This guide assumes that you have already received and accepted an offer of admission to York University.

The courses you must take — and where you will take them — will depend in large part on your academic program.

Visit MyFile to confirm:

• Your major subject, Faculty, and campus
• Your degree and curriculum type (for example: B.Sc. Specialized Honours)

If you have received a conditional offer of admission, it means that you still need to fulfill certain requirements before your admission is finalized. These conditions are usually related to providing final transcripts, completing in-progress courses or meeting language proficiency requirements.

Need to know whether any conditions apply to you? You can see the specific conditions in your offer letter: visit MyFile and look on the Communication History screen to find that letter. Be sure to check and meet these conditions to not put your admission status at risk.

If you need help understanding your admission conditions, contact Student Support & Advising.

Some admissions conditions (such as language proficiency requirements) can prevent you from enrolling, so be sure to clear them as soon as possible.

If you have not yet set up your Passport York account and Duo two-factor authentication (2FA), then you should do so before proceeding any further.

Many tools referenced in this guide require a Passport York login.

Before choosing courses, it's important to understand how your degree is structured. Every undergraduate program at York requires you to complete a specific number of credits in designated subject areas and levels. Most Honours programs require 120 credits to graduate. These credits are earned by successfully completing courses over multiple academic sessions. Some programs may have different requirements, so always check your program details. In your first year at York, your advisors will provide you with guidance on which courses to choose.

Going forward, you’ll be referencing the Undergraduate Academic Calendar, which will be your go-to resource for:

• Degree requirements for your program
• Rules and regulations that apply to your Faculty
• Course descriptions and prerequisites

The Undergraduate Academic Calendar is published in May for the upcoming Fall/Winter Session.

There’s also a video series to help you navigate the calendar and understand how it applies to your academic planning.

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Depending on your campus, Faculty, and program, you will follow one of two enrolment paths, either self-led online enrolment or an enrolment appointment, where you will be guided as to what courses you must take. The button below will take you to a page with more details:

Once you have your list of courses to take, this section of our guide will explain how to understand that list. Let's get started!

Every course offered at York has a specific alphanumeric course code and credit value. For example: AP/POLS 1000 6.00.

Each part tells you something important about the course. Try clicking the example below to see what each part means!

The academic year is divided into two "sessions": the Fall/Winter session and the Summer session. The Fall/Winter session begins in September and ends in April. The Summer session begins in May and ends in August.

Within every academic session, every course offering has a course term code that tells you when the course begins and ends.

In the Fall/Winter session, the most common academic term codes are:

• Term F ("fall"): course begins in September and ends in December
• Term W ("winter"): course begins in January and ends in April
• Term Y ("year"): course begins in September and ends in April

Some academic faculties use other term codes that correspond to different course start and end dates. Complete information on academic session and term dates is available on the Registrar's Office website.

Every course has a credit value. Most courses have a credit value of either 3.00 or 6.00. When you successfully complete a course, you earn its credit value toward your degree.

Your course load is your number of registered course credits in a specific academic session or term.

When calculating a term's course load, a 6.00 credit course that runs from September to April counts as 3.00 credits toward your Fall course load and 3.00 credits toward your Winter course load.

Take me to the Course Load Calculator tool

Most first-year students take 24 to 30 credits during the Fall/Winter session: 12 to 15 credits in Fall and 12 to 15 credits in Winter.

When planning your studies, it's important to consider whether full-time or part-time enrolment best suits your current lifestyle and commitments, and specific requirements that may apply to you. Full-time study typically involves a heavier course load and can help you complete your program more quickly, while part-time study offers greater flexibility — ideal if you're balancing work, family, or other responsibilities. Choosing the right path can help you stay on track and reduce stress throughout your academic journey.

Full-Time

The minimum number of credits to be considered a full-time student is 9 credits per term in the Fall/Winter Session (that is, at least 9 credits in the Fall Term and at least 9 credits in the Winter Term).

Part-Time

If you are taking less than 9 credits in either the Fall (F) or the Winter (W) term, you are considered a part-time student for that term.

Important Course Load Considerations

Students in programs at the Keele and Markham campuses

York University offers ESL credit courses for undergraduate students. These courses are open only to students who use English as a second or additional language. They are designed to enhance language proficiency and academic skills necessary for academic success and provide General Education and elective degree credits.

Students who are admitted to an English language proficiency assessment (for example: IELTS, TOEFL, Duolingo) or who have attended an academic English bridging program / ELI (English Language Institute) are encouraged to take these courses and fulfil their General Education and/or elective credit requirements.

Complete a short questionnaire to see your recommended ESL courses

You will then be able to request permission to enrol in courses based on those recommendations.

For more information, contact esl@yorku.ca.

Students in programs at the Glendon campus

If you are a Glendon student, please visit their website for more information.

You can use the York Courses Website to search for courses in a variety of ways, such as by course subject, by course term, or by course title.

Because you will be given a list of courses, we recommend using the Advanced Search function on the York Courses Website. In the Advanced Search, you must select the academic Session, the course Faculty, and the course Subject. You can optionally provide other search criteria to help narrow the results.

When you search for courses, search results will look like this:

When you click on the Course Description and Schedule link for a course, you will go to a detailed description of the course and its offerings in that academic session.

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Course Descriptions look something like this:

That's an example of a real course description.

For practice, let's now look at a fake example that shows all the kinds of information that you might see.

Click the numbered dots to see a pop-up dialog box that explains the content.

Course descriptions and schedules may include information and abbreviations you haven’t seen before. The Timetable Abbreviations page on the Registrar's Office website provides explanations of these terms, and the Interpretation Legend below can help you quickly understand what you’re seeing.

When reading course descriptions, it's important to look out for certain conditions that can affect whether you're eligible to take a course or receive credit for it. These details are usually listed toward the end of each course description and can help you avoid registration issues or taking a course that won't count toward your degree requirements.

The Registration and Enrolment Module (REM) is the online system you'll use to create and edit your course schedule once your enrolment date arrives.

1. Log in to the REM using your Passport York username and password.
2. Choose the upcoming academic session (Fall/Winter).
3. Choose the academic program into which you are enrolling.
   Direct-Entry Concurrent Bachelor of Education (BEd) students will have two academic programs. Select your BEd program to enrol in your BEd courses.
4. Because it is the first time that you have logged into REM, you will be presented with a series of questions to answer. Answer them carefully.
5. Enrol in your Fall/Winter session courses using the instructions below.
6. Plot your timetable and check your schedule for errors or conflicts.

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There are several possible reasons for a block that will prevent you from accessing REM:

1. You have not cleared all of your outstanding admission conditions.
2. Your offer of admission is conditional on receipt of your proof of English language proficiency. When your proof of English language proficiency is received by York's Office of Admissions, your REM block will be removed.
3. You are an international student and you have not yet paid your $2000 non-refundable acceptance deposit. When your deposit is received by the Office of the University Registrar, your REM block will be removed.
4. You are trying to enrol before the enrolment opening date for your academic session.
5. You used an incorrect username or password in the Passport York login screen. For example, you used your email address or student number as the username, or there was a typo in your password.
6. You used a computer program, script, or other service to gain unauthorized access to the REM.
7. The REM is temporarily unavailable.

If none of these explanations seem correct and you are still being blocked, please contact Student Support & Advising for help.

Whether you're adding or dropping a course, switching sections, or exchanging one course for another, the Registration and Enrolment Module (REM) helps you make these changes efficiently and securely. Each transaction type has its own process and implications—especially once the academic session begins—so it’s important to understand how they work before making changes to your enrolment.

After you enrol with REM, use the Plot My Timetable tool to view and print your official schedule. It's essential to use this tool to ensure your course selections don't result in any timetable conflicts. Any clashes will be clearly marked in red text, and it is your responsibility to identify and resolve them promptly.

For courses that run the entirety throughout the Fall/Winter Session (for example: Term Y courses), you have the option to pay at least 50% of your course fees by September 10 and the remainder by January 10.

The Student Financial Services website explains how to make payments to your student account.

For almost all undergraduate academic programs, we use a course-based formula to calculate your tuition fees. In this formula, your fees for an academic term are determined by the number of enrolled course credits you have in that term. For this reason, your tuition amount will not be finalized until you complete your course enrolment.

If you're thinking about dropping a course after the term begins, be sure to check the refund table. It outlines how much of your tuition you can get back depending on the week you drop. This is important because the refund amount decreases each week. If you don’t see the current table, you can always reference last year’s to get a sense of the general timelines, but the specific refund deadline dates are subject to change each year.