Apply to graduate — this is a real step
Submitting the graduation application in MyPorter is a separate action from finishing your requirements, and nothing happens automatically without it. Apply two semesters before you intend to finish. The Registrar then runs a formal degree audit, and your adviser and department sign off; if anything is short — a missing elective, a requirement changed catalog years, a substitution that was never formally recorded — this is when it surfaces, while there is still time to fix it. Miss the application deadline and your degree is simply conferred the following term.
There is a modest application fee that covers the diploma, its permanent record, and regalia rental.
Walking vs. finishing
"Walking" at the ceremony and having your degree conferred are not the same thing. Students within a set number of credits of completion — typically one term, often just a summer course or a final internship — may request to participate in the spring ceremony before the degree is final. Your name is in the program, you cross the stage, and the diploma is mailed once the last grade posts and the audit clears. December completers are invited to the following May ceremony; there is one large ceremony a year, plus a separate graduate hooding.
This means the photo and the paperwork can be months apart, and that is normal — employers asking for proof in the gap can get a letter of expected completion from the Registrar.
Ceremony day
Ceremonies are in Ironclad Fieldhouse. Graduates check in and line up 75 minutes early in the fieldhouse annex — regalia on, phone in a pocket, nothing to carry across the stage. A reader takes a phonetic card for your name at check-in so it is said the way you say it. The ceremony runs about two hours: procession, one address, the reading of names and the stage walk, the turning of the tassel, recession. Departments and colleges host their own smaller receptions before or after where the actual goodbyes happen.
Regalia is picked up at the campus store the week before; honors cords, stoles, and international sashes come from the relevant program or office, not the store.
Guests and accessibility
No tickets — guest seating in the fieldhouse is general admission and opens 90 minutes before, with an overflow viewing room and a livestream for anyone who cannot get a seat or cannot travel. Accessible seating with companion spaces, wheelchair loan, assistive listening, ASL interpretation, and CART captioning on the screens are all available; request interpretation and reserved accessible seating at least two weeks ahead through the events office so a specific section can be held.
Parking is free in all campus lots on ceremony day; the Porter Loop runs an expanded route from the perimeter lots straight to the fieldhouse doors.
Questions?
See the full staff & office directory for any phone number or email. Because this is a fictional parody site, addresses and phone numbers are illustrative and do not reach a real university.