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The Nutrition and Health student registered for a minor at another university last spring. Because she had already been through that registration process, she mentally ticked off ‘register’ from her ‘to do’ list. But she forgot that she still had to re-register with Wageningen University. She only found out about that when she received a message in September that her WUR email account was about to expire. She contacted the university immediately but it was unable to help her.
Law
‘The deadline of 1 September is fixed by law, partly because government funding is determined on 1 October,’ says Ingrid Hijman, head of the Student Service Centre (SSC) and in charge of implementing the registration resolution. This rule applied in previous years too but exceptions were sometimes made. Hijman says a decision was taken to enforce the rule more strictly this year. The result is that a few Wageningen students will now have to wait a year, like De Vries. About 10 to 20 students contact the university every year after missing the final deadline for re-registration.
‘The 1 September deadline has always been definitive at other universities — if you register too late, that’s just bad luck. It’s actually rather odd that Wageningen still makes so many exceptions,’ says the Dean of Education Arnold Bregt.
Warning
Naomi de Vries urges all WUR students never to ignore warning emails from the organization, even if you think you have already registered. ‘Always check. Your life is turned upside down if you have to take a compulsory gap year you hadn’t counted on and haven’t saved for. Your friends carry on with their studies. The whole thing made me really ill for two weeks. I want to warn other people so they don’t end up in the same boat.’