Special Permission Instructions

Special Permission Instructions for MISSING PREREQUISITES (see section 1) and COURSES WHICH ARE FULL (see section 2):


1. Instructions for Requesting Special Permission from Instructors Regarding Missing Prerequisites and What To Do Next With That Permission.

a) In order to get the Special Permission for a Main Campus Psychology course that you are requesting (i.e., the waiving of prerequisites, or doing prerequisites concurrently with the course), you need to email the professor of the exact course/section to explain your situation and to request authorization. You must be EXPLICIT in your e-mail regarding exactly which prerequisites you do not have and whether you are asking for them to be waived or you are asking to do prerequisites concurrently with the course. Please include your student number in the e-mail. While it is not mandatory, consider including your Academic Summary in the initial email for the professor to assess/verify your suitability as a candidate for their course. The instructions for this are in the Helpful Links section below. 

b) If in the professor’s reply they grant you permission, then forward the professor’s reply to us at psycouns@uwo.ca. (DO NOT copy and paste the professor’s reply. We must see the original e-mail). Once you have forwarded it, we will respond to you with further instructions. Please be patient as there may be a slight delay due to the volume of requests.

c) Helpful Links:

To look up the professor of the course/section, look in the Timetable (once it is available for the academic period that you want to register in) at the following sites.

- Academic Year Timetable:  https://studentservices.uwo.ca/secure/timetables/mastertt/ttindex.cfm
- Summer Timetable:  https://studentservices.uwo.ca/secure/timetables/SummerTT/ttindex.cfm
- If the instructor is not listed, it is not yet known who will be teaching that course/section. As soon as the professor is known, it will be posted, so please check back regularly. 

To obtain the instructor’s e-mail address, please refer to the Western Directory at: http://www.uwo.ca/westerndir/index-people.html.

For an Academic Summary (unofficial transcript) go to https://student.uwo.ca/psp/heprdweb/?cmd=login
> Academics > Documentation (third column) > Web Academic Report > (Under Report Type choose "Web Academic Report") > click "View Report" button directly to the right. The process may take a few minutes to complete. Please do not press any other buttons or links while the processing is taking place. When the summary appears, you may either copy and paste it into the e-mail to the professor, or save the .pdf and attach it to the e-mail. This takes about 30 seconds to a minute. You may have to click “Allow Pop-up”, and run the report again. The file will come up as .pdf in a separate tab. Click on File > Save Page As > Save as a .pdf file in your hard drive for you to attach in an email to the instructor.

Again, if you’ve obtained the professor’s permission, forward the professor’s reply to psycouns@uwo.ca and we will respond to you with further instructions regarding your next step.

2. Procedures for courses, labs or sections which are full.

There is now a WAIT LIST option for most of our Main Campus Psychology courses.   Please read about this first under the “Wait List a Class” drop-down section at https://www.registrar.uwo.ca/academics/register_in_courses/index.html so that you FULLY understand the limitations on how it works. 

If you have the listed prerequisites (or antirequisites to those listed prereqs), or there are no prerequisites listed, please choose the Wait List option when you try to enroll in the course. If you need further assistance in how to use the Wait List option beyond the information at the above link, please contact the Office of the Registrar's Helpline for assistance.