Brown students can only register for RISD courses after all interested RISD students have registered, and vice versa. For this reason, it's advisable to start the semester with a full course load at Brown and then drop one course once you are fully registered in the RISD course.

Opening the cross-registration form on the first day of classes allows each institution to maintain registration priority for its own students.

You can view all of RISD’s course offerings in the course listings. Use the Academic Level and Academic Period filters to restrict results to only courses offered at the undergraduate level in a particular semester or term. Use the “Section Status” filter to narrow results down to sections with open seats.

Any course specifying in the description that it is open to students in a particular major (for instance, "Open to Senior Printmaking Students" or "Major Requirement | BFA Printmaking") is closed to Brown students. Most elective courses do not have this restriction, so it can be helpful to input the search term “elective.”

Not necessarily. Some RISD courses or instructors require students to complete VISA 100 - Brown’s Visual Arts Studio Foundation course - before cross-registering; others do not. See below for advice on communicating with RISD instructors.
 

It’s a good idea to introduce yourself with your class year and concentration, and to briefly explain why you are interested in taking their course. If you’ve taken VISA 100 or if you have other artistic experience that you feel prepares you to take the course, mention that.

If the instructor agrees to grant permission for you to register, then you will submit the cross-registration form in etrieve on the first day of the term and attend the first class. Provided that space remains available, once all approvals are secured the RISD and Brown Registrar’s Offices will register you for the course.

Because RISD’s spring semester grades are not due until after Brown’s Commencement ceremony, it is unlikely that Brown’s Registrar will receive the grade before the graduation grade deadline. Therefore, if you must complete the course in order to fulfill your 30 course credit requirement to graduate, it is not advisable to take a RISD course in the spring because it would delay your degree conferral. However, if you do not need the course in order to fulfill your degree completion requirements Brown can confer your degree on time and add the RISD course to your transcript retroactively.

During the semester in which you are cross-registered, you will have a RISD student ID and online credentials that will allow you to access the space and materials you’ll need for your coursework.

RISD Wintersession courses end about two weeks after the start of Brown’s spring semester. During that period, expect a higher than usual workload. Because of the intensive schedule for Wintersession courses, there is a high likelihood that your Wintersession course will overlap with one or more of the courses you want to take during Brown’s spring semester. Consider scheduling conflicts carefully when choosing courses for both Wintersession and spring. It’s up to individual professors’ discretion whether they will allow missed class. If there is overlap in class times, you must contact both professors with a plan for navigating it.

Several weeks before the end of the semester, Brown’s Residential Life office will circulate a Spring Departure form. Submit the form indicating that you will depart after the standard dorm closure date because of your cross-registration in a RISD course. Residential Life will apply a charge to your student account for each night you stay beyond the standard dorm closure date. 

RISD courses will appear on your Brown transcript. Although RISD’s grading system is different from Brown’s, the grades will follow Brown’s grading system. Grades for courses taken at RISD are included in Brown’s Latin Honors calculation.

Yes. When you cross-register for the course through RISD’s electronic cross-registration form, you will have the opportunity to select your grade option (Pass/No Credit or Letter Grade/No Credit). If you wish to change your grade option after you submit the form but before Brown’s deadline to change a grade option, email registrar@risd.edu and copy registrar@brown.edu.

In certain cases, Brown concentration advisors will approve RISD courses to count towards concentration requirements.

Yes - all undergraduate students enrolled at Brown are eligible to cross-register.

In rare cases, Brown students are able to cross-register for an Independent Study Project (ISP) with full-time RISD faculty only. ISPs are not available via the cross-registration form; Brown students planning an ISP should email registrar@risd.edu for further instruction. Include in the email the RISD faculty member who has agreed to oversee the ISP.

Summer session is not included in the cross-registration agreement. Brown students registering for summer classes at RISD will pay RISD directly. RISD summer courses are subject to Brown’s transfer credit policies and approval procedures. In effect, students cannot transfer coursework unless they have a credit recovery need, as confirmed by a College academic dean. If transferred to Brown, RISD summer courses count towards the maximum 4 credits of RISD coursework eligible for graduation requirements at Brown. Individual concentrations may honor outside coursework towards concentration requirements without transfer credit at their discretion; consult with the respective departments before enrolling.

For advising, email risd_cross-registration@brown.edu. For questions about registration or transcripting, email registrar@brown.edu or registrar@risd.edu.