the typical student.

What to Gather Before You Start

The form itself is a one-page PDF on the Registrar’s forms page under “Waiver Forms.”¹ Before you open it, pull together:

Your USF U-Number.
Your intended graduation term. The form is tied to a specific semester, and you can only submit it during the term you apply to graduate.²
A concise written explanation covering which hardship category applies, why you could not complete summer hours, and what alternatives you considered.

Supporting documentation depends on your reason. For financial hardship, bring financial aid award letters showing no summer coverage, or pay stubs and an employer letter confirming full-time summer work. An employment letter carries the most weight when it is on company letterhead and lists your name, job description, dates of employment, and weekly hours. For an internship, get a letter from the sponsoring organization on its letterhead confirming the program dates, your hours, and the nature of the work. For study abroad, a transcript or program confirmation showing dates and credits earned helps.

Incomplete submissions slow everything down. If the Registrar has to come back for a missing document, your timeline resets.

Submitting the Form

Fill in every field on the PDF, attach your documentation, and submit the complete package to the Office of the Registrar. The timing rule matters: submit only during the semester in which you have applied to graduate.² A form sent earlier, even by a student who knows the waiver will be needed, will not be processed.

The summer hour waiver is a different process from the University Requirements Exception run by Undergraduate Studies. That broader exception has to be submitted by an academic advisor on your behalf and cannot be initiated by a student directly.⁷ The summer hour waiver, by contrast, goes straight to the Registrar. If you are unsure which route fits your situation, ask your advisor or email the Registrar at asktheregistrar@usf.edu before the deadline for your graduation term.⁸

What Happens After You Submit

The Registrar reviews your request and documents and sends the decision to your official USF email. Save any submission confirmation as proof of the filing date. If reviewers need more information, that request also comes by email, so watch your inbox.

An approved waiver updates your Degree Works audit so the nine-hour summer requirement no longer shows as a deficiency during final degree clearance.⁵ You can proceed to graduation on schedule.

If the waiver is denied, the requirement is still outstanding. Your choices are to enroll in enough summer coursework to finish the nine hours or to work with your academic advisor on a broader exception request through Undergraduate Studies.⁷ That second route requires your advisor to submit the request and make the academic case for a waiver or substitution.

Contacting the Registrar

Questions about the form, your eligibility, or a pending request go to the Office of the Registrar. General inquiries: asktheregistrar@usf.edu. Graduation-specific questions: graduation@usf.edu. Phone: (813) 974-2000, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Tampa campus office is in Student Services Building SVC 1102, 4202 E. Fowler Avenue, with lobby walk-in hours from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Students at the St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee campuses reach their local registrar offices at the same phone number.⁸

1
University of South Florida. Office of the Registrar – Forms
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University of South Florida. Frequently Asked Questions
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Florida Board of Governors. Florida Board of Governors Regulation 6.016 – Summer Session Enrollment
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University of South Florida. FAQs – USF Office of Transfer Student Success
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University of South Florida. Registration – Degree Works
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University of Florida. Summer Term Enrollment Policy
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University of South Florida. Exceptions for University Requirements
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University of South Florida. Office of the Registrar – Contact Us