When it applies
Full-time enrollment is an F-1 requirement, but the regulations allow a reduced load for narrow reasons: illness or injury (with a licensed provider's recommendation, renewed each term), initial-term struggles with English or with the US classroom, improper course placement, or a final term needing only a few credits.
Do it before you drop
The authorization has to be entered in your record before your enrollment falls below full time — dropping first and asking later is a status violation. Bring the documentation to the international office as early as you can; medical letters in particular can take time to get right.
In and around Porter Falls
For a campus this size Porter both sends and receives a steady stream of students internationally. The Global Education Office in Founders Union runs the advising, the risk review and the arrival and re-entry programming.
The practical details
Allowed reasons: A documented medical condition, specific academic difficulties in the first term, or being in your final term with fewer credits left. Approve first: A Designated School Official must authorize it in SEVIS before you drop the class. Medical limit: Up to 12 months total across your program, with a provider's letter. Anything time-sensitive — an accommodation, a booking, a deadline — is worth confirming directly before you rely on it, because the specifics here can change from term to term.
If you have a question
The office behind this is Global Education Office (Founders Union, Room 240). Call (715) 555–0220 or email global@uwporterfalls.edu during the fall and spring terms, or sign in to MyPorter to send a message or book a time. If it turns out another office owns the question, they will route it rather than send you back to the start.
Fictional information
UW–Porter Falls is a work of parody. Every office, person, building, phone number and statistic on this page is invented; nothing here describes a real institution or a service you can actually contact.