Graduate Admission Deferral Information
The California State University Chancellor’s Office has allowed San Jose State University to provide a deferral of graduate admission option to students admitted for graduate study who face personal hardship that precludes them from attending any college or university in the semester they are to initially begin studies. Only one deferral request will be accepted per student for a given admission term. Note that we cannot guarantee that deferral options will be available in future terms.
The available terms for deferral are Fall and Spring. Students deferring from fall can request the subsequest spring or fall term for deferral. Students deferring from spring can request to defer to the subsequent fall term. However, if a department offers their program only in the fall, the susequent fall term will be the default term for deferral. The decision to allow deferral is at the discretion of the program department.
Only one submission per student, per term is allowed. Please check your MySJSU account for an update of your deferral request in 3-4 weeks upon submission.
There are select graduate programs that are NOT able to defer students due to unique needs regarding staffing of their classes and specific curricular requirements to maintain the high quality of instruction. A list of these programs can be found after the FAQ section on this page.
Please review the following information for details about your options. The Deferral Request Form will become available at the bottom of this page during the open period.
Approved deferrals only apply to the original program you were admitted for. Deferral requests and approvals are NOT to be used to gain access into a different program.
Programs NOT Offering Deferral
- All Engineering Special Session Programs
- All Master of Social Work Programs
- Artificial Intelligence (MS)
- Bioinformatics (MS)
- Computer Engineering (MS)
- Computer Science (MS)
- Data Analytics (MS) – Both Regular and Special Session
- Data Science (MS)
- Human Factors/Ergonomics (MS)
- Human Factors/Ergonomics, User Experience (MS)
- Master of Design
- Occupational Therapy, (MS)
- Software Engineering, (MS)
Submitting Your Deferral Request
GAPE will only accept deferral requests during specific periods for each semester. The submission links will be active at the appropriate time.
Spring Semester | Fall Semester |
December 15 - January 15 | July 15 - August 15 |
Submissions Closed | Submissions Closed |
After you submit your request, please allow 3-4 weeks for the decision status to appear in your MySJSU account.