International student registration cautions1) Most student immigration visas require international students to be enrolled as a full-time student to remain in the U.S. Full-time for undergraduates is 12 credits or more, full-time for graduate students is 9 credits or more. If you are taking less than that number of credits, you are considered a part-time student.
2) Tuition also changes depending on whether you are full or part-time. If you are part-time, you pay tuition based on the number of credits you are taking. So, for example, six credits costs more than three credits. If you are full-time, you pay one rate. So, for example, if you are a graduate student, 9 credits costs the same as 12 credits or 15 credits.
3) Enrollment in the summer semester is a special problem: if your first semester at Pitt as an international student is in the fall or spring semester, then you are allowed to enroll in summer semesters as a part-time student. If your first semester as an international student is a summer semester, however, then you need to be a full-time student in that summer semester. In addition, in summer semesters only, you ALWAYS pay by the credit (there is not one-rate full-time fee in the summer semesters).
This site was created by:
The Office of Student Services
The School of Information Sciences
The University of Pittsburgh
Last update: March 21, 2012
