Drop a Course After Add/Drop Deadline I am a graduate student working on a double major, one in mathematics and the other in geology. The minimum required workload/semester for a grad student in my school is 9 credit hours/semester.

This semester, I am taking 13 credits hours, the majority of them are math classes. There is no research credit. That said, I still have to work on my research (both in geology and mathematics) independently. I am also a teaching assistant, working on average 9 hours/week.

I found the workload overwhelmed, but only after the deadline to drop courses without being counted as withdrawal (meaning a 'W' in the transcript). The instructor for the math course I want to drop, my advisors, and the maths department head all advised me to drop the course so that I can focus on finishing my thesis in geology by the end of this semester. FYI, there has been no grade/test/exam so far in the course.

My school has a petition form for students to fill out so that they can drop a class after the deadline. I submitted the petition with all the approval signatures from the advisors, course instructor and department head to the office of the registrar. In the petition, I told them the same reasons as above. However, my petition was disapproved by the university registrar. He left a comment:  "I see no basis for drop, but withdrawal".

I am looking for a way to get my petition accepted. I believe my reasons are valid and they shouldn't make it hard for me. I am dropping the course not because I am slacking off or failing the course. In fact, I am already doing extra workload, more than most other graduate students.

Could you please give me some advice about how to convince the university registrar to approve my petition?
Perhaps the only other course is to get the maths professor and maths head of Dept. to petition the university registrar as a "special" case...

But don't hold your hopes up, it is worth a try though.