The Political Science Department processes course overrides only with the permission of the instructor teaching the course. Instructors grant overrides at their discretion, and as an additional service to our students. Common reasons for requests are overriding enrollment capacity or prerequisites for a particular course.

To initiate an override request, please contact the instructor scheduled to teach the course (emails are usually preferred). If you receive permission, please forward any documents granting permission (such as an email) as well as your name and V-number to poliadvisor@vcu.edu.

We cannot process overrides for courses without assigned instructors. Once a course is assigned an instructor we will process instructor-approved override requests.

New majors are required to schedule formal advising appointments with our office to declare the political science major. Please do not plan to declare the political science major during the add/drop and late registration periods at the beginning of each semester — new major declaration appointments must be scheduled outside of the add/drop and late registration period. 

Students must make a formal advising appointment the semester before they intend to graduate. During this meeting, we will discuss the graduation process and outline coursework needed for graduation. Please schedule this appointment before registration begins.

To apply to graduate, students will need to complete the online graduation check-out and submit a paper application to our office before the deadline. The paper application can be found on the Records and Registration homepage.

Students planning to graduate should anticipate and carefully read graduation application instructions at the beginning of the semester sent to VCU student email accounts.