Responsible office: Office of the Registrar
Degree Students at Mount Holyoke or Five Colleges
A current degree student at Mount Holyoke (not on leave) or at one of our partner institutions in the Five College Consortium may audit an undergraduate Mount Holyoke course outside of Mount Holyoke's PaGE program, if space is available and the student has the instructor's verbal permission to audit. The student and faculty member should agree on what level of participation is expected/allowed. In any case, no record will be kept of the audit and it will not appear on the student's transcript. Because no records are kept, degree students don't need to complete any registration procedures for audits at Mount Holyoke. Students may not switch between audit and for-credit participation in a class after the usual deadline for Adding courses. Students currently on leave are not eligible to audit.
- The instructor may grant these degree-student auditors access to the course site in Moodle by adding them to the Moodle roster in the “auditor” role, using their HOME institution email address. Instructions for faculty
- Note: If the Moodle site references library online resources such as research databases and e-journals, the auditor may be able to access them through their home school’s library or can come to Mount Holyoke’s library to access these resources.
Mount Holyoke Retirees, Emeriti, Employees, and Their Qualifying Dependents
Employees of the College, their qualifying dependents, and Mount Holyoke retirees and emeriti are eligible to audit one course per semester. They must qualify by submitting an employee course registration form to the Human Resources Office. The form is available from the HR Office and requires the signature of the course instructor to confirm his/her approval of the audit and that space is available. For full information on qualifying, see HR's Tuition Benefits page. Once HR has approved the form (and the additional audit fee paid to the Cashier if the course is PE, beginning language, Dance or Studio Art), bring the form to the Registrar's Office.
Community Residents and Mount Holyoke Alums
Mount Holyoke Alums and members of the South Hadley community may be approved to audit courses at the College, as follows:
- They must submit a completed Application for Auditing form to the Registrar's Office by the end of the second week of classes. The application must be approved by the Registrar.
- Any course(s), other than those offered by Mount Holyoke Professional and Graduate Education, may be approved for audit but only if there is space available and the auditor has the instructor's signed permission on the Auditing Application form. Additional instructions are available on the form.
A prospective auditor must apply in one of these two categories:
- Mount Holyoke Alums -- alum status will be confirmed by the Registrar.
- South Hadley Community Members -- must reside in South Hadley and must have earned a high school diploma.
There is no tuition fee to audit, unless the course is:
- A Studio Art course. Per-course fee: $1,630.
- A Physical Education, Dance, or beginning language course. Per-course fee $100.
Auditing Privileges
- There is no record kept of audited courses at Mount Holyoke, no grade given, and no credits earned. Auditors will not be counted in the official enrollment of the course.
- Attendance is restricted to the meetings of the approved course. Auditors do not participate in other aspects of College life and do not qualify for other student privileges.
- Permission to audit authorizes class observance only. Beyond that, the character of an auditor's participation in a course rest with the instructor(s) of the course. Instructors are not required to review or grade any work completed by auditors.
Process for Prospective Alums and Community Member Auditors
1. Use the Search for Classes to review the course listings for the upcoming term. These are published as early as November for the upcoming Spring and April for the Fall. No login ID/password is needed.
2. You may then contact faculty directly to inquire about whether s/he will authorize you to audit the course. The instructor's email address is visible in the Search for Classes, if once you've searched for the class, you click on the meeting days/times of the course to see the "Class Details" screen. Note that faculty may not be able to provide approval until the start of the semester, once the class size is finalized.
3. Once the faculty member has agreed that you may audit his/her class, print from this site the Application for Auditing form and take it to the faculty member for signature.
4. Return the form to the Registrar's Office. Bring a photo ID and, if applying to qualify as a community member, bring proof of residence (your South Hadley address on your driver's license, or a utility bill with your name and South Hadley address). The Registrar's staff will review your application and, if approved, will update the College's online records to include affiliate information for you.
5. The next business day, staff in LITS will create a Moodle-only account for you. They will email you your login ID and initial passphrase (password) to get into the account as soon as possible -- generally one business day later.
6. Once you receive your login ID and passphrase, go to Mount Holyoke's Moodle site, and log in (via "login" in upper right corner) to activate your account. You won't yet have access to the course in Moodle, but merely logging in will activate your account within Moodle.
7. Once you've logged into Moodle once, tell your instructor what your user ID is (not your password), and s/he will then be able to add you to the Moodle class roster. Instructions for Faculty. This will give you access to the Moodle site for this course.
- Please note that some Moodle sites direct students on to use library online resources such as research databases and e-journals. Auditors who have agreed with faculty to complete assignments using these student resources will need to come to the Library building and use the computers there for access, per our licensing agreements with online resources.
Please note that, should you audit again in a future semester, you may be able to skip steps 5 and 6 if you are still able to login to Moodle using your login from the previous semester.
Auditing privileges may be denied or revoked at any time. The College reserves the right to limit the number of courses audited by any one person, to limit the total number of auditors on campus in a particular term, and to change this policy.