Sometimes, we just can’t make it to every university class. Maybe you have an appointment, another commitment, or you’ve overslept for a 9am lecture. Or perhaps there’s a more serious issue affecting your attendance—and even other aspects of your studies.
University life comes with many differences from previous forms of education, making it difficult to know what applies and what has changed. While balancing various aspects of student life, understanding attendance is arguably the most important of these to be certain on.
This article will break down everything you need to know about university attendance—whether it’s mandatory, the potential consequences of missing classes, why it matters, and how it can impact your studies as a whole.
Table of Contents
Is university attendance mandatory?
Officially, attendance at university is mandatory. Universities expect you to attend all lectures, seminars and all other timetabled sessions.
If you fail to meet these expectations without approval from your university, there may be consequences. These can include:
- Formal warnings
- Exclusion
However, if you’ve only missed a few lectures here and there, there’s no need to worry. Although absences are discouraged, missing a few is unlikely to have serious consequences. Further down in the article, we’ll discuss the point at which your attendance starts to become a concern.
At university your attendance may be monitored directly, although this isn’t the case for all universities. Attendance monitoring may be done using the following:
- A smart card system
- An online check-in
- A paper register
Learn more about attendance monitoring on this page of the University of Sheffield’s website.
Please note that policies on attendance may be slightly different for the following types of students:
- International students
- Postgraduate students
- Apprentices
- Students on placements
- Online and distant learners
- Students studying abroad
- Exchange students
Learn more about this on this page of the University of Leeds’ website.
What attendance is bad at university?
Going from college to university is a major jump. Even though you gain more freedom than when you were in secondary school, universities still have stricter rules and policies, including those on attendance.
At school or college, a bad attendance is seen as anything below 95%, which ends up being anything over 10 days. Learn more about this by checking out this Think Student article.
At university, attendance policies are generally more lenient. While each university has its own policies, anything below 70% is typically seen as bad attendance.
However, university departments may not take action until your attendance is below 50%. You can learn more about this by checking out this page of the Newcastle University website. For more specific information for your own university, check your student handbook or your university website.
If your course includes a placement—such as nursing, medicine, or dentistry—attendance requirements work slightly differently. This is because you will pretty much be working a full-time job and are required to do a set number of hours.
If you are absent, you will still need to make up this time. However, you may only be allowed to do this up to a certain number of times before your university gets involved. You can learn more on this page of the City University London website.
Does attendance matter for postgraduate students?
As the academic year works differently for postgraduate students, so does attendance. While undergraduates typically enjoy a long summer break between May and September, postgraduate students will instead begin their third semester during this time.
During this semester, postgraduates focus on writing dissertations, completing placements, and engaging in other activities necessary to complete their degree. You can learn more about university semesters in this Think Student article.
Since postgraduates don’t have the summer break that undergraduates do and attend university for about 45 weeks a year, they may be allowed to take holidays during term time. The amount of holiday they can get depends on the university and type of degree they are studying.
For example:
- Taught: Up to 2 weeks.
- Research: Up to 7 weeks.
Have a look at this page on the Newcastle University website for more information.
Attendance is still mandatory, where you have timetabled events. While postgraduate research students don’t have these, it is still a requirement to attend all meetings with your supervisor.
You can learn more about this here on the University of Sussex’s website.
How does attendance work for international students?
For international students on student visas, there are a lot more rules and regulations. These conditions extend to work, travel and even attendance.
You can learn more about them and student visas in this Think Student article.
The exact attendance policy will vary depending on your university and whether you’re studying a degree or a course below degree level:
- Below degree level: International students on courses below degree level are generally required to maintain an attendance rate of 85% or higher. If attendance falls below this, students may receive warnings. Attendance below 70% could result in the revocation of their student visa.
- At degree level: Like other students, you will typically need to maintain an attendance rate above 70%. Although, it will be up to the university to decide what you need to do to prove engagement with your course. Engagement includes attendance, fieldwork and completing assignments. Failure to prove engagement can lead to warnings and potential removal of the student visa.
Learn more about attendance for international student in this guide by King’s College London.
Does university attendance affect your grades?
For the vast majority of university courses, your attendance doesn’t directly affect your grade. However, there may be forms of assessment that rely on you attending your seminars and other classes.
Some examples of in-class assessments may be as follows:
- In-class exams
- Group projects
- Presentations
Certain courses, especially those with placements like nursing, medicine, and dentistry, do require you to complete all the necessary placement hours to graduate. If you’re absent, you will need to make up the missed hours to meet the required placement hours.
Learn more about this by checking out this page of the University of Cumbria’s website.
Even if your attendance isn’t a calculated part of your grade, a poor attendance can still greatly affect your performance. Without going to enough of your lectures and seminars, it will be difficult to know what’s going on in your modules. This will make it hard for you to perform well when assessments do come around.
In fact, research shows that students who attend seminars in-person, are more likely to score an entire grade higher than students who don’t. For the best results, they say that attending the lecture or reviewing it afterwards is the most helpful.
You can learn more about this research in this article by the University of Bath.
Can you get kicked out of university for low attendance?
Initially, poor attendance will lead to formal warnings from your university. After this, if the issue continues, you may need to meet with your personal tutor to discuss why you’re not attending classes.
However, if your attendance is consistently an issue and you have been given several warnings, you may be withdrawn from your studies. This decision wouldn’t be taken lightly and is likely to also mean that there is a low overall engagement from you, with your studies.
While engagement includes attendance, it also includes group work, forms of assessment, such as exams and assignments and presentations. Learn more about the consequences of poor attendance and low engagement at university on this page of the Newcastle University website.
Expulsion may also occur, if you don’t go to any teaching at university for a prolonged period or if you show no engagement. This period may be around a month or more. In this case, your university may assume that you are withdrawing from your studies.
If you continue to ignore warnings, fail to report your absences, or do not contact your university in any way, you be may expelled from your course. Have a look at this page on the University of Leeds’ website to learn more.
For both causes, the exact punishment and time it takes before this happens will depend on your university.
Is university attendance important?
While I would say that it’s a good idea to attend everything on your timetable when you can, how important this ends up being, will depend more on your degree, and your university’s policies.
At my university, all lectures are recorded, so while it’s still a good idea to go to them, the importance is reduced as you have access to them at any time. However, going to all unrecorded sessions, such as seminars can be pretty important, as you may miss important information, or miss out on getting support in completing an assignment.
Personally, as a languages student, it’s really important for me to go to each language class, as it provides lots of speaking and listening practice. Moreover, if you have practicals, fieldwork or some kind of placement within your course, attendance will be essential for progression in your degree.
Plus, having a good attendance at university can also bring a range of benefits, such as:
- Potentially getting better grades.
- Increasing your understanding of the course material.
- Learning from others in your lectures or seminars
- Interacting with new people in sessions.
- Group working and discussions to engage with the course material.
- Gaining a better relationship with your professors.
Learn about more benefits of regularly attending university on this page of the University of Surrey’s website.
Of course, at times, you may find that you can’t make it to university. While it would be best to still try and engage with the content to not fall behind, such as by going through the PowerPoints or watching the session’s recording if available, you won’t always be able to. This is fine as long as it’s not a regular occurrence.
If you have a more serious issue that causes you to take more time off, or have frequent absences, you should still contact your university to see if you can get support. We’ll look at this in greater detail in the following section.
Where can you get support with your university attendance?
If something has come up that will affect your attendance for a significant period, you should report your absence and contact your university. You could either contact your personal tutor or a student adviser, so that your issue is known to your university.
While it will depend on what your university offers, there should be a range of support services available to you. You can ask your tutor about or find them on your university website.
Some of these services include:
- Student wellbeing: Services may include counselling, mental health support, student support advisers and healthcare services.
- Disability and inclusion: Services may include disability officers, advice sessions, adjustments and specialised support for your condition.
- Financial: Services may include advice sessions and information on bursaries that your university offers.
- Academic: Services may include online resources, library support, extensions and exam arrangements.
You can learn more about support services that universities offer on this page of the Nottingham Trent University website.
You may also be able to apply for mitigating circumstances if your absence is due to a situation that could affect your ability to complete an exam or coursework, or if it will impact your performance.
Mitigating circumstances refer to a student’s personal situation that is unexpected and out of their control that has a significant impact on their studies. Some examples include bereavement, significant illness or injury, jury duty, or a natural disaster.
With mitigating circumstances, you may be able to get an extension, to repeat an assignment or exam, or to continue with your degree, even with failed modules.
You should be able to apply for this by completing a form either on your student portal or by downloading it from your university’s website and emailing it to the respective body. Exact details will be on your university’s website.
Learn more about mitigating circumstances in this Think Student article.